Spare Snare - The Complete BBC Radio Sessions 1995 - 2018 ⅘
If you’re not familiar with Dundee’s rather marvellous Spare Snare then this isn’t your first stop, that would be previous release ‘Sounds’ however if that album whetted your appetite (and it should it's a great album) then swing around for this release a massive 42 track behemoth of sessions for the BBC, there’s all the Spare Snare you need.
Somewhere in time the band got labelled as Lo-Fi and I think that belies how gloriously noisy the band can be, indeed some bands in session produce insipid extra milky versions of familiar tunes but Spare Snare from their first session fill every corner of the room with sound. The ‘95 Peel version of ‘Bugs’ and ‘Super Slinky’ are giant sounding, the energy is absolutely crackling.
There’s also live tracks recorded at Glasgow’s original 13th Note just before their T in the Park debut also back in ‘95 which packs a punch, also if you’re a bit of a detective you may unearth other unheralded live treats within these discs.
The three discs are compiled so that all the Peel sessions are on the first disc whereas the second contains the Radio Scotland material and the third has their Marc Riley sessions alongside, marvellously enough Good Morning Sunday with Aled Jones!
The sheer scope of the sessions means that there’s a varied selection of songs and styles across the best part of 25 years and although there’s not a huge amount of repetition of songs when they do it's interesting to hear how different one version can be against another, for example, the song ‘Action Hero’ crops up as a Vic Galloway version and also on Marc Riley. The former has a garage feel whereas the latter has bassier, fuzzier incarnation but both sound great.
Another interesting side effect of all these sessions being collected is being able to actually hear the band grow, the youthful vigour metamorphosizes into a more confident and experimental group before your very ears, fascinating stuff.
Spare Snare have a huge back catalogue and that can be quite daunting but this session box set is a great collection to point you in the direction of their other material and also a testament to the work of these producers and engineers who help give us these sessions and although there is a lot to take in, it's also fun, energizing and a damn good listen.