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New wave dancefloor instrumentalists Snazzback release stunning second album on new label from Bristol’s cultural instigators, Worm Disco Club. Bristol seven-piece Snazzback bring the sound of reopened dancefloors, of communal release, and of the joyful sound of dancing outside in the sunshine to live music. Their second album ‘In The Place’ overflows with deep grooves and loose, lolloping rhythms that tease and play, sometimes languid and carefree, other times energy spiralling upwards – and taking the listener with them, each and every time. Their music is soaked in great black american dancefloor music, whether that’s the sound we call ‘jazz’ or hip hop. They also bring other flavours – interlocking Afro-Latin rhythms, electronica and hypnotic rock, all marinated in Bristol’s long musical histories.
The album rests on the band’s hypnotic, rolling musicality and inventive bringing-together of sounds, evident in their phenomenal live performances which were honed in legendary city centre busking sessions and locally-famous venue residency. They’re mad tight and heavily dextrous, a band who are tuned intoeach other and into the extended family of their audiences. Tracks like ‘Reading’suggest a smoked-out Ezra Collective or Moses Boyd, whilst ‘Triangle’ brings powerfully scuzzed-out guitar sounds into the mix.
Vocalists join them on a few tracks: Solomon OB, Soss and STANLÆY (on the digital release). Vocalist China Bowls appears four times, including opening track‘Alice’, a sun-blessed deep jam that swoops and dives around the beautifully earth-bound rhythm section and which evokes Little Dragon gone groove-deep,and at the end, on closing track ‘B.S.T’. The track began life as a spin-off from a jam on their debut album ‘Hedge’ which captured their live performances in full glory. Over time, it absorbed gorgeous new harmonies and is a perfect end point for this colour-saturated snapshot of Snazzback’s musical universe.
‘In The Place’ was recorded in their tiny self-built studio. They wrote together, improvising sounds into a sonic scrapbook, with more production, electronics and ambient sounds than their previous live recordings. The album was fed by the band’s deep community connections in the city, but also by the music the players listen to: Portico Quartet, Hendrix, Rip Rig + Panic, Azymuth and iconic sax player Shabaka Hutchings to name just a few. There’s an openness toc ollaboration, experimentation with unconventional sounds, and an exploration of genres outside of an immediately obvious palette.
Tracklist
A1. Alice
A2. Drunq Choirs
A3. Ponder
A4. Reading
B1. The Hub
B2. 3 Kings
B3. Yumyum
B4. Snazzual
B5. BST