Tuesday, December 20, 2022

Butterfly

    The Cheese Mites' album "Butterfly," released in 2016, is yet another in the ongoing list of productions which is comprised of archival material from the earliest "Universal Snufmeg" era (1989) to the very near present (2015). To date, it is one of the strongest collections in the post EIS era. Though not without experimentation and classic Snufmeg weirdness, the song craft in some instances is criminally overlooked by the public at large.

   To emphasize the song writing, however, will miss the Cheese Mites doing what they do best - confound. From the opening track to Williwill's brilliant "Color of Love" and "Mystery Girl", the Mites reveal that their compositional flair isn't merely accidental, as they were critiqued of earlier, but solidly building in deftness song by song. Willwill's production on both tunes reveals a mastery of both spatial appreciation and tasteful arrangement. "Mystery Girl"'s closing coda is reminiscent replication of the classic "Psychedelic Journey" updated but not demeaned by modern methodology.

   "A Nice Little Tea Room" and "Let's Have a Party Tonite" have been cannibalized into the Cheese Mites program, as referenced in other posts, but were originally credited to DJ Williwill on the 1986 (perhaps?) "Graffiti Music" compilation.

   Likewise, though originally attributed to the Dancing Bears, "Distinctive Sound", "Cricket" and "Anti-Shaving Protest Song" all bear unmistakable signature of classic Cheese Mites/Snufmeg fingerprints. Similarly, "Bop for the El" and "A Nice Home in the Country" were first presented as by the quickly and justifiably immolated Files Davis Quartet. Only "Que", "Black Sand Rock", "The Attic" and "Whirlwind" were penned under the flag of the Cheese Mites, with the second and last being recent additions to the Snufmeg Surf variety.


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