Troth's latest finally lands on vinyl having first been released digitally a few months earlier, probably to ensure they had something new out in the world around the time of their UK/EU tour. Such is the way of the world. Naturally, the wait has done nothing to diminish the allure of these nine tracks, which double-down on the duo's now customary play of smoke, mirrors and dreamstate wonder, and sculpt it into something approaching their best work yet. I'd not quite made this connection before, but the easy alliance of dub, trip-hop, dreampop and Arthur Russell-like avant-pop feels closely tied to the two most recent Tara Clerkin Trio EPs, both groups driven by a non-virtuoso sense of experimentation. These are not conservatoire musicians, but they can charm a sound out of anything, and it's that sense of unfenced exploration that makes the songs all the more interesting, sometimes a succinct whisper, other times extended into lengthy lunar vistas or purgatorial hymns that make a point of being stuck between stations. Melodies emerge like the vapour from a candle, and are equally hard to take a hold of, halfway ephemeral, the other half lingering on in some hard to place sense memory. It's in that regard that An Unfinished Rose feel very much expressive of the current moment in experimental ambi-pop, the kind that might easily catch a bigger wave were a Copenhagen geo-tag attached to them. in the absence of such a thing, Troth remain somewhat of an implacable secret. Something tells me that's the way they'd prefer it.
FFO: Tara Clerkin Trio, April Magazine, Jabu, Jonnine, Dregs
