I’ve not been best at keeping up with Snack Family, but did rave pretty hard about a couple of EPs a few years ago. However, their front man Andrew Plummer has been keeping busy, not only with Snack Family, but offshoot World Sanguine Report. And then there’s the stripped-back version of World Sanguine Report – WSR REDUX.
The avant-jazz / vaudeville elements of Plummer’s other work are present here, but the arrangements are sparse, largely centred around guitar and bass clarinet, and without a hint of percussion. It’s minimal, downtempo and downbeat in tone, gritty and bruised in feeling. Notes ripple and shake with earthy granularity into the thick air. With such minimalism, there’s no place to hide, meaning that Lost In A Dream is intense, up-close and even more intense in its claustrophobic atmosphere.
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‘Lady Chanson Lane’ is built around bold, resonant low-end notes, the guitar crunching wildly as strains of feedback occasionally break free, while the woodwind thrums and toots in a repetitive cycle. Cacophonous bursts of reverby noise cut through, while Plummer comes on like Nick Cave covering Howlin’ Wolf. I’m not really picking out the lyrics, but am hooked by the wordless ‘how-ow-owwww’ refrain.
Lugubrious, harrowing… these are the positives around ‘Lost In A Dream’, and it’s a set that drags you in and slowly claws at the psyche.
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