.​.​. and in the constellation Cheese Mite

   The mood is set at with "Overheard Discussion at a Cocktail Party, Part 1", and that mood is Snufmeg. This collection contains all the requisite elements for a Cheese Mites experience, and if you're a fan (and who wouldn't be?) then prepare to enjoy.

   After the drinks are served, the light banter fades and the lovely acoustic "It Can't Be Helped" breezes us in. It wouldn't be Cheese Mites without some good old Snufmeg cannibalization, and it happens with "Rockin'" which first emerged credited to Top o' the Mornin', on the "Graffiti Music" release, produced by Williwill. He remains at the controls for the haunting "A Different Lime Coloured Planet (w/Vocals)" followed by the smash hit "Vaguely Beatlesque."

   "Mutual Attraction", absorbed from Alternateen, makes another appearance, enshrining itself as a bone fide Snufmeg staple, in the tradition of "Vomit Your Senses", and "Pros Jam with Pros". A switch back to Williwill with the near Snufmeg Klassikal (oftentimes referred to as Cheese Mites Classical) style "Discovering the Hideout." Snufmeg Surf returns with the beautiful "Surfer's Breakup."

   True Snufmeg avant-gardeism is showcased with "March of the Flesh-Eating Ghouls" followed by the "The Dancing Bears' Theme", fully absorbed from the DBs. Snufmeg Klassikal takes a more deliberate turn with Johnny B Dub flexing the baton with "Etude in 3/4." The back and forth between Johnny and Williwill continues with the latter's "Is Rockabilly a Form of Microaggression?" in an experimental mood. We never do seem to get an answer to that age-old question!

   "Umbrella Man" mellows out the vibe, only to be shaken back to the Snufmeg Klassikal edge of "Spontaneous Boredom" with Williwill's characteristic production. The blurring of lines between classic Snufmeg avant-ism and Klassikal is further illustrated in "Cartooning", but takes an overt turn to the drawing-room crowd with "Aetood."

   The abrupt tonal change of the blistering "8 Pound Maul" shakes the listener from any notion that safe listening is how the album approaches it's end. A retreat to melancholy flows in with "Lost Surf." To close out the 40+ minute excursion, "It Can't Be Helped" returns with an instrumental version, in a style befitting a Vegas show!

Your Overlords Want You to Hate the Cheese Mites

   The collection, "Your Overlords Want You to Hate the Cheese Mites," continues the development of the Cheese Mites. Recorded over the years 1982 to 1985, but probably more accurately 1983, the 'Mites maintain their basis of their sonic palette of feedback and loops, but with increasing maturity. "Oriental Mysticism" is a swirling mix of haunting vocals and rattling percussion, with muted fuzz tones randomized punctuations. In contrast, "Can I have My Slippers?" is four minutes of throbbing loops, graced with cascading arpeggios and buzzing tones.
   What follows is the absurdly brief blast of tremulousness - "The Alignment Signal" - and then, back to staccato motifs looped under the name "There is No Good Rocking This Evening." While loops are the theme in this album, "Last Words" finds Johnny & Williwill in a echo-drenched duet, where one guitar taunts the other, as two stumbling drunks would sloppily maul and berate one another.
   Repetition by way of digitized loops, however, returns in the colossally epic, 18+ minute long "The Calculus of Sentimentality." Here we find as complete a departure in sound, yet with virtually all of the same elements. Based upon a coda of gentle, lilting strings, and Johnny's echo-soaked voice seems to be disclosing closely-held secrets in a dreamy fog, yet intelligibility remains foreer cloaked, while Williwill weaves patterns of melancholy on a nakedly unprocessed guitar.
   There is growth in this collection, over the frenzied lunacy of earlier recordings. True, traditional song structure has only been dabbled in elsewhere, yet the evolving sense of "tone poems" continues to be revealed in the sophistication of execution.

More Notes on "Piano Duet"

   The composition and recording of "Piano Duet," and the revision of it, both dated 1975, stand out as cornerstone pieces of music not only in the Snufmeg canon, but simply as music in general. It would not be altogether inaccurate to celebrate "Piano Duet" as a piece of nativistic organic music, that which has no precedence. However, as no such music exists, this selection falls as closely into that category as any. It must be noted that the arrangement and frame of presentation (being a recording) greatly infer influence from external sources - after all, pianos of themselves indicate at the very least a tradition of music in Europe going back generations, and the art of recording were by no means unheard of in musical environments prior to 1975. The point, however, is that to identify concrete musical influences for this piece is virtually impossible due to both the general level of apparent simplicity, and therefore universality of the composition, and also that to absolutely identify a specific influence at that time on the nascent creativity of WK is virtually an impossible task, for no such codification was structured at that time in his creative environment.
   Influences aside, "Piano Duet" consists of a simple motif, an accompanying melody and closes with a rhythmic pattern of tone clusters. These ingredients found longevity in Snufmeg, as they have throughout musical history.
   The era in which the "Piano Duet" and remixes was created and recorded was a groundswell for WK. As these recordings, his first, were collaborations with Ginhead (later to appear on "The Gavotte"), the greater body produced during the "pre-Cheese Mite" phase was also collaborative. A significant body was produced in solo fashion, but his submersion in the developing Tenafly scene was richly inspired by works produced with others such as John D, Todd R, and Beegs, all of whom shall appear later.

Sources:
https://youtu.be/9L4Vr09zzHk
https://youtu.be/4KaDt7hVrd8
https://snufmeg.bandcamp.com/album/the-history-of-wk-1975-to-1982-part-1-the-early-years