Snuggle

𝙍𝙚𝙨𝙥𝙧𝙖𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙛𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙖𝙧 𝙗𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙬𝙚𝙚𝙩 𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢𝙚𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙢𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝘿𝘼𝙒 𝙜𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙨, 𝘿𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙨𝙝 𝙙𝙪𝙤 𝙎𝙣𝙪𝙜𝙜𝙡𝙚 𝙜𝙪𝙞𝙙𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙛𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝘾𝙤𝙘𝙩𝙚𝙖𝙪 𝙏𝙬𝙞𝙣𝙨, 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙎𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙖𝙮𝙨, 𝙀𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙤𝙩𝙩 𝙎𝙢𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙔𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙜 𝙈𝙖𝙧𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙂𝙞𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙪 𝙢𝙤𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙩𝙧𝙞𝙥-𝙥𝙤𝙥 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙘𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩'𝙡𝙡 𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙚𝙡𝙮 𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙚𝙖𝙡 𝙩𝙤 𝙖𝙣𝙮𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙤 𝙈𝙇 𝘽𝙪𝙘𝙝, 𝙀𝙧𝙞𝙠𝙖 𝙙𝙚 𝘾𝙖𝙨𝙞𝙚𝙧, 𝙎𝙢𝙚𝙧𝙯 𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙣𝙚𝙬 𝙅𝙖𝙢𝙚𝙨 𝙆 𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙤𝙧𝙙 - 𝙖𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙀𝙨𝙘𝙝𝙤 𝙨𝙢𝙖𝙨𝙝 𝙗𝙖𝙨𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮.

Founded by Copenhagen underground mainstays Andrea Thuesen Johansen (of noise-rock trio Baby in Vain) and Vilhelm Tiburtz Strange (of smoove pop four-piece Liss), Snuggle is a fittingly modest Escho supergroup whose sound shouldn't be a huge surprise to devotees of the label. Baking themes that have been circling the RMC scene in the last few years, their debut album is almost sickeningly sweet - and hard to stop nibbling away at. It's a tray of detached, melancholy pop that's formed so flawlessly - rooted in a spread of sonic ingredients that we've never stopped going back to over the years - that it sits comfortably alongside contempo genre staples like 'Suntub'.

Theusen's voice falls somewhere between Alison Statton's and Harriet Wheeler's, cool, detached and achingly fragile, and is well matched by Strange's controlled but cannily penned miniatures. He sounds like Robin Guthrie covering 'Here's Where the Story Ends' at first on 'Dust', eventually offsetting the warbled, well-phased guitar chords with just-gritty-enough breaks that snap us in the direction of the trip-hop revival. Indie adorned with powdery boom-bap drums and samples wasn't a complete anomaly in the '90s - just poke thru the Grand Royal catalog and bands like Bran Van 3000 or Sukpatch, for example, who recently got a shot of adrenaline from Concentric Circles' reissue campaign. And the sound has finally come of age, an Ableton-era hallucination of music that's recognizable but not completely rinsed.

These elements are most prominent on the chugging, grungy opener 'Sun Tan' and the chirpy 'Driving Me Crazy', that's fleshed out with tasteful cello scrapes from Naja Soulie. But Snuggle lock into a deeper, more mysterious groove on 'Marigold' balancing out their dry, boxy drums with early Factory riffs before sliding towards Air's sensualized exotica in the final act, and Theusen's vocal melody is transfixingly twisty on 'Playthings', draped around splashy dubwise snares and a killer bassline from Strange. And although 'Sticks' sits way too close to the coffee table for our liking, 'Water in a Pond' sounds like Hope Sandoval singing Elliott Smith - unmissable, basically.