Over the past few years, the keyboardist has spent time in various projects exploring styles from progressive jazz to electronic pop. While he's dabbled in other genres through collaborations and other projects, Snow's main focus in recent years has been the highly regarded four-piece Mill Race.

When the group released its debut album, "Westerns," it was labeled "sci-fi
country" but the soon-to-be-released follow-up breaks away from that mold and goes in a new direction. In fact, it goes in two new directions.According to Snow, the upcoming CD isn't a complete album but, rather, two
independent EPs packaged together. Half of the disc will take its cue from vintage "prog rock" and be presented as "A Garden Gnome, The Garden Never Known." The other half of the disc, "Upon The Flying, Lying, Dying Frying Pan Of Satan," will lean toward "medieval" heavy metal. "They're very contrasting EPs," says Snow.

"It's sort of an unusual concept, I suppose," continues Mill Race drummer Jeff Graham. "Julian's calling it a `double EP'; it's going to be released on a single CD but, really, the music is conceptually very different. We feel like, in some ways, to be fair to the songs, we should present them
separately."

Initially, the quartet had no intention of recording a dual offering and was focused solely on releasing a metal EP. Snow, whose early days include a stint in the alternative metal act Raging Midgets, says that he had some ideas that he wanted to explore in the genre but that there wasn't enough there to warrant a full-length album.

"I think that metal is a concept and idea that I'm interested in for about one EP," laughs Snow. As the quartet worked to develop the material, it worked on a decidedly nonmetal song called "The Garden Gnome." Realizing that the track would seem out of place among the heavier tracks the group
was working on, the band decided to work on a companion EP that would show
another side of the band.

Even though the two projects seem to exist independently of one another, both feature tracks that focus on various aspects of Salem. Snow has been a vocal "localist" but says this is the first time that philosophy has worked its way into his music in such a noticeable manner.

One Salem-focused composition is "Pink & Red Lights," which focuses on a Commercial Street location that has had a storied past. Snow defines the piece, which has lyrics written by Renee Paxton, as a "distortion, psychedelic, ragtime song."

"If you played it on piano," says Snow, "it would sound like classic ragtime -- a little bit darker because it's in a minor key and a little bit weirder but it would sound like classic ragtime."

Like his hero, John Fahey, Snow shrugs off terms like "eclectic." In his view, genres are simply about "music biz marketing" and much of what separates the styles is instrumentation. A classically trained musician, with a love for Erik Satie and Béla Bartók, Snow says he thinks like a
composer and there's nothing to prevent him from exploring other areas musically because it will always remain true to who he is.

"To me, style has nothing to do with content," Snow says. "What I hone, compositionally, is very specific and there's a very personal stamp on everything I do."