THE SNOBS

The Snobs biography
The Snobs are a French noise-pop/rock duo from Milly-la-Forêt, formed in late 2002. Like an alternative reality Sparks born in France, obsessed with krautrock and possessing a savvy knowledge of the past half-century of pop, alternative rock and experimental music, the group consists of the Thibault brothers, who operate under the pseudonyms Duck Feeling and Mad Rabbit respectively. From their self-titled 2003 debut to 2021's Blend the Horse!, the duo have released fourteen LPs, as well as a handful of EPs and live releases, almost all of which are available for free download on their Bandcamp and personal website. Mad Rabbit, filmmaker and the voice of the Snobs, both produces their albums and designs their cover art, while Duck Feeling - otherwise known as Matthieu - juggles guitar, synthesizer, piano and drum programming (among others), while moonlighting as a musicologist and biographer.

Adopting the playful restless energy of Faust (with Mad Rabbit at times a dead ringer for Jean-Hervé Péron), the Snobs cartwheel across post-punk, psychedelic pop, trip-hop, electropunk and industrial rock, taking inspiration from Can, Sonic Youth, Bowie & Eno, Miles Davis, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Stereolab, Pink Floyd, Radiohead and the Zombies. The Snobs leaned closest to more traditional krautrock idioms in their trilogy of collaborative albums with American poet Steve Dalachinsky (1946-2019), providing an ever-shifting backdrop of grooves both funky and motorik to accompany his stream of words, like a meeting of the minds between James Brown, William Burroughs and Sergius Golowin.


- Gordy, April 2023