Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Schnauser: Protein for Everyone
Schnauser: Protein for Everyone
ByComplete with tricky time signatures, harmonious overtones, unanticipated diversions and McIntosh's blithe pop-rock inflected vocals, the ensemble yields a polytonal range of absorbing compositions that swerve between several rock idioms. With a touch of deception and trickery, the musicians incorporate slamming pulses while melding a sense of antiquity with cutting-edge applications. For example on "The Reason They're Alive," keyboardist Duncan Gammon signals remembrances of Soft Machine keys whiz Mike Ratledge's fuzz-toned Lowry organ implementations amid rolling waves that lock into a straight-four groove, hued with additional innuendos from the 70s Brit Canterbury prog scene. They even toss in a frothy Latin-jazz vamp, garnished by McIntosh's tuneful delivery.
Throughout this irrefutably buoyant program, the artists intersperse zigzagging overlays with guitarist Alan Strawbridge's grungy psycho-rock solos and other penetrating group-centric paradigms. The album's cheery closer "Disposable Outcomes" features a sendoff narrative by Gammon. And when he asks if we (the band) brightened your day, I can only retort with a resounding affirmative, while attempting to contemplate what other insightful surprises are in the offing by this insanely hip outfit.
Track Listing
Grey or Blue; Protein for Everyone; National Grid; The Reason They’re Alive; Split; Buon Natale; Disposable Outcomes.
Personnel
Alan Strawbridge: vocals, salt, electric & acoustic guitars, melodica, sodium nitrate, autoharp, percussion, colour (e120), bass (7); Duncan Gammon: vocals, narration, pork gelatin, gem jumbo organ, Hohner pianet, antioxidant (E302), piano, mandolin, glockenspiel, hydrogenated vegetable oil, synths; Holly McIntosh: vocals, palm oil, emulsifier (E415), glockenspiel, melodica, sodium metabisulphate; Jasper Williams: drums, dehydrated beef, percussion, acidity, regulator (E504), disodium 5’ – ribonucleotides, announcements (7).
Album information
Title: Protein for Everyone | Year Released: 2015 | Record Label: Cherry Red Records