Japanese Snail Dinner – Embassy Gutters

Official video for „Japanese Snail Dinner“, directed by Tigrane Minassian in New York, 2013.

Embassy Gutters is a collaboration between musician/producer Dr. Martin Clancy (The Witness Protection Programme, In Tua Nua, Valleraphon) and Irish-based Latin American jazz composer Leo Hofnug that explores jazz, electronic music and spoken word.

This project was born while Martin was the musician in residence for the Seaport Festival in New York, where he achieved a series of Top 40 hits on the US Billboard charts in 2010-11. The project featured music created in Ableton Live (Martin is a Ableton Certified Training) alongside poems by Charles Bukowski. It was curated by Stephen Dima (producer of the Seaport Festival) and had a total of 4 songs ready for release in 2010 that ultimately were never released. Martin then went on to work with Irish techno melodic group, Valleraphon and completed his PhD in music, AI and ethics with Trinity University.

Upon listening to Valleraphon’s latest release „Pathos“ (which included a spoken word element) on UK Billboard, Leo Hofnug became interested in Martin’s work and began collaborating with him towards the release of the original Embassy Gutters songs as well as the creation of new material incorporating elements of latin jazz and improvisation with spoken word.