Sigmund Snopek III - Virginia Woolf

Found Music

This post cuts across my comments on Fifty Foot Hose and then Secret Oyster, firstly by demonstrating the trajectory of that experimentation I mention with FFH in 1967, Virginia Woolf coming out in 1972, and secondly because I have just rediscovered this in my addictive compilation searchings but also in the way its genuinely adventurous mix of classical, jazz and the operatic act as a precursor for what progressive music would explore and become at its very best, rather than its otherwise bloated pretentiousness.

Although attributed solely to Sigmund Snopek III, this is actually performed with his band The Bloomsbury People, and this much I know by researching here which is better at explaining in more detail. The album has a mix of short and long tracks, opener Prelude a 58 second orchestral tease, second El Ciudad 8 minutes of electronics, marching drum, further swirling noise and dramatic and then staccato vocal, and third Orange / Blue is 13 minutes of rather sweet baroque pop, fuzzed guitar, atmospheric harpsichord and background swirling strings, pounded piano, chant, bells, more harpsichord, more tingling bells and some squealing saxophone. The title track is similar in its mix but with more obvious jazz insertions too.  It is a psychedelic sound overall because of its eclecticism and experimentation, though not a heavy psyche. There are two additional tracks on the cd version, and the first of these Livecave Book Two is 17 minutes of the most glorious spoken-word, choric, operatic and again electronic experimentation you’ll ever hear. Weird but wonderful.