Zoon Van Snook (Alec Snook) was described to me as someone who makes ‘audio mosaics’. This suggests that his music is pieced together with care from a selection of smaller bits. Doesn’t that describe all music? Anyways, I don’t think mosaics describe (Falling From) The Nutty Tree well because it sounds instead like someone took a picture of mosaics and made a photo album. Now that’s about as obtuse as anyone can get, but allow me to explain: Zoon Van Snook takes developed pieces of music, and rather than breaking them apart and reassembling them completely, rearranges them into a sensible product. For example, on the romping “Cuckoo” the same sequence is repeated over and undergoes shifts and changes. This formula is seen in almost all the tracks on (Falling From) The Nutty Tree and creates an interesting theme, almost giving you a sense that the album was synthesized completely by machine following set parameters. That said, there are exceptions such as “The Two Knives (Cuckoo’s Reprise)” which is a nice piano deal, but that in itself seems a bit jarring.
I am reminded of the sounds of Boards of Canada and The Books in this release, which is a good thing even minus the magic the two groups bring.
As usual, the more effort that is put into listening, the more you can gain. There are a lot of interesting things going on, and while ‘interesting’ might not be the goal adjective of an artist, it will have to do. These tracks can seem the same despite their craziness, oddly. - Delusions Of Adequacy |
