A Different Beast: Abigail Snail Interviewed

They may have chosen to name themselves after an entirely different denizen of the garden, but it is the zigging and zagging of a pair of butterflies that the vital new free rock duo Abigail Snail evoke so emphatically. Their debut album Rad Berms is all manic elegance and fluttering interplay – an antsy, frantic dialogue between two master musicians. They flit, they flutter; there is no slithering crawl here. Theirs is an adventurous take on the rock duo dynamic that stands opposed to the sluggish blues rock two-piece epidemic of the 2000s.

Formed by singing guitaring iconoclast Stef Kett, and versatile jazz drummer Will Glaser, Abigail Snail are the next cab off the rank in the buzzing experimental scene swarming around New River Studios in Harringay, North London. Their music is a celebration of the alchemy that happens when two musicians enter a flow state together, a unique avant-rock sound that aims to capture the magic and spontaneity of making music. It sounds fresh, innovative, but more importantly it is so much fun.

Across their debut album, Rad Berms, the core duo fizz off of each other, as they aim to bottle the brightest sparks that fly during the creative process. Most songs are recorded in the minutes and hours after they are written, and it is perhaps this that gives the songs such a sense of immediacy. Amongst contemporaries in experimental music, their vocabulary, both sonic and otherwise, is novel. Their musical vocabulary is a distinct palette – Glaser’s drums scuttle and scamper, rarely settling on one rhythm or tempo, whilst Kett’s guitarwork is impulsive, stop-and-start, beastly. One minute it’s a barrage of riffs, the next, it’s a scraping texture, or a sparse and uncanny melody. Elsewhere though, it is Abigail Snail’s wild-eyed vocabulary that makes them seem like such a refreshing proposition.

Speaking over Zoom, Kett describes eight separate things as “rad”, and the album has two songs named after different “berms”. Getting to the bottom of what a berm is seemed like an ideal starting place. “It’s an agricultural term,” Kett says: “For banks of sand, like the ones on BMX and motocross tracks. ‘Space Berms’ came from the idea of having a berm in space. One that you’d hit, that would fire you into a wormhole, into different space-time.”

“That’s a bit like how improvising goes,” Glaser adds. “When you hit something-”

“Something rad,” Kett interjects. “And you just take off. We just created berms.”

Improvisation is a key part of the process for Abigail Snail, but it’s not the whole package. Chunks of the album come from improvisation, whilst others were quickly fast-tracked to completion after improvisation had thrown up initial ideas. “Do you play in bands?” Kett asks me: “You must know the feeling, when a song is in its infancy, and it feels like it’s writing itself. A lot of the magic happens in those early stages. The idea was to try and bottle the idea as early during the process as possible – generally recording things the same session we wrote them.”

“It’s that combination of writing, recording, and improvising,” adds Glaser. “And capturing all of those things at once.” For this reason, the duo proudly leave in any imperfections, or, at least don’t meticulously comb their songs to get rid of them. They view the hiccups and makers’ marks as a vital part of the music. “That is as much a part of the music as everything else,” explains Glaser. “Part of what makes rad music rad is the flaws,” Kett says. “And idiosyncratic lunatics.” 

“Last time I was at Stef’s,” the drummer says by way of explanation, “he played me a James Brown song where he tells off the soloist.” 

Kett and Glaser are experienced heads in various London underground music scenes, both absolute masters of their craft. Kett has played in various rock bands, like Reciprocate and Shield Your Eyes, whilst Glaser is an esteemed sticksman, and his CV includes work in the Spike Orchestra and a John Zorn collaboration. The result of their debut collaboration is this dynamite, anything-goes free rock, where it feels like anything can and will happen at any time. 

The chemistry between the pair comes in a telepathic understanding of the music’s space, as both players are desperate to fill the music with lots of little ideas all of the time. ‘Show Breaking To Waves’ is perhaps the best example of this. Kett’s playing evokes Loren Connors’ post rock embellishments over Bill Callahan’s ‘Sweet Treat’ – albeit with a gnarlier guitar tone – whilst Glaser’s drumming is stop-start, staggered, joyously free-form. It’s hard to believe that this track was largely written and recorded during Kett and Glaser’s first Abigail Snail session. “We had the barest bones of it,” Kett says, “and then we just went into New River Studios and wrote and recorded it in that one first session. That’s the version on the album.” 

The palette of Rad Berms isn’t limited to the sole sounds of Kett’s guitar and Glaser’s drums. A number of tracks were made with Sly and the Family Drone reed player James Allsopp over one volatile session. With tenor sax and bass clarinet, Allsopp’s collaborations mesh seamlessly with Abigail Snail’s writhing music. “He is the most reactive player”, Kett says. “It was a morning session, where we really didn’t have a lot of time to play with.” Allsopp’s brass contributions push the songs toward mutant James Chance territory, although the fractured rhythms ensure that the music remains frayed and fractured: “We got such a good feeling when we recorded ‘Good Grief’, the rest just fell out. ‘Curbed Tang’ and ‘Soul Berm’ came from improvisation immediately after.”

There are minimal overdubs; Glaser is keen to point out that there are “no rules, no genres,” as he adds colourful glockenspiel to the ballasted sunshine pop of ‘Stay Rad’, and some tracks saw Glaser lay down an electric rhythm track only for Kett to add to it incrementally, as the album came together. This approach ensures that, whilst you can be sure that this definitely takes cover under the weird rock umbrella, a lot of ground is covered. At times, the band sound like they could be Downtown NYC colleagues of ESG and Mars, like on the frantic disco-not-disco groove of ‘Yikes Bikes’ and ‘Curbed Tang’, whilst ‘Stay Rad’ and ‘Attach Bayonets’ sound like warped out-takes from Jim O’Rourke’s vocal albums. Meanwhile, ‘Bages’ is a collage of splayed free jazz, and ‘Space Berm’ is a flayed burst of feral noise rock; whole worlds are contained, but it always sounds like the same two (sometimes three) players bouncing off each other, though. 

Lots of artists you come across hate the tedium of recording, but Abigail Snail love it. Their exploratory, liberating “leave the mistakes in” philosophy means that you can hear this in the very first wilted notes of ‘Show Breaking To Waves’. “We have a love of the history of music, and we love recording,” explains Glaser: “Records are cool. We nerd out about how certain guitars are panned and how to get certain drum sounds as much as the actual content.” 

Rad Berms is one of the year’s best debuts. A freewheeling avant-rock album that celebrates the very act of playing and recording music. The funny song titles, the excited improv, even the “totally flippant” band name all point to a pair of people who think recording music together is their own kind of magic. 

Rad Berms is out now