Scorch Trio ~ Luggumt
From his apprenticeship
with the late Edward Vesala to Krakatau’s blasted steppes, from the
taut-wire dynamics of Phantom City to the entirely appropriately named Scorch
Trio, Finnish guitarist Raoul Björkenheim's career appears to have been
a gradually inexorable path towards cataclysmic explosion. Luggumt is like
a series of snapshots of the white heart of an inferno and of its ashen aftermath.
Nilssen-Love and Haker-Flaten are perfect companions in in the despoliation:
thrashing and driving their way through anything that dares to stand in their
way. There is a leaden, desperate, sense of transcendence to the trio’s
performance as though they are intent upon grinding everything into dust before
they depart. There’s an exhilarating grandeur to workouts such as Kjøle
Høle and Furskunjt, and a spine-tingling thrill to the ghost-town ambiences
of pieces like Sunnja Vega. The raw otherness of Scorch Trio’s sound
is reflected in those titles.
Colin Buttimer
January 2005