This site was not made by Red Snapper but a fan of them, please realize this before writing any comments and mails.
-theladyboss
Back in 1993, drummer Richard Thair joined double bassist Ali Friend and guitarist David Ayers, sharing a mutual appreciation for breakbeat precision, rockabilly bass and surf-punk guitar. Red Snapper's first vinyl came out in 1994, and is a murky gumbo of dubbed-out jazz and subterranean bass which sounds like nothing else of the time. Two more EPs followed before Warp Records signed them up and re-released the singles on the compilation Reeled and Skinned.
Red Snapper distinguished themselves from the outset by perfoming live, not relying on studio wizardry to reach their audience. During a period when most ..live.. music consisted of artists sweating over a sequencer in a flightcase, here was a group of gifted musicians who took their studio material and bettered it on stage. By processing the raw nature of their instruments, the band invalidate the dichotomy of ..man versus machine...
The debut album Prince Blimey was released in August 1996. Leaping with technical agility, Red Snapper plundered their diverse backgrounds to mash up dub, jazz, punk, rock, hiphop and techno into a dirty brew. The 1998 followup, Making Bones, was in some ways a return to the club-oriented style of the band's origins, with their collaborative approach achieving an epic sound. Rapper MC Det and vocalist Alison David (eventually replaced by Karim Kendra) lent, respectively, dark lyrical dexterity and powerfully emotive melodies. By far their most popular release, it was also the first Red Snapper album to be released in the US, courtesy of Matador.
..Our Aim Is To Satisfy Red Snapper.. is easily their best record to date, with MC Det and Karim Kendra again joining Thair, Friend, and Ayers on a sweaty, film-noir ride that begins like a runway juggernaut and ends with an uneasy struggle for beauty and peace. Feeling that the emphasis on their live excellence was damning them with faint praise, the band set out to make a record with palpable tension and force. With their favorite Charlie Mingus and Public Enemy records as inspiration, Red Snapper succeeded in sloughing off the ..fuck-off jazz.. tag and created something of comparable depth and singularity.
Taken From Matador Records.
