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World Turned Upside Down

Sounding like the result of a bunch of excitable adults locked in Jonny Roadhouse for a week with only catnip and Haribo for sustenance, Trojan Horse’s album World Turned Upside Down is a fidgety and bonkers romp through bizarre musical co-ordinates.

It seems as if every instrument ever to exist appears at some point in tracks like ‘Hyprocrite’s Hymn’, ‘See Me At The Cow Bridge’ and ‘Jurapsyche Park’. From wobbly Korg keyboards, violins and brass to wailing guitars and sounds sampled a gazillion times through a prog-matronic ray gun, it’s all there. The tunes aren’t always vocally driven and if there’s vox present in numbers like ‘Sesame’, it’s either the cutesy pipes of a toddler singing, “Pia-pia-piano!” or a male chorus arranged in a patchwork of overlays making duck noises or screaming, “I can’t see this going anywhere”. In the course of one song you can hop from a smooth synth soundtrack of theremins, comfy drums and spacey keyboards to restless medieval-esque chanting, followed by a wall of jumpy riffs.

‘Scuttle’ opens with a strangely Egyptian sounding melody that shifts into a purposefully tuneless piano and then a bouncy, almost punk number. Of course, this doesn’t stay punky for very long and swerves into an eerie fairground world of husky vocals and shivery harpsichord garnish.

Listening to this album is a real commitment if you’re trying to do anything that requires concentration, or a consistent time signature. Hyper happy fury guaranteed.