| CD REVIEW Red Snapper |
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Band : Red Snapper “Who-yaah!” was the equivalent of the internal exhileration scream I let off when I saw the editor-in-chief pass me this album for review! Yeah, occasionally I get the opportunity to truly bless the fact of being a music journalist...especially when I'm being re-acquainted with bands I loved in the past but which somehow got lost out of sight. I first came across this English band during the mid-'90s thanks to alternative magazine Gonzo Circus's compilation albums...and a little over a year after the 1996 release of the band's debut album Prince Blimey (issued on the Warp label where they were definitely different from the roster's usual output, the album wa a commercial success, moving to #60 in the UK album charts) I was able to purchase that album in a second-hand store...to great personal joy and several hours' worth of enthralled listening sessions. In essence Red Snapper is an instrumental act based out of London and consisting of the core members Ali Friend (double bass), David Ayers (guitar), and Richard Thair (drums), whom are joined by a variety of different musicians and singers for each record. The band was formed in 1993, and released its 3-track self-titled debut 12-inch EP in 1994. That same year would see a further release in the 3-track 12-incher The Swank EP. In 1995 the band released another 12-inch EP (the 3-track Hot Rush) and a compilation CD of all EP's titled Reeled And Skinned (actually the band's debut on Warp the separate EP's were released through the band's own Flaw Recordings). Prior to the release of their official debut full-length, the band released a further series of 12-inch EP's: the 5-track double 12-incher Loopascoopa(featuring one track that would also make the debut album, another studio track, and 3 remix jobs), the 3-track Mooking(with three exclusive tracks), and a 2-tracker by the same title (featuring remixes of 2 songs off the MookingEP). In 1997 RS (alongside Foo Fighters) supported The Prodigy on the latter's UK dates in promotion of their Fat Of The Land album. Prior to the release of their sophomore full-length Making Bones (for which they were joined by Jungle MC Det, Jazz trumpeter Byron Wallen, and singer Alison David), two 3-track 12-inch EPs (Bogeyman and Image Of You, named after the title tracks culled off the full-length) were issued, and after the album came a further 3-track 12-inch titled The Sleepless (featuring two album tracks and only one remix)...all of which happened in 1998. In support of the album the band played with the likes of Massive Attack, Bjork, and The Prodigy, and they also did an appearance on tv show Jules Holland. Prior to the release of the 2000 full-length Our Aim Is To Satisfy, Alison David was replaced by Karim Kendra. The album sprouted 2 more 12-inch EPs [the 3-track Some Kind Of Kink which had two remixes of the title track (original on the album), and an alternate version to another album track...and the 3-track The Rough And The Quick, featuring 3 remixes of the title track, the original of which was also on the album). Red Snapper announced its folding in early 2002 as a reaction to the commercial direction they were pushed into. Later that same year saw the release of compilation CD It's All Good (also released as triple 12-inch, but with 2 tracks missing), followed in 2003 by another compilation (this time with previously unreleased material by the band) entitled simply Red Snapper. That same year saw the release of Redone, a compilation of tracks remixed by the band itself (released, like the eponimous album, through Lo Recordings). In 2004 Flameboy Records (owned by former RS keyboardist Jake Williams) released a 4-track EP by the title RedOne, including 3 tracks off Redone and a previously unreleased RS track. During the split years the core members of RS had separately been working on different projects. Friend has worked with Beth Orton and started his won new band Clayhill; Ayers had been writing music for TV (his work featuring extensively on the series The Tribe), and Thair had collaborated with Jakeone, their band Toob, with Rennie Pilgrim, the TCR Allstars, and Bomb the Bass. RS were asked to perform at the Big Chill festival during Summer 2007 and complied, and were joined on stage by sax, clarinet and melodica player Tom Challenger and sound/ dub sound duty master Darius Kedros. Following the show, they decided to reform before Christmas, and joined by Challenger started writing the songs which would be released on the 2008 album A Pale Blue Dot. It's follow-up has been two years in the writing process, then recorded somewhat weirdly at Thair's house, temporarily transformed into a studio with sofas being upturned to form isolation booths, amplifiers and microphones in bathrooms, bedrooms and kitchen, and a trail of cables linking every room. The mixing was done somewhat more conventionally at the analog set-up of Foel Studios. The album was conceived as a live appearance, starting with the introducing “In Your Backs”, going over to the band's organic mixture of Dub & Jazz, alternating also instrumental tracks (check “Chimee”, “Spikey”, “Take Your Medicine”, the freak-Jazz-dubby “Eye Liner Stab”, the overall calmer “Racing Snake”, the ensuing slightly more excited “Off Balance”, and one of two songs in which you get some “normal” guitar play, “Fat Roller”) with “songs” (occasionally the singing sounds more like a meandering – check that album opener, the even more meandering “Biffa Bacon”) using both male and female lead singers. Quite a few of the tracks include the use of saxophone, and often it's the more exhilarated use of that instrument which brings in some higher excitement in the songs. The guitar is used Dub-way for the most part, and it's “heaviness” is used only in the tracks “Loveboat” (female-”sung”, this is one of my favourites on the album) and instrumental “Fat Roller”. The means to string everything together, is with drums (or rather, percussion), moody bass (evidently, with Dub being the style at hand) and wacky keyboards/ synths. Well, I dó hope I got at least some of you lot wondering what the music of Red Snapper might actually sound like, and I therefore direct you with great pleasure to the band's own website (www.) redsnapperofficial.com, where you'll not only find 2 songs off the new album and mentioned above, but also no less that 8 other RS to enjoy. You'll find RS music strangely mesmerizing, soothing to nerves in general, and highly addictive! Personally, I've decided to complete my RS collection as soon as possible!!! So, evidently this IS a unique contender for the top of the year-lists. Of course, they stand tall in a category all of their own! And yeah...I lóve these guys! 98/100 Tony. |