Azalia Snail - The Queen of Post-Hippy

A Maryland native, singer, songwriter, composer tout-court, manipulator of sound, Azalia Snail is one of the key figures of 90s rock. However hidden and unassuming, her collections of songs are astonishing agglomerations with an entirely disembodied nature. Snail manages to hide and refract her songwriting and her performance, always crystalline, within heaps of effects, oscillations and reverb, and then transfigure everything at once. Something similar was done in the most advanced folk-rock, from the Incredible String Band onward, but never with such shattering results. Her aim seems to be the pursuit of a higher state of consciousness, pursued however with the candor of a child, but - above all - the body of her records stands as one of the high points of post-hippy civilization, now caught between technological alienation and the desire for a new, if less explicit, extra-sensory escape, and a great impetus for the whole new psych-folk movement yet to come.

Snail begins her career in a playful and almost accidental way, inserting herself into the demented street improvisations of Fly Ashtray, around the Bronx. This free spirit will push her toward her first tape recordings, impossible tracks built on noise and pulses of extremely low quality, pure guitar-string thrumming or crude radio-electric deformations of frequencies. These early tapes are collected on Teenage Bedroom Tapes 1987-1991 (1992).

Above all, in the meantime Snail made a name for herself with her debut album Snailbait (1990), a genuinely astonishing record. In effect, Snail transfigures country and blues wholesale, and obviously folk too: the harmonic consequences, sometimes disastrous, sometimes dramatic, sometimes comic, flow with great naturalness from a process of free reinterpretation and even freer studio editing. The overall approach is thus more childlike than scholarly, and certainly fairly removed from pure avant-garde, at least in intent.

“Azalia Bloom #16” is, in every sense, her manifesto: Snail flaunts a fragment of sick, spacey melody, layering reverb-soaked chimes over sweet flute howls and pastoral dissonances of magical slide guitar. She follows it with her singing, and a feeling as dazed yet heartfelt as Syd Barrett's on "Your Loss For My Gain". Her voice is even angelic and unfurled on "Anywhere Is Here" and "If I Had It All", though oddly it struggles to rise above the transcendental strumming of her guitar, the jungle percussion and the mazes of electronic echo. Some tracks seem like extreme fulfillments of Brian Eno's "oblique" techniques, hurled however into a fog of hallucinogenic noise that acts, in turn, as both rhythm and orchestration outright: "Another Slave Labour Day", and especially the galactic flamenco with its soaring cry on "Flight #520", heightened by metallic percussion (gong and glittering jingles), and the strumming set ringing through the ether on "Hiss & Crackle", later shattered by an atrocious, cacophonous industrial outburst, are among her most evocative moments.

If the very short "Baby Brother" and "Loveless Land" recall her recent pseudo-punk past with a touch of glibness, a deeper scar comes with the wall of highly acidic chords ringing out in the enchanted putrescence of "Driftless". The 23 minutes of "So Much More To Go" - not included on the first edition of the album - are less a suite than an album within the album, a miniature of her own work (also built by recycling material from her early years, including the soundtrack to a Tim Ray experimental short film, "From Inside Her Minds"), a metaphysical summation of herself that definitively hands her over to the history of psychedelic music.

The following year brought the split Sebadoh/Azalia Snail (1991), containing the first version of "St Nowhere".

This little masterpiece, in the form of a syncopated nursery rhyme, sustained and finally dispatched by a free acid-guitar jam (the peak of agitation standing in for the chorus), is thus the banner of her second album, Burnt Sienna (1992). Compared to the first record, this is a less personal, less exhausting affair, one that also benefits from the many important friendships Azalia forged during her formative period (Daniel Oxemberg of the Supreme Dicks turns up, for instance). As is becoming customary, "Keep Me Warmer", "They Are Like The Sea" and "Worldwind Series" draw on Bay Area folk-rock only to take it apart piece by piece (zombie-like, watery vocals, out-of-sync dissonant chords, tempo shifts and interruptions). "The Amulet" sounds almost impossibly dematerialized, held together only by its own reflections. "C/O '66", "Hard To Say" and the instrumental serenade (vaguely horror-noir) of "Hit By A Car" instead come close to refounding the genre, with a shyness and an awkward attitude in instrumentation and production that lend them an unheard-of candor of dreamy emotion. "Chinese Horse Torture", the album's most extreme visionary peak, is a subhuman pastiche of supersonic guitar and mixed cacophonies that would delight Mayo Thompson, but as tracks like "Farther Away" prove, amid rumblings and languors in which her proud little voice gets lost, Snail was also cementing a flawless catalog of handcrafted songs.

