Featuring four remixes from their debut album plus a new track in the form of the title track, the ‘One Long Conundrum’ EP provides a showcase for Snorkel’s brand of spacious strangeness, bookending their ‘Stop Machine’ LP while hinting at what may come next.
‘One Long Conundrum’ is appropriately titled, being a nine-plus minute jazz-based improvisational piece that incorporates elements of Krautrock, dub and vintage electro avant-garde weirdness. It’s pretty spaced out, far out and doodlesome.
The dubby clatter and stun-gun incidentals continue on ‘Wet Tongue’ (here remixed by Sculpture), and consequently, the slick but strange and soulful r ‘n’ b of ‘Dead Skin’ (tweaked by labelmates Crewdson) seems somewhat incongruous in context. The trombone sliding into the mix only adds to the weirdness.
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Juddering beats and crackling synth bass drives the Atari-like ‘Stop Machine’ and sustains momentum for the duration of its 8 minutes, before ‘Loophole’ builds some dense atmospheric drones, bursting into a driving explosion of overdriven bass and weighty percussion, before chilling to the fade.
The overall effect is intriguing, although I’m not convinced the effect would be as strong over the course of an entire album.
Snorkel Online
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