Search - Howie B :: Snatch

After dipping a toe into mainstream electronica forms with 1997's Turn the Dark Off, producing U2's Pop, and mixing Björk, veteran sound stylist Howie B has floated away again into the familiar, primordial warmth of Eno-inspired ambient ooze. The muted, stunted compositions on Snatch--which refers less to sexy and satisfying femaleness than to quick grabs of asexual what not--are largely static, one-cell, single-purpose organisms. They're much too primitive to survive a trip across the dance floor, with the exception of "Anniversary"--but then only the first half of that cut. Clubbing just isn't in these songs' DNA (not that that is necessarily the apex of evolution). Like 1996's Music for Babies, this is a collection of ambient lullabies, though the baby may be having nightmares of shapeless dread. The DJ Shadow-style drum & bass loveliness of "I Can Sing but I Don't Want To" drains through a warbling filter that sounds like something gurgling under the bed. The filmic "She Called Again" seems to reference DJ Muggs's handiwork on Cypress Hill's "How I Could Just Kill a Man." More compelling are the jazz tonic fizzing in "Sniffer Dog," which conjures Coltrane's "My Favorite Things," and the soul-fusion break that lifts "To Kiss You." On repeated listening, one wishes the experiments and one-directional codes exposed here would be grown into an organic, orchestral whole worthy of his work with the Bristol Soul II Soul gang. Maybe next time. --Dean Kuipers