The collaborative and uneven How To Live With A Tiger (1993) was made with Bob Drake and Susanne Lewis's Hail, under the name Hail Snail. The more personal creations closely follow the previous album: "Savannah" and "Whirly-Bird" almost completely bury the singing beneath a dissonant curtain of guitar, electronics and horns, and among the others (including the Mussorgsky-esque macabre march of "Dust Gather On Me") at least "Retribution" is a violent foxcore number ennobled by the hallucinogenic effects of her guitar, pushed to the brink of absolute chaos.

Unsatisfying as it may be, this record has the merit of adding new words to her lysergic vocabulary. Fumarole Rising (1994) thus brings in trumpet (Gary Olson), accordion, drums and distortion (plus Lewis's own backing vocals): only the paradisiacal detunings of "Sour Cherry" and the closing "Fumarole" come directly from her recent past. "Into Your World" is thus her idea of an anthem, thundered out with plenty of highs and hallucinations, while drums and polyphonies make "You Belong To You" a new vessel of classic acid-rock. "Cast Away" and "Misfortunately" are Caribbean oases built on unreal la-la-las, radio recordings or shrill scars, while "Please Don't Come" comes from a galaxy so remote that almost nothing arrives but crackling radio waves and sharp mumbles, before sinking into thunderous heaps of radiation.

The electrification of her guitar, more generally, serves her to adorn and elaborate her sonic space, but also to intensify it. The overdubbed "toccata" of "Hidden Addendum" and the strummed fantasia of "Cuckoo Clock" act, respectively, as launchpad and landing strip for "Having An Experience". The absolute sound of Robert Wyatt's "Rock Bottom" sent into orbit among black holes grinding up stars, immense tongues of quasar fire, choral roars of toxic aliens. And while "The Deep Feel Need" spins Tuareg desert and Arctic, Vangelis and Santana together in a centrifuge, the nursery rhyme of "Dilemna Nation" is literally crushed in a chorus of streaking specters and ghosts.

This period is also punctuated by no less experimental singles: "Savannah" (1994), already featured on Tiger, "Highway Sessions" (1994), "Fiery Skies" (1994).

The two sibling albums Blue Danube (1995) and Escape Maker (1995) - the former released on a German label, the latter only on vinyl for the British market - share a few tracks and generally carry an introverted, darkened mood. "Fetter Intrigue", the high-pitched screams of "King Of Everything", "Blue Danube", the trance-like glockenspiel of "Persuasion", "Vitriolic Feeling" (a misleading title), "Slow Propulsion", "Briefly", the spectral "Hit Of Day" turn her alien folk ballads into a lament with a certain weariness of spirit. "Unalligned Sky", with chirring insects and fanfares, leans more toward silent stasis than her usual cosmic carnival, but it's offset at least by a "Poison Decree" full of sharp rumbles and raspberries, and the noisy tape-splicing of "Evidence".

1995 is also a year of collaborations: she made Stampone (1995) under the name Volume with Trumans Water, a collection of lysergic improvisations (including the 10 minutes of "Virtuous Caucus"), and the mini-album Too Much Juice (1995) under the name Swiss Bliss with SportsGuitar.

Deep Motif (1996) recaptures the density of Fumarole, but not its ardor or visceral impact. Snail unspools refrains like litanies on the likes of "Aero Sets Me Free", "To Last" (a zombie-choir sing-along that may be her only attempt at a radio hit), and the croaking, disjointed, crazed yet also moving "Baby Apricot/Lost Prize" and "Circumspection", then fantasias like "Supposing Song", and even sprawling catalepsies, the standout gem "Highway Devices" (10 minutes of vocal and trumpet echoes, stumbling drums and hallucinated guitars, building to an apotheosis of chaotic mantras).

