Snapshot Radio is Lois' peripatetic cross-country musical jaunt, best summed up by the back cover of the CD's insert: "I wanna go and make music with friends who have been inspiring me." And of the friends she has aplenty -- members of Low, Red Red Meat, Yo La Tengo,
Fugazi, and
Tiger Trap all get down with
Lois on this five-song EP. So, with a simple enough idea as the impetus and a bevy of famous friends at her side,
Lois sojourns to recording studios in Olympia, Chicago, and Brooklyn to lay some tunes on tape.
Brendan Canty and Al Sparhawk both lend their bountiful genius to give the first and best song, "My Souvenir," a humbly timeless air. Canty's electric guitar foreshadows his later work with
Lois on
The Union Themes LP, and Sparhawk's backing vocal shadows
Lois' at a perfectly unsettling, foreboding pitch and timbre. Red Red Meat plays the backing band on two great shuffling pop departures, and James McNew chimes in with his familiar, droning synthesizer on a reworking of "Not Funny, Ha-Ha" from
Lois'
Infinity Plus album. As disparate from most of her catalog as her ever-popular "Ship to Shore" vocal with the Dub Narcotic Sound System,
Snapshot Radio is equally rewarding and impressive.