Customer Reviews

Cavalcade of Glee & Dadaist Happy Hardcore Pom Pom

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Although I had enjoyed previous albums of his intermittently, it was on last years Rossz Csillag Alatt Született that I finally felt that Venetian Snares (aka Aaron Funk) had reached his true potential. Inspired by a trip through Hungary, the album mixed sampled live instrumentation with his trademark breakcore for something that felt intense and original. Arriving only about a year later (but apparently comprised of work created in the past year and a half), Cavalcade Of Glee And Dadaist Happy Hardcore Pom Poms finds Funk returning to his old helter-skelter ways.

Musically, the strings and horns from his previous album are gone, but fortunately there's still larely a focus on more melodic material, instead of just returning to hammering beats of the past. "Donut" opens the album and chops up vocal samples, mixing them with blurting orchestral synth stabs and a techno-y feel. "Swindon" continues the trend, making use of even more frenetic programming and lovely layered pads that remind me of the best parts of Aphex Twin's Drukqs.

From there, the album is even more all over the place. "Pwintendo" is an insanely fun track that's comprised entirely out of 8-bit Nintendo sounds while "XII's Dub" takes things down a notch and shows a completely different hand from Funk as he creates a sort of deconstructed melodic IDM track that features sluggish, pitch-bent mechanical noises clanging over multiple layers of drifting melodies.

In other places, he's back to his more standard ways, as both "Vache" and "Plunging Hornets" spit out insane rapid-fire breakcore while "Twirl" and "Tache" take that same formula and tweak it just a bit, balancing out the spastic beats with a bit more of a melodic side. Having said all of the above, Funk is a downright master of his craft at this point, and while this newest effort doesn't quite have the deep emotional resonance that his last album did, it still has plenty to enjoy and a load of moments that highlight why he's nearly unrivaled right now in this genre.

(from almost cool music reviews)

Okay, honestly, to hell with most of this album. That's not to say that it's bad, that's really just to say "Give me track 5!" Seriously, the song Vache on this album is like my favorite item on the menu at my favorite restaurant. Sure I may order other things from the menu, but I always come back to this one, because it does me right. After all, it is a machine for making cows. I don't know what it is, but the rest of this album is a ball and chain compared to my mistress Vache. Audiosexual? Maybe. Seriously though, I'd have paid the same amount for the one song. The rest of the album is just decadent intemperance. It's on you to decide if that's a bad thing.

This is without a doubt Funk's most accomplished album to date. Less frantic, more melodic than his previous stuff and just a bit more accessible.

For me, this is most certainly one of the best albums of the past two years. I'd rate this as high as Nautilis' 'are you an axolotl?' album, and if you're familiar with the genre, that's saying something.

I was a bit anxious about this one. "Rossz Csillag..." was an absolute masterpiece in my eyes: the glorious mash-up of beats and Bartok that the world had been waiting for (but kinda ignored all the same). But it *was* strangely "accessible". What if Aaron's mellowing out? Getting all musical on us? Maybe he'd want to repeat the trick?

F*** that. This is Aaron Funk we're talking about. He's tossed away the classical styles like they were last year's fashion. Good man.

For me, every Aaron Funk album shows improvement, too: more technically accomplished, more musical, more new. He's on a heck of a run of form.

About the style: back in the 90's techno-gods Autechre released "Anti-ep", including "Flutter". On the cover was a sticker proudly stating that no two bars had the same beats - a pretty stunning track, to boot. However, I'm not sure any two bars of rhythm on this entire fricking *album* have the same beats. Aaron is blessed with the boredom threshold of a mosquito and a rather exquisite way of expressing it.

Take "Swindon" - a roccoco harpsichord over a rhythm section you could almost call danceable, but it's endlessly shifting, reforming: diving off at wild tangents; digressing. It's also totally, utterly thrilling to immerse yourself in it.

There's a few other stand-out tracks: "Plunging Hornets" was my most listened to track this year. It takes the minor harmonics of the kind of music that was in "Rossz" and turns it into something frantic, desparate, unbelievably rapid. Kinda like hornets, plunging. The beats synchopate, align and then break into staccato dashes. Sometimes these kind of tracks get sterile, but there's enough modulation of tempo and mood to give a sense of emotional connection.

There's a lot of variety of tempo and style here, too: For people who like their Funk aural assault, there's Vache - something approximating "Happy Hardcore" like the title says. Aggressive, uncomfortable, invigorating.

The album also winds down elegantly, with some (relatively!) mellow tones (P is beatless and pleasant) and Cancel leaving a quite mournful sense in the air as the CD spins out.

Whew! Well, I like it. On the down side, it is a sum of it's parts as an album - it doesn't have the flow of Rossz, and some of the tracks are a little unremarkable: XIII's Dub, Twirl, for example. I'm stingy with my 5 star reviews, so this is a 4. Certainly one of my albums of the year, tho.

Way too technical and a bit assaultive. But I have to give props for the effort and chops. I like many of the compositions and I think this is one of VS' better efforts.
Not something you can listen to all the time. Comes off as a bit of a clinic, and that snotty vibe gets tired. But as always conceptually tight. Killer art and sound design.

Venetian Snares is for two kinds of people - 1) Super f'd up rave kids, and 2)People who realize that 4/4 time is a little overdone. (i'm a 2)
You will hear people mistakenly claim that Venetian Snares uses "random beats", or that he is just jumbling rhythms together. This is an oversight. A few tracks change from one time signature to another, but most are in one time and stay that way throughout (though it can be very trying to actually count). 90% of VS' tracks are in some form of 7 with the other 10% in assorted odd times like 5/4, 11/8, and my favorite 23/8 (divided two 4/4's and a 7/8). If you can't feel the groove of a seven beat, you'd better be a 15 year old k-head to fully enjoy this artist, let alone this album.
Let me first state that V-Snares is one of my favorites and I will buy and love everything Aaron Funk ever puts out. This album, in particular, is somewhere between "Winnipeg is a Frozen S***hole" and "Find Candace" on the Hardcore-O-Meter. It's not super gabber hardcore but still some definite head noddin'. The track "Aamelostasis" is brilliant beyond words, and the rest of the album is awesome, but it's not as inventive as the "Rossz Csillag..." album, concept-wise. If you have never listened to Venetian Snares, this is a pretty decent album to get your feet wet. Also check out "Chocolate Wheelchair" or "Higgins Ultra Low Track Glue Funk Hits 1972-2006"
The bottom line is if you like Squarepusher, Autechre, Aphex Twin, etc. and you like odd time signatures, you will like Venetian Snares more than any of those chumps. He puts out like 2 ep's and a full release every year - all of it consistently funktastic.

This Cavalcade album is rilly quite lame. Dude has just lost it. The beats are always rite on, but the ambient stuff is so wack. Pretty much everything since Find Candace has been a waste.