The resurgent interest in vinyl is real, and apparently here to stay. Even as streaming services simultaneously make artists’ music more accessible and less lucrative, vinyl releases and re-releases continue to escalate, lending musical works a kind of permanence. “Vinylus longa, vita brevis,” goes the old Latin saying (or does it?), and for those who never stopped loving LPs, there’s no little satisfaction in knowing the medium has staying power.
Furthermore, when albums from the CD-dominated era are re-released as LPs, musical works can take on a new life, reassessed in light of the intervening years. And so it is with Doing the Distance, the 2004 sophomore release by local power pop stalwarts Snowglobe, which is now being released in its first vinyl iteration by Black & Wyatt Records. The album’s title could not be more appropriate, for the one phrase that springs to mind on its re-emergence is “staying power.”
For the many Snowglobe fans around town, this comes as no surprise. It’s been heartening to see their occasional reunions greeted with great enthusiasm, such as their 2017 appearance at one of Robert Wyatt’s beloved Harbert Porch Parties.
Even at its initial CD-only release, Doing the Distance was much loved by those few who heard it. Chris Herrington gave it a glowing review in the Memphis Flyer:
These 16 tracks — recorded locally, mostly at Memphis Soundworks and Easley-McCain Studios — are more like a 44-minute rock symphony. Each song melds into the next and orchestral touches and instrumental interludes share time with more conventional song structures and locked-in classic-rock guitar solos…Cello and violins and sleighbells, mellotron and musical saw, layered vocals and subliminal drops of musical Americana, squiggly guitars and churning pianos: This is studio rock of truly intense craft that also maintains an air of spontaneity and playfulness. They aren’t late-’60s Beatles or the Band, of course, but Snowglobe honor the comparison. Certainly, no other Memphis band is making music (or ever has made music?) so casually dense.
Herrington hit the nail on the head with his classic rock comparisons, for undergirding all the refined aural candy of synthesizers, strings and effects are solid songs that rock righteously. And if the lyrics are a tad oblique, that only lends them enough mystery to have one coming back for more, the better to chew over their layered meanings. All told, the lyrics have a very real resonance with their times, alternately paranoid, despondent, and idealistic, with a finely-tuned philosophical bent that lends them a life beyond any topical concerns of the George W. Bush era.
Scanning the music journalistic universe, one quickly sees that this album has been discovered and re-discovered multiple times over the years, belying levels of appreciation that mere sales figures from its original release can’t capture. Fourteen years ago, gaming and entertainment webzine IGN called it “The best three year old album you’ve never heard.” Writing about this latest reissue, The Vinyl District refers to Snowglobe as “a Memphis indie rock institution.”
Indeed, hearing Doing the Distance on vinyl confirms that sentiment, cementing the band’s underground reputation as pop innovators. And, as if in recognition of that, this re-release will be the first subject of a listening party focused on a single album at the Memphis Listening Lab.
On Saturday, August 7 from 6 to 8 p.m., the entire LP will be presented on the Memphis Listening Lab’s Egglestonworks high-end loudspeakers. There will be a discussion afterwards. Attendees paying admission of $25 per person/$30 per couple will also receive a copy of the album.
