Since these two E.P.'s are released by Steal My Oil Records, I thought I'd lump them together in one review. It also speaks to the fact that I hold very little significance for either of these recordings to grant them a very high profile. As a reviewer, I feel inclined to remain as objective as possible. I realise that the musicians work hard on their music (for the most part) and that despite differences in opinion, they should be saluted to some extent for going through the effort of recording their music, which requires, in most cases, a fair amount of time and patience. But as Mark E. Smith said "everybody's got a band", and sometimes you have to think that music is best left to the parlour room, rather than the recorded medium. A case in point would be these E.P.'s by Snippet and Sine Weaver (featuring Husky).

This music sounds like an attempt to be commercially viable. Yet at the same time there is a self conscious effort to maintain hipster credibility. It's hard to define what this is supposed to be. Sine Weaver's Unusual Flower comes off as a sub-Madonna ditty, and it's so effervescent that you've forgotten it as soon as the last note strikes. It's supposedly informed by "indie" and "chill", according to the press release. Ok. I guess it's "chill" because it has no edge. It's "indie", I guess because it's not on a major label. That could be the only reason, because the music doesn't really fit in with the genre that people associate with indie.

The Snippet E.P. is supposedly "folk", "indie" and "chill". It's "folk" in the sense that anything played on an acoustic guitar is called folk nowadays. Otherwise, it's a bouncy and pointless pop song with silly lyrics. There is a little bit more variety to the Snippet release, as it touches base on such well worn genres as trip-hop and funk, the only distinguishing feature being a tinge of a Latin feel. Let me qualify my comments by saying this; This website generally reviews challenging, edgy music. The Steal My Oil label seems to be aiming for an at least somewhat more mainstream audience, one that enjoys mellow, innocuous music. So perhaps the twain do not meet, and somebody more attuned to such things should be left to comment.