Less convincing are the elongated songs, an almost pastoral "Headstart", an invocation to the stars that also draws on pop elements and attitude, and in general a clear, crystalline vocal delivery, an instrumental hierarchy befitting a singer-songwriter ("Key Witness", "Stoked Like A Fornace") that betray a transitional creative conflict.

On Breaker Mortar (1997) Snail barely appears as a singer at all, preferring an almost naturalistic approach, markedly slowed in tempo, in a state of disorientation - whether in the one sung-along moment ("Servant Of Smoke/Consult The Map"), or when she lets the farfisa murmur quietly amid low-fidelity din ("Savara Veneto"), or when she horribly scars and deforms her guitar strings ("Gilt Vatrine" and its toy-like continuation, "Storm Corff").

The heart of the record focuses on interludes, pleasant tracks and little sketches that, however, also expose a somewhat limited instrumental imagination. It fares better toward the end: "Having An Experiment", a sort of answer and appendix to "Having An Experience" from Fumarole, is a far bolder improvisation of squawks, reverb and sound effects spun into the void, the 8 minutes of "Taking Over" give themselves over to a vocal that makes Hendrix and Albinoni sound transcendent, and the four parts of "Snail-Made Man" form a cubist self-remix of "Flight #520" from years before.

The 41-minute, two-part suite “Cooling System”, included on Cooling System (1998), is the true turning point of this period. There are several heresies here, both in the chosen (electronic) timbres and above all in the largely anarchic structure. Her trademark guitar sound can only be heard at the beginning — a placid opening with backgammon dice and tambourine that also recalls Pink Floyd's “Astronomy Domine” — but it's soon interrupted by a dazed fanfare of keyboards and tin whistle, then lunar funk with pounding drums, stray trumpet echoes and witches' screams, while Snail delivers a Brecht-like rap. The keyboards push forward in a techno-rock direction, but the little organs derail it towards slapstick-film soundtrack territory: everything collapses into the chaos of early Grateful Dead, and into a comic, church-choir finale. The second part is more traditional, closer to her known style, and fragmented into segments juxtaposed in the manner of “So Much More To Go”, but here too the fantastical spirit prevails, with no shortage of brilliant moments (for instance, resonances that cry out like little creatures within a chamber-concert atmosphere). There's no doubt, in any case, that this ranks among her most unreal and all-encompassing works.

After a distracted Soft Bloom (1999), split between leftovers from its predecessor (“Alien Ease”, “A Low Cost Move”), instrumental numbers (the hiccups and flourishes of “Purr In A Gyre”, the exotic gallop of “Morrow Bay”) and minor songs (“Layton Hollow”, “Broken Toy”, “It Grows On You”), Snail recorded the colossal Brazen Arrows (2001), played almost exclusively on electronic keyboards. You could call it her mature work, and it's certainly the cornerstone of the second half of her career. There's a newfound awareness of her own means and techniques at play here. Her songs are now slow-motion vortices that keep coiling in on themselves, accompanied, at best, by a background rattle of drum machine and scattered percussion.

The extended “Let Me Enslave You”, a prayer rising out of vital breaths, heartbeats and pulses, liturgical and symphonic moods, and “Making It”, an extremely slow psalm flooded with deformed, refracted, hyper-expanded vocals, both return close to the transcendence of Robert Wyatt, albeit in fundamentally melodic and arcadian settings. What's more, the dissociated “The Sain't Ain't/Gilder Carousel” (13 minutes) sounds like an extreme degeneration of progressive rock, stretched out to the point of hallucinatory stasis. Middle Eastern folk hints adorn the fresco of “If He Wins”, while the tinkling and all-echo vocals of “Fall All The Way” and “Arraignment” become a lysergic depiction of a cathedral's swirling arches, yet the very same wonder is also achieved through hushed, diaphanous melodies like “Usher My Presume”, barely rippled by distortion. More of a tightrope walker over the void than ever before, the author once again rediscovers her magical inner world with renewed candor. A wind of motionless contemplation blows over everything, transforming Snail from an amused entertainer into a composed witness.

