The London Snorkelling Team create music they imagine may have happened sometime in the 1950s, perhaps at a cocktail party for experimental scientists with a fascination for cartoons. Their compositions are inspired by the characterful jazz of Raymond Scott, lounge exotica, and the library music used for TV, film and cartoon soundtracks. They have been described as “Very high quality tinkly-bonk” and they have played gigs in Munich, London’s South Bank and the Latitude festival. The LST’s first album, The London Snorkelling Team Audio Recording and Map, was completed in January 2010 and it involved the creation of an imaginary town in which ‘music plays an important part of local life’. The London Institute of ‘Pataphysics (yes ‘Pataphysics… look it up) made the LST their official orchestra in 2008.
The band sometimes work with live overhead projections, theatrical contributions, magicians and even a chemistry professor and I got the impression throughout this performance that despite their musical ingenuity the show was missing something visual. The music sounds like it was written as a film score and the band themselves mention this aspect. They obviously take their music very seriously despite the quirky noises and peculiar titles, such as ‘Satan having been warned assembles his army’ and ‘Power up’. They refer to their music as ‘material’ and it does indeed possess a physical quality. But it can also seem somewhat repetitive and in need of another dimension in order for the idiosyncrasy not to wane.
The stage is set with a diverse range of instruments and electronic paraphernalia. There is a quantity of cables, foot-pedals and gadgets on the floor. Alongside traditional drums, guitar and keyboards is a saxophone-like instrument that looks like it has been assembled by Dr Frankenstein. The trombone is played with a variety of mutes, which are also cunningly used for vocals. The musical pieces are innovative, collaborative constructions, which must have taken hours to rehearse but the players look as if they are hearing them for the first time. They occasionally pass quizzical comments between each other as if they have lost the way in the tune, and at one point they admitted that they had. There was often some doubt as to where one track ended and another began, which makes knowing when to clap a challenge. The only really obvious gaps were filled with delightfully mild comic introductions from the trombone player.
Each musician contributes to something that sounds like a cross between the soundtrack of a video game and an orchestra in outer-space. The tunes often build tension and create menace before turning back to a melodic, almost wistful mood. The array of instrumental and electronic sounds are skilfully blended; there are repeated motifs that flit between the tuneful and the discordant, decaying rhythms overlay floating arpeggios. A classic case of the whole being much greater than the sum of its parts.
The players are Tom Haines (drums, laptop, percussion, field recording), Chris Branch (Moog, Farfisa), Ross Hughes (Baby Bass, baritone saxophone, clarinet, cavaquinho), Pascal Wyse: trombone, voice, field recording. ★★★☆☆ Adrian Mantle 29th May 2016
