When Our Aim Is To Satisfy Red Snapper first met my ears, zonked and chilling at the end of a long college party, I remember being impressed by its very thickness; like a generous salmon steak, it was just dripping with juices natural and unnatural. Finally, someone got it together to play lounge electronica with a live band, I thought. The drummer had some real weight behind him, not to mention the lilt and swank to wear it with pride. The bassist and guitarist were credible musicians; on the whole, the record had a pleasingly large and consuming sound the first time through.
But you cax92t eat the same steak twice, and that goes double when you're dealing with white fish. I learned the hard way when I pilfered a friend's copy of Our Aim Is To Satisfy-- the thickness was there just as I remembered it, but now it seemed slimy, oppressive, even abusive, covered in a thin film of its own aggressive self-impotence. Loop-happier than bottom-of-the-crate trance, but with an itchier sound-byte finger than the dustiest display-doomed house mix, this was no wellspring of musical ideas. Once in a while my head would start to nod, but the sheer repetitiveness lulled me to sleep before I could start tapping my foot. I woke up sweaty and paranoid, feeling violated. Gentleman, this is the kind of music you might get slapped for playing when you have a girl over. Ladies, it constitutes just cause.
This latest self-titled album, on the other hand, is a totally different beast. It has no pretense of inertia, no shot at mediocrity, and in a just world, no chance of being back-ordered by even one pitiful Red Snapper completist. My ancestors have a word for this kind of artifact: dreck. Terseness not being one of my virtues, I see it as a pyramid of candle-thin pins just waiting to be toppled in slow motion by the spit-shined ebony sphere of my naked wit. This disc was made for trashing, readers, and I will do so with gusto, in an attempt to win back the dim sense of self-respect that the previous release has so thoroughly shattered in me. For the sake of concision, a poem inspired by the tracklisting:
*One is pretty messy, two is none too quick;**Three is housy-bouncy, and four is much too slick.**Five goes on forever, six is just dead weight;**Sevex92s name is \x93Odd Man Out\x94 but sucks as much as eight.**Nine is a nice live track, but dox92t listen to ten.*I'd rather die a gruesome death than hear this shit again.
It's hard to say what's so offensive about the new album. In a way it's kind of like the difficulty victims of sexual assault have admitting that it wasx92t their fault-- if the problem was beyond your control, how can you ensure that it doesx92t happen again? There is ultimately nothing to distract you from the fact that these people have succeeded in doing with live instruments what even the most styrofoam DJ cannot: make dance music that appeals entirely to the dark side of the human spirit. I would be surprised if passive manipulation, sexual withdrawal, stony silence and possibly looting dox92t follow in the wake of this album. So if you have any say in the matter, I suggest seeking out a few minutes of old Red Snapper to inoculate you, and then staying the hell away. Just look what it did to me.
