Venetian Snares – My Love Is a Bulldozer

June 16, 2014 • Planet Mu Records

Finally, the breakcore master is back with his first new full album in four years. It may be my blind, raging adoration for Snares' music but I don't think his output has gone downhill at all like many people seem to think, and My Love Is a Bulldozer continues to keep things good.

The frantic 7/4 Amen-break chaos obviously hasn't gone anywhere, and the energy is solid as ever. Anyone who's heard a Snares album before pretty much knows what they're getting into with this one. It's not quite as dirty and raw as Filth and doesn't have the same silly aloofness that My So-Called Life showed (well, mostly, if you don't listen to the title track too closely). It's kind of a mashup of the crazy sample-heavy style of Detrimentalist with the pseudo-orchestral style of My Downfall—which is an awesome combination for me, at least.

There are a few interesting new things thrown in, such as the jazz style of "10th Circle of Winnipeg" and "Shaky Sometimes", a sort-of-dub thing in "Your Smiling Face", and the jaunty classical guitar of "8am Union Station", to name a couple examples. Still, I'm thankful for the occasional no-frills vanilla track like "She Runs" with just drums and electronics—pure Snares doing what he does best.

There's also a noticeable increase in the amount of vocals—and not just cut-up samples; I mean full-on written and performed by Funk himself for this album. Even though he's sung on his albums before, I can never really quite get used to it. With the classical and other softer stuff they're alright, if a little disconcerting (of course, that might be the idea). On the heavier breakcore tracks, they do their best to fit in with the music but it seems impossible to get them to ever click completely.

I don't know if My Love Is a Bulldozer is going to bring around anyone who has lost faith in Venetian Snares' recent output, but for me it's still an impressively good album and one definitely worth checking out. No, maybe it's not pushing any particularly new ground, and maybe it's still a bit too irreverent and a bit unfocused, but if you want something intense and surreal and maybe even a little thought-provoking, there's not much better you can do than some Snares.

Venetian Snares – Fool the Detector

March 5, 2012 • Timesig

Venetian Snares is keeping as prolific as usual—here's his second EP this year. I know plenty of people accuse him of going steeply downhill in the last few years, and I suppose I can sort of understand, but to me Fool the Detector is just as fine as the rest of his recent output. (Take that as a good or bad thing if you will.)

This has got to be some of the most complex electronic music I've heard lately, if nothing else. The music draws from all different realms of old Snares—there are dark atmospherics akin to My Downfall, rapid-fire glitches and cut-up melodies like heard on Huge Chrome Cylinder Box Unfolding. It's hard to say whether such complexity is a good thing—though it's worked in the past, to be sure—as often it can become too difficult to follow what's going on.

However, I am really enjoying the dancy pseudo-techno beat on "Index Pavilion". The straightforward kick beat complements the chaotic tune well and it'd be neat to hear more IDM-style stuff like this from Venetian Snares. "Fool the Detector" also shows that the magic is still there when it comes to string arrangements (as I mentioned above).

To any fan, Fool the Detector is definitely nothing new, and (like most Snares EPs) probably something to pass over. But it still has its merits; even though it's nothing extreme or unique or mind-blowing it's still okay. Personally I don't think it holds up to most of his other stuff but that doesn't mean it's not worth a casual listen.

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Somatic Responses – Digital Darkness

February 8, 2008 • Hymen Records

Another foray into the deep, dark world of crazy electronic music: it's time for Somatic Responses, some sort of screaming electronic death machine that stabs my brain in the just the right spots. Okay, it's not a perfect brilliant album, but it's still the sort of dark dissonance I like.

Digital Darkness puts forth a style of music that (to me, so far) is pretty unique: it's incredibly heavy, and often incredibly complex, with beats that stagger madly back and forth between dark drum and bass to pounding power noise to breakcore and back again. It's difficult to call it a drum and bass album at all sometimes, as the music can get very dense and amelodic, but during other passages the beats can get quite danceable and awesome, and there is even a quiet breather track in "Neu". There are a lot of unique samples, drum kits, synth voices, and such going on, so the sound is pretty diverse from start to finish, although the consistently creepy-chaotic mood ties everything together quite nicely.

But of course, like too many electronic albums I've heard, it gets a bit too big for its britches and by the time the last couple of tracks roll around I've usually gotten tired of it. The fact that my ears have been mercilessly pounded for over an hour doesn't help things much, but at the same time I doubt that at-work-with-headphones is the ideal listening environment for this sort of music instead of some tweeked-out industrial club or something. (I don't go to clubs, okay?)

To be honest I'm a bit surprised that this album has received as much of a negative response as it has—aside from its length, I can't really find anything in it to complain about. Then again, perhaps it's grown on me; I have been listening to it quite a bit, and it already goes along nicely with all the other deranged electronic music I like. So take that as you will.

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