Lourdes Rebels — Snuff Safari
Blocky, basic breakbeats are sequenced from white-washed tape-recorder fidelity samples. Fuzz-laden keyboard pads, often too rigid to have been played by a human, contribute simple atmospheric ostinati that could be the music to the 'temple' level of an old Atari game. Lovely shimmering surf and blues inflected guitar licks are buried just a little too far beneath the cacophanous beats. With the quality of their reverb, they attempt to conjure the cheap yet charming fidelity of Jamaican recordings from the 70's.
This album takes advantage of none of the technology advancements made by electronics in the last 25 years; there are many similar bedroom records from the 80's and 90's. The artist seems to lack the ability to vary the repeating the drum patterns, or to program sequences in which the notes are played with different volumes/dynamics. The mix is essentially in mono, and you know that when a beat begins to loop at the start of a track, it will likely continue unabated and unchanged throughout the piece's running time. This makes for a predictable and sometimes bland listen, but the album's atmosphere is gentle, blissful and tropical, and does draw me in. It makes for good background music, certainly.
The album seems to become more active and openly musical as it goes, with the 4th track "Jungle Ghost" feeling quite like a legitimate song, inspired by the endless groove of Fela Kuti and other 70's musicians. It's based around a nice guitar arpeggio, and a chorused falsetto 'oooh' that returns periodically, on strategic downbeats. A clattering electronic loop is used as the rhythm, delayed into a soothing 'click-clack', like moving along a railroad track.
Some of the more abstract moments are the best; when the the drums cut away, leaving only a screeching high pitched distortion, and an ascending bassy rumble like a racecar engine starting. I also appreciate the crackling, disembodied lion's roar at the start of the title track "Snuff Safari", backed by tribal sounding broken beat drums.
"Netske", the closer, has a thick melody and atmosphere at first, but dissipates into chaos. The drums here are clearly acoustic, but terribly recorded and sounding like tiny 'pings'. An electric bass holds a deep shoegaze chord progression for the first minute or so, but then seems to get lost. The strident keyboard melody that opens the piece similarly seems to lose itself to mistakes after a little while.
This goes to show that the biggest thing holding this album back is its loose, collage-like feel. The songs need more momentum or cohesion, as there's a lot of noodling improvisations carelessly stacked on top of each other, and even when two ideas are played together that clearly relate, the playing is sloppy, the rhythm vague. You would likely have to be a person who truly prefers the imperfections of homemade music to get past this.
In conclusion, Lourdes Rebels' "Snuff Safari" is a mildly pleasing bedroom project, messy in its conception and construction, but brimming with good vibes. I've heard a good number of recent projects with this anonymous cassette tape feel, intended to feel like some kind of vintage recording unearthed from history, the musicians who created it forgotten. It's likely inspired by the likes of Rapoon. If you like lo-fi chillout and dub cassettes, you could check this out, although I've certainly heard better. Particularly, I recommend people investigate the work of Tuluum Shimmering.