new album CELESTIAL RESPECT pre-order NOW. $12 postpaid.
TRAX:
1. SOLAR RiSER
2. CELESTiAL
3. SPACE HEATER
4. STAR DRiVER
5. SiLK BREEZE
6. GTR GODZ
7. BURNT COOKiES
8. RESPECTER
9. USER SYSTEM
10. FALLEN DOWN
11. FEELS RiGHT
12. SUNBURST FiNiSH
13. EXTRA CELESTiAL
14. DEATH GETS iN THE WAY
retrospective double CD "PeTaL MeTaL" avail from Powertool or ORDER HERE.
Write for details. You can also download Snail music on TheOrchard.com -- rare tracks and album tracks & more, more, more -- and now here's some videos.
"I PRAiSE YOU"
"
Scenescape" video
NEUMUSIC review Jan 30, 2006
Azalia Snail has been making her uniquely sweet, viscous, noise-inflected, tempo-bending psychedelia for almost two decades, recording a dozen or so albums between 1990 and 2001 on labels including Funky Mushroom and Dark Beloved Cloud. Now after a five-year break, she's back with a disc on Silver Lake's experimental True Classical Records, a dense haze of swooning vocals and seething synths cut by abrasive swaths of indie guitar mayhem. The music has its share of discordant moments and harsh textures, but somehow these are enveloped in a softening sheen; as Snail sings in the opening track, it is "Heavy mental/ Honeysuckle gentle."
The sounds incorporated into Snail's slow-moving, trippy meditations include both traditional and unusual rock-band instruments. Snail accompanies herself on guitar, keyboards and percussion. She is backed primarily by Gary Ramon (once of the British psyche band Sun Dial), who punctuates her mind-warping soundscapes with bass and drums. Brian Cassels and Peter Wulff add trumpet and sax to a number of the cuts, while Tanya Haden (most likely Petra Haden's sister) plays cello on "Disintegration." The trumpet melody that emerges from tangled guitars and buzzing sax on "Casuarina Trees," along with "Mint Stallion," one of two pure instrumentals, is mesmerizing, pure and dreamlike.
The songs with words are necessarily more like pop, though pop of a loosely-structured and free-spirited sort. Snail's words are elliptical and elusive, hinting at mind states rather than telling stories. "Alcazar," one of the disc's best cuts, seems to be about the limits of materialism, while "Scenescape" extols the virtues of being oneself. There's a lilt and distortion to the music that enlivens these well-worn topics and makes them seem fresh and relevant.
The disc's longest track, "Distintegration," is also a highlight, combining in one mind-changing interval all the things that make Azalia Snail so interesting. The song opens with a slow, percolating electro beat, then weaves in long slow tones of trumpet and saxophone, sometimes together, sometimes in tonal conflict. Snail's ethereal voice drifts in after about a minute, with abstract, koan-like verses. Snail has, at least in the past, used psychedelic drugs to hone her artistic vision, and these words seem to come from an alternate, non-linear reality: "A dent takes its shape, is reversed, then erased/ Developing a sheen like seashells disgraced/ Dissolve and distill till nothing's left/ Little to lose when you consider your theft." The whole thing coalesces into waves of shifting sensation, a miasma of sound shot through with sudden piercing shafts of light.
The final, uncredited track is a cover of Donna Summer's "I Feel Love," tripped-out, drum-machine-embellished and wrapped in reverbed haze. Snail finds unexpected mystery in this disco-era song, slowing it down and turning it into a minimalist chant. It's not entirely successful, and certainly not as interesting as her originals, but it does make you consider the song in a new light.
There's a hypnotic quality to these songs, a smooth surface that rests on layers of voice, keyboard tones, brass and saxophones. It is hard to hear the components of any given song as they move in and out of focus, yet they combine in a lithe and nuanced whole.
Avant-garde pop songstress Azalia Snail began making her music in Greenwich Village, NYC, quickly gaining recognition as a pioneering force in the underground "lo-fi" movement of the early 1990's.
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Inspiration from the ambient stylings of early Brian Eno and the glitter rock of T. Rex and Mott the Hoople plus a deep affection for such literary luminaries as Anne Sexton, Anais Nin, Henry Miller, the French surrealists and a fascination with brilliant filmmakers like Luis Bunuel gives her music a deeply realized dreamscape sound.
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Albertine signed her and immediately debuted her 1st single and full-length "Snailbait"in 1990 followed by 3 albums on F.Mushroom label: "Burnt Sienna'"(1992), "Fumarole Rising"(1993) and the collaboration with Susanne Lewis as Hail/Snail called "How to Live With a Tiger." (1994). Dark Beloved Cloud launched their label in 1992 with an Azalia Snail/Sebadoh split single.
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In 1995, European label Normal released "Blue Danube " Next came the critically-acclaimed "Deep Motif" on Candy Floss. A Sub Pop single followed soon after. in 1998, the mostly instrumental "Breaker Mortar"was released, establishing Azalia as somewhat of a female Brian Eno. The London recording "Soft Bloom" (DBC, 1999) continued in that tradition while in 2001 "Brazen Arrows"(DBC) breaks more new ground with a mostly keyboard -driven sound. 2006 brings new release AVEC AMOUR on the True Classical CDs label.*********
She has scored movie soundtracks, television shows, and commercials, including the award-winning MTV show "Ain't Nuthin' But a She Thing" in 1996 and several indie films such as "Inside Her Minds" and "The Stranger". Touring consistently throughout the USA and Europe with LOW, THE GRIFTERS, SPORTSGUITAR, ILLYAH KURYAHKIN, she has jammed with many of her musical peers: THE BLACK HEART PROCESSION, TRUMANS WATER, SUPREME DICKS, and BECK. She recently showed her videos "Honeysuckle"
and "Sylvan Echoes" at the presigious National Film Board of Canada for the NXNE fest.
She moved to California in 2000, and won that year's LA Weekly Music Award for Best New Genre, reiterating once again that noone else sounds quite like Ms. Snail.
---DISCOGRAPHY---
1. Snailbait (Albertine Records, '91)
2. Burnt Sienna (Funky Mushroom, '93)
3. Fumarole Rising (Funky Mushroom, '94)
5. Blue Danube (Normal [German], '95)
6. Deep Motif (Candy Floss, '96)
7. Escape Maker (Garden of Delights '97)
8. Breaker Mortar (Dark Beloved Cloud, '98)
9. Soft Bloom (Dark Beloved Cloud, '99)
10. Brazen Arrows (Dark Belov. Cloud, '01)
11. Avec Amour (ltd ed copy)
12. (as Volume) Stampone (Choke, '95)
13. (as Hail/Snail) How to Live w/ a Tiger (Funky Mushroom, '98)
14. (as Staff Party) (Detector, '00)
15. Avec Amour (True Classical CDs '06)
16. PeTaL MeTaL (retrospective) (Powertool 2008)
Various singles and EP's available, including a Sub Pop single and split 7 inch w/ Sebadoh.
