Snooks is easily an experience that casual listeners won't immediately grasp. That, in itself, is a shame. Self-described as a "Dada Beat experience", Snooks' album Unfinished Business is an amalgam of variety: utilizing spoken-word interludes, ambient soundscapes and low-tone portions performed with xylophone, drums (live and programmed), organ and guitars. The album has a excellent pace that draws you along through the experience like a casual trip through an post-modern art gallery.

When you first put this album in, you might find yourself wondering what in the hell is going on. Slushy Cucumbers immediately dives the listener into a pattern of odd electronic sound looped into a opening track that lets the listener know they're in for something special. Following this up is the especially slow groove of the interlude New Xylophone. A few tracks in, the purpose and pace of the album becomes apparent to smart, sensitive listeners. By the time track 6 Hey Mister rolls around, you should see the range and quality of sounds that will proceed through the rest of the album.

With the experimentalization and intellect used to make this album, it's hard to point out any handful of tracks that can be singled out. Each plays a part, leading to the next piece. Spring is almost funny in it's straight-forwardness when compared to other tracks on the album. The heavy bass of Go There Now is a slow pulse leading to Hotwire, a casual piano/bass/drum piece. To listen to any track on it's own would be like looking at a painter's stroke without seeing the whole painting. On a personal note, though, I could listen to off-best bass and drum of Mâste Ut over and over again.

Unfinished Business is an enjoyable experience that should be injested as a whole. Cutting this up into small radio-digestible snipets would ruin the presence that it brings to the table. It's unfortunate that modern radio has such a short attention span, because they're missing quite an impressive and inventive piece of work.

If you are interested at all in this, check out http://www.planetkc.com/ithomas/intro.html, where you can order a copy of your own. If you enjoy anything off of the beaten path, you owe it to yourself to get this.

- - Kinderfeld