Albums

Album Review: Venetian Snares

[Album: Detrimentalist]
[Label: Planet Mµ]

‘Detrimentalist’ signals the return of the hyper-jungle-mash-up style that is synonymous with Aaron Funk a.k.a. Venetian Snares‘ most well-known work. Snares is such a prolific producer and virtuoso of this style of Renoise-propelled breakcore that there is great anticipation to where he will take it next. This album is a change of direction from the frantic yet subdued ‘Hospitality’ (2006), but is also a departure from ‘Rossz Csillag Alatt Született’ (2005) and ‘My Downfall (Original Soundtrack)’ (2007), the two acclaimed albums that broke new ground by exploring and destroying classical music samples and fusing them with breaks to create something that was truly original and breathtaking. I was half expecting ‘Detrimentalist’ to be the third album of this sort, but Snares has taken things back a step, incorporating influences from ‘The Chocolate Wheelchair Album’ (2003), ‘Pink + Green’ (2007), and ‘Cavalcade of Glee’ and ‘Dadaist Happy Hardcore Pom Poms’ (2006). Amongst the obvious deconstructed loops and samples are hardcore rave stabs, 8-bit bleeps and squeaks, and wet acid synth lines.

‘Gentlemen’ starts the album and the lyric is time-stretched and woven into the midst of the chaotic drums and percussion. Snares samples KRS-One’s ‘Phucked’ and adds his own twist on the lyrics. It is a “standard” Snares track, a head-to-toe of snare rushes and amen break complexity. ‘Sajtban’ is a ridiculously catchy track full of happy hardcore samples and rave stabs, though the coarse 8-bit samples near the end of the track won’t do your ears any good. I could imagine Snares will be playing this track at some of his shows. Likewise, ‘Eurocore MVP’ is an aggressive and intense track and both these remind me of a couple from ‘Pink + Green’.

It is hard to fully understand and appreciate the sheer complexity and time spent on the programming involved to create these tracks. Someone told me a long while ago that it took Snares a few hours to compose just several seconds of music. Whether or not that is true or close to the mark is open to debate, though it is probably safe to say that Snares knows every trick in the book and uses it to its full extent.

‘Circle Pit’ is a great track to demonstrate how well Snares can program and command drum samples. The track starts with a very simple bouncing sliced beat, but soon progresses on to hardcore jungle with loads of ludicrous snare rushes, ragga vocal samples, cartoon SFX, and booming hoover basslines. The climax of the track is just absurd as it descends into a full-on-who-knows-what BPM noise-fest. The ending is reminiscent of ‘Hand Throw’ from ‘The Chocolate Wheelchair’. ‘Poo Yourself Jason’ (a play on ‘Brace Yourself Jason’ by µ-ziq?) is a wonderful acid-synth drenched track full of panned snare hits and symbols which flicker in your ears.

One of the great aspects of Venetian Snares’ music is that although you may know the overall destination of the music, the journey through each track is full of unexpected twists and turns. Where will he go next?

For fans of: Venetian Snares, Enduser, Shitmat
Band link = Venetian Snares

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