Jordan Snodgrass is a San Diego native, Imputor? Records co-founder, one half of IDM group Calculator Man & Hangar, former Rocket From The Crypt web designer, and graduate of UCSD with a degree in cognitive science and specialization in computation.
Crumbs from his mid-aughts noodlings can be found scattered across the web: Remix work for San Diego's Tristeza (Mixed Signals), Via Satellite ("Cliff"), and Ilya ("Isola"), as well as a compilation appearance ("45 Seconds of:") alongside artists such as Lusine, DJ Spooky, Leafcutter John, Dntel, Electric Company, + a ton more. He has performed live shows with The Album Leaf, Dntel, Hrvatski, Greg Davis, Fax, Thingy, The Spacewurm, Languis, IQU, Ursula 1000, FCS North, Randomnumber, and more.
He ended up taking an extended break from making music. "The first Imputor Records showcase was early 2001 at the Juke Joint downtown, and the last one was #26 at the Casbah in 2005, so that was a good four years of booking/promoting shows pretty much every other month. I also continued to DJ at the Whistle Stop's Friends Chill with my buddies Scott and Spencer for a couple years after that. At the time, it was the longest running weekly at the Whistle Stop, and I wanna say it went for like eight years or something crazy. It just sorta fizzled out like so many other things. My last released recording was a remix I did for Via Satellite in 2003. It was around this time that my hard drive got fried and I lost the entirety of my first debut album, which I had been working on for a couple years."
He returned to music during the Covid pandemic. "I just found that I had a bit more time. You gotta constantly trickle out new stuff to keep people engaged now, or else you lose the momentum. It's a lot different from 20 years ago when you could get away with releasing something every other year or more."
His Styloid Process EP, released in 2022, was mastered by Jason Begin (Vytear, Author & Punisher), with sleeve artwork by longtime record label collaborator and Tijuana/San Diego artist Acamonchi, who also designed a video for the single “Cistern.”
"The first real song I recorded for it was in June of 2020. And the first track I recorded that ended up on the EP ('Tony Gwynnbleid,' with props to the SD Legend and The White Wolf) was done in April 2021. You can tell, too, because it's super lo-fi and crappy quality, I even screwed up and recorded it in mono because I had no idea what I was doing. My buddy Jason Begin [Vytear] busted his ass mastering that track to try and save it from my crappy recording. He did a great job, because the track I sent him sounded really gross. But it's fine, part of the beauty of doing everything live and with hardware is that you get everything raw, blemishes and all."
"The EP is kind of all over the place. It's raw and lo-fi and messy and sad and happy and introspective and triumphant and bouncy and a bit silly. Not that different from life, I guess? For artists who might appreciate another artist trying to find their way and refine their craft, I think the EP might be interesting to them. I've always appreciated listening to early demos of my favorite bands. There's a certain innocence and rawness that comes across that I think can sometimes be more moving than a shiny produced studio album. I think this EP has a bit of that feel. I'm still always learning, and I don't think I've found my synth voice yet, so I'm still working through some things, both technically and creatively. Process is part of the package."
"I'm also working on a compilation of all the remixes I did back in the early 2000s for some of my friends in local bands. Some of them were released, and some weren't. As of now it'll include remixes I did for Tristeza, Ilya, and Via Satellite. I might even sneak in a bootleg Drive Like Jehu remix I did. I played it for John once and he said it was cool (L LOL). Unfortunately most of these tracks were also on my blown hard drive, so I need to dig through the archives to find most of these. I think it'll be fun to do a little digital forensics and see what I can find. If I find what I'm looking for I'm hoping to release a little compilation of the remixes soon."
In summer 2022, he announced "I'm releasing a digital compilation of remixes that I did back in 2002-2003 for local legends Ilya, Tristeza, and Via Satellite. Some of them were previously released by the bands, but there are a couple additional remixes that had never seen the light of day until now. Mastered by another local legend, Rafter at Rad Lazer."
A new EP called Music for 1 Musician dropped in November 2023. According to Snodgrass, "It's a collection of tracks semi-categorizable as 'chunky lethargic acid.' Not as dark as my previous Growlbient LP, but more along the lines of my Styloid Process EP – upbeat, bouncy, and playful, with some introspective long-tailed-reverb drones thrown in for good measure. All recorded live in a single take using bits of eurorack modular, Roland Boutiques, Moog Subharmonicon/DFAM, Roland Space Echo, Earthquaker Devices Aquaduct, Korg SQ-1, classixxx 90s digital Quadraverb goodness, and other random junk." The EP was mastered by Jason Begin (Vytear, Author & Punisher, Octagrape).