Troy Von Balthazar Makes Beautiful Music. If you're part of the large, widespread and impossibly loyal group of folks who regard this phrase as just another truth, then you already know. He does make beautiful music. Like a motherfucker.
TVB has fingers and they make the guitars do strange things.quiet pretty things and loud pretty things.its all lilting melodies and laudanum quartertones that may or not be only in your head. . Jesus Christing Fuck the melodies.amazing melodies, how-the-hell-can-he-have-so-many melodies.30-notes-instead-of-just-12 melodies.all the while describing impossibly direct things, private things, things you know intimately well, things that run through your head as she slips off the bed with the sheet wrapped around her, you just looking for that roach and "where is my notebook and my shoes?". Shes asking you to stay but "you dont want to get to know me any better than this, trust me you dont".these are the feelings that are conveyed by TVB with supernatural, uncluttered clarity and perfect imagery over those melodies .what the fuck?
You can't talk about TVB without mentioning Chokebore, so real quick: anyone in the middle nineties who had any sense at all (including Nirvana's Kurt Cobain, who insisted the band open the west coast leg of the In Utero tour) was serious about Chokebore. Brilliant Hawaiian kids whose grinding, chuggy, subtly melodic (and loud) music reflected little of the bright blue surroundings.
Troy Von Balthazar had his first solo record deal in 2004. As Olympic Disk readies his first full-length, they release a four-song promo CD and TVB went on (and fuckin' STAYED on) tour. American 'Rock Magazine of Record' Rolling Stone put the TVB track "Playground" on a widely-distributed compilation CD, alongside the likes of Franz Ferdinand and Elysian Fields. Debut albumTroy Von Balthazar was released by Olympic Disk in 2005. Both the amazing record and Troy's backbreaking work ethic led to labels Green UFOs, (Spain) Sinnbus Records, (Germany, Poland and Austria) BANG! Distribution, (Belgium) Irascible, (Switzerland) and Disques de la Tribu (Canada) to licence and release the album in their respective countries. Countless shows, compilation appearances and radio / webradio in-studios have followed, with TVB demonstrating everything thats right and good about being an indie musician.
In order to have the type of reproachless integrity Troy does, you have to essentially make a choice between music and everything else: family, permanent home, stability, all that. Fans of great music should be thankful that TVB has chosen as he has; we (and indie music period) have benefitted from his decision. TVB is currently in a remote cabin in the French wilderness (seriously) or in some chicks' flat in Berlin, or backstage at a club in the Czech Republic (Czech record company Silver Rocket just released the TVB LP, his first solo vinyl). He may even be on his way to China (Chinese label Wangba Records recently issued TVB's Eight Songs for Chinese Girls album and are planning out his first tour there). Wherever he is, he's probably got his guitar and a typewriter (oh yeah, he's an author, too: his first book, 3 Girls, was just published) and little else. Although 2010 sees Troy embarking on a sold-out Chokebore 'reunion' tour, writing the follow-up to 3 Girls, and the Much awaited release of his second studio album "HOW TO LIVE ON NOTHING".
One time I got kinda jealous, reading an AmRep comp's liner notes about TVB ("the fucker actually has pipes and chops") with a beautiful young Feminist Studies major.she said his voice and words were "sexy" and Troy kept writing the exact shit I was living and expressing it the way I heard perfect music in my head: sick imagery contained in sick lyrics conveyed in a sick delivery over sick music. Hard as stone, smooth like kerosene, everything good about everything sweet, everything good about everything bitter: stomach bile feelings over spun sugar melodies and how the fuck does he keep coming up with this stuff? Wait. Is it actually getting better? Can you improve on "I Block the Sunlight Out"? I mean, he can't get any better than "Heroic Little Sisters", right? Recently copped the Paradise EP, 4 pieces of sublime internal dialogue, each pairing of harmony and imagery better than the next.unreal but true, motherfucker keeps getting better and better, and as the thoughts in my head gain a little maturity (but remain selfish) Troy keeps documenting them, and I keep nodding along, in agreement, in rhythm, and in pure, incredulous wonder. S.H.
Troy Von Balthazar writes beautiful music.at troyvonbalthazar.net
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