“It’s as mad as a badger, as crazy as an early computer game (anybody remember Jet Set Willy?) and as anti rock and roll as a Liberace outfit, but it’s honestly not as bad as you think it might be. ”
“It’s as mad as a badger, as crazy as an early computer game (anybody remember Jet Set Willy?) and as anti rock and roll as a Liberace outfit, but it’s honestly not as bad as you think it might be. ”
www.myspace.com/snleoparden
Glockenspiel? Check. Recorder? Check. Bunch of infants singing out of time? Check. I know what you’re thinking. School band!!!! Normally this would be the time to locate the nearest emergency exit and invent a story about an aunt dying. Basically, you’ll be trying to come up with anything to get you out of that door as quickly as possible. Only, here’s the thing. Have you ever come home from the pub and watched Sesame Street? It’s good isn’t it. Listening to Snoleoparden is a very similar experience.
This album is hard to review, but that’s why you should check it out. It’s as mad as a badger, as crazy as an early computer game (anybody remember Jet Set Willy?) and as anti rock and roll as a Liberace outfit, but it’s honestly not as bad as you think it might be. Sure it’s avant garde but it’s not pretentious in the slightest and although it will baffle the hell out of you, I can guarantee you’ll want to listen to it all the way through to the end, just to hear what happens next. Once the glockenspiels disappear a few tracks in, you get a track called Water Puppet Theatre, which doesn’t sound very watery but I think the puppet may have been mangled up in some kind of machine. Snabel e sounds like it was recorded on the inside of a drum. Den erige brings the plinky plonky instruments back, only this time I think they actually are underwater. Lillecykel is the sound of a horde of ants making off with a delicious flan. Dreng is a traditional song, apparently, and features more infant singing, this time from the fabulously monikered Pakistani Busker Boy and is worth the price of admission alone, even if it only lasts a minute and a half. Trance is seven and a half minutes of smoke signals, a tambourine and the sound of a distant wolf that’s just lost its cub. UFO may just be beautiful and spacey enough to make you hallucinate and, then, after half a minute of silence you finally you get Grieg, which has more bells and whistles than Amsterdam in rush hour.
It’s hard to say what Snoleoparden have done here, but if you like your weird shit or are looking to play something that will drive your mainstream loving friends up the wall, then this is the album for you. It’s as bonkers as an episode of Willo The Wisp and as utterly enchanting as an episode of Playaway with Brian Cant (If you don’t know who that is, look him up). If there’s a child left in you, it’ll want to spend some time with Snoleoparden. At the end of the day, if this doesn’t put you in a good mood, nothing will.
Words: Damian Leslie