Red Snapper, Key Album Review
Red Snapper are a hidden gem fuelled with much variety, contrast and originality; one definitely worth discovering. Their latest offering, Key, opens with 'In Your Backs', smooth saxophone and clean guitar gesture over a ground of double bass, drums and electronics, complete with vocoder vocals. Red Snapper's blend instantly sounds like a more menacing version of The Cinematic Orchestra; the same prog-meets-jazz-meets-electronica vein, but with a much heavier beat and strut, in fact, the beat frequently breaks into double time nodding almost towards the fast and furious pace of drum and bass. 'Chimee', on the other hand, opens with arpeggiated toy piano sounds twinkling above the contrasting foreboding growl of bowed double bass; the track gradually picks up pace before trip hop-esque beats kick in and the bass drops into a funky plucked riff. Emphasising a musical blend that's very much about interlocking layers, 'Chimee' sounds a higher bowed lower string instrument over a mass of interlocking beats and grooves that are later joined by melodic clarinet motives. There is no doubt that Red Snapper's blend is the kind of music that would undoubtedly offer an entrancing live performance with lots of contrasting timbers interjecting and gesturing between one and other but also holding together as a whole. 'Biffa Bacon' features whispered female vocals a la Portishead, then funky bass and sax licks kick into the blend, sounding a fantastic jazz/dance/trip-hop fusion to lose yourself in; toe tapping, funky grooving and, at times, downright dirty.
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