Troika

For several years the West Coast-based ensemble Troika has blended textures generated by synthesizers with ambient vocals, releasing its debut album Goddess on the Narada label in 1996. Composer David Arkenstone contributed to that album and the releases that followed over the ensuing years, each of which wove strands of world music into the understated pulses of new age. Dream Palace, which appeared the next year, gave greater prominence to vocals, while Faeries, released in 1999, drew from an expanded range of cultural sources to define its singular sound. Their fourth album, Shaman, arrived in 2000 and once again incorporated the work of Arkenstone, as the earlier projects had done.