Album Review: Snakepiss- Toil EP

America—you’ve finally found your Burial.

Ok. So that’s a little bit of a “click baiting” opening line there, and maybe it’s not 100% true, but that’s exactly what Detroit producer Snakepiss is going for.

Yeah, that’s right. This dude’s name is Snakepiss.

Full disclosure—a representative from Chambray Records reached out to me via Twitter to ask if I would take a listen to this Snakepiss EP, Toil. And honestly, when people contact me directly about doing a review, I’m usually a little “Seinfeld No Thanks.gif” when it comes time for me to sit down and listen to what I’ve been sent.

But this—for real though B? This is pretty good.

Maybe the comparison to Burial is premeditated, since it mentions Burial by name, along with J Dilla (amongst others) in the press material for Snakepiss. Toil takes 2006-era Burial dubstep, some slight trip-hop leanings, hip-hop beats, along with a good amount of incredibly dark and claustrophobic atmospherics; with that formula, Snakepiss creates something all together original and intereting to listen to.

The press material w/r/t Snakepiss and Toil are rather well written, so they are worth repeating here—

…His songs, constructed at night on bargain bin headphones, are breeding grounds for found noise, creeping beats and imaginary horror soundtracks, reflecting the neglected environment of a working class city.

…Toil is about: the recycling of culture; working long hours for little pay; using barely-functioning, secondhand equipment; and creating what you can with diminishing resources.

 As dilapidated as this all sounds, Toil is far from lo-fi in the overall aesthetic of the EP. It opens with its strongest, and possibly murkiest track, “Unvisible.” Structured around a disjointed piano loop, quickly paced beats slowly file in before the aforementioned “found noise” eventually takes over.

The overall impending sense of dread continues on the title track as Snakepiss blends in a pattern of classic drums machine sounds with a somewhat abrasive blast of alternating tones.

Toil ends with an interesting 11-minute piece—aptly titled “Snakes.” I would stop short of saying that it is similar to latter day Burial, in the sense that it’s a lengthy piece with very distinct movements. “Snakes” opens with absolute cacophony—distended, gloomy sounds eventually make way for sequences of ringing bells. That all then transitions (somewhat jarringly) into an actually “song” past the 4-minute mark. Drum beats kick in, and all the disjointed sounds begin to sort themselves out into something discernable. But wait! There’s more! Some spooky sounding voices, scuzzy synths, arrive within the second half, carrying it out until things slow down slightly towards the end.

So here’s the deal with Snakepiss—I really admire the dedication to the idea; meaning, the whole idea behind the artist himself as well as Toil’s working class, broken down and “diminished” feeling. Because of the Burial comparisons and name-drops, and because of the mythology surrounding Burial’s own near-anonymity—a small part of me feels a little like the concept with Toil isn’t so much derivative, but maybe a little on the precious side.

You really can’t fault a guy for that though—everyone loves a compelling back-story, and whoever Snakepiss is, he’s turning out some really unique music. Toil isn’t the kind of release that is for everybody, but it’s a thought-provoking listen, and Snakepiss is certainly a new artist that has caught my attention.

Toil is available now on vinyl, as a digital download, via Chambray.