After five years, Avec Amour (2006) regresses, more trivially, into backward-looking pop. “Honeysuckle” and “Sylvan Echoes”, garage tracks with mellotron, “Alcazar”, “Luxury Rd”, “Scenescape”, with their shameless use of piano-bar fanfares, aren't just simplistic – they don't even land on a decent melody. The arrangement is terribly crude and bare, and it fails to redeem even the longer trance-like tracks (“I Praise You”, “Disintegration”). The one winner here is perhaps the instrumental, exotica-meets-Hendrix flight of fancy “Late For The Life”.

The only (double) anthology of her career is Petal Metal (2008).

In the meantime, Snail meets her future husband Daniel West, a fellow Los Angeles psychedelic guitarist, who came up through the ranks of Aguafantastica (“Conglomerationation”, 1999, “Empty V”, 2000, “Quasar Flashing Dawn”, 2003) and then Sidewalk Society (“Sidewalk Society”, 2008, “Sidewalk Society Ep”, 2010, “Venus Saturn & The Crescent Moon”, 2012), before going solo with “Hot Corners” (2013) and “Does It Suit You?” (2014).

West picks up the electric bass on Celestial Respect (2011), after another five-year gap since its predecessor. It's a slow, aged record, almost dance-hall in feel, wrapped up in an easy cosmic concept and interspersed with short ambient interludes (perhaps the most interesting part), which tries in vain to replicate the hypnotic pull of Brazen (“Solar Riser”, the fake live take of “Rescue Toy”, “LoveyDove”, “Space Heater”, a “Burnt Cookies” with the usual trumpet racket): only when the singing emerges hymn-like and bare, as on “User System” and the baroque “Death Gets In The Way”, does any real pathos come through.

With West, Snail then launches a more substantial collaboration in the project LoveyDove, its name borrowed from the eponymous track on Celestial, which begins with the mini-album Backward Bully (2013) and takes off with the debut LoveyDove (2014). Now more at peace, the artist delivers the first explicitly melodic and fully linear album of her career. That doesn't mean triviality or decline. If anything, Snail here more easily rediscovers her neo-hippie past in songs steeped in the kind of orchestral magic the genre demands; at times this magic is downright overabundant, so over-the-top that it somehow ends up sounding “iconic”. The approach, hardly a new one, reaches a higher level of craft on “Sweet Ride”, “Soft Sun” and the Liz Phair-esque mini-musical Soul Gem. An almost religious shading appears in the slowcore duet “Deep Down Inc.”, “Hot Lap”, the sparkling rhyming nursery-rhyme of “Founder”, “Satisfy”, the pop madrigal “Come Along”. It's a compromise, but one carried out with admirable craft in service of sheer enjoyment: bursting, tightly-knit vocal harmonies, full arrangements embellished with an unexpected melodic touch, a breeze of (non-lethal) chaos blowing through the song format, with operetta and theatricality tucked into its folds. The backward-looking quality that has always been the artist's favored means of expression here becomes its seal of approval.

ShowStopper (2015), preceded by the single “Luka Fisher/Beppe Of Italy” (2014), is the pallid follow-up. “Bernie's Air” (2015) is an off-the-cuff protest song. LoveyDove also write a mini-album for an extreme incarnation of King Missile fronted by veteran John S. Hall, This Fuckin' Guy (2015).

The collaboration between the two continues as Snail Meets West, with the eponymous Snail Meets West (2016), effectively a tribute to Ornette Coleman.

Neon Resistance (2018) thus marks the peak of her pop-tempered do-it-yourself approach, by now entirely detached from her original cosmic-psychedelic inspiration. Ever excellent at getting a lot out of a little, Azalia Snail crafts the best-designed and most accessible record of her later period, starting with the West Coast anthem “Celeste” and then “Weekend Back”, though the heart of the record lies in highly propulsive rhythms that redeem the slackness of the previous two albums: “Save This Place”, “Field Rep”, “Made Out Of Honey”, alongside a soaring vocal performance like “Ode To Vega” and even a few touching moments (“I Am The Night Sky”, “The Wild One Forever”, a cover made in memory of Tom Petty).

The Snail-West duo turns their collaboration with Hall into an actual nom de guerre, You Me And This Fuckin' Guy, expanding the earlier mini-album into Garden Variety Fuckers (2020), a record of spoken-word performances over crude electronic backing tracks (though still with Snail's usual fine vocal contribution).

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