Filth

Venetian Snares | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 14, 2009)
• Original Release Date: 2009
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Planet Mu
• ASIN: B001U7B4ZW
• In-Print Editions: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #236,376 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Vinyl LP pressing of this 2009 release. This is the best acid record ever made! Venetian Snares actually made sweet love to his 303s while watching Top Gun on repeat. The end result is something that Goose would have been proud to die listening to. Heavy, ripping, unconventional, off-timed beats blast away any winter cobwebs and are 100% guaranteed to remind the listener why some things are best left to the professionals. 10 tracks. --This text refers to the Vinyl edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A relentless, dirty record from Mr. Snares, August 3, 2009

By 

The Pitiful Anonymous "Mazaro" (the Acres of Skin) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Filth (Audio CD)

"Filth", Venetian Snares' latest record as of this moment, following 2008's "Detrimentalist" - another thematic one - is refreshingly, unapologetically abrasive.

With this record, Funk lets himself wallow in the `filth', the seedy underbelly of our society, and makes no attempt at sophistication. Most of the album is incredibly fast, dissonant, and frantic, the song names pornographic and obscene. The record does at times allow itself to be sensitive, such as in the signature, chiming melodies of opener "Deep Dicking", but even then the tone is always lonely, isolated and emotionally unstable, recalling the `exploring a long abandoned attic' feel of "Winter in the Belly of a Snake" or the straight up horror of another of his darkest records, "Doll Doll Doll".

Summarily, the album feels like the most self destructive drug (stimulant) binge imagineable, taken further and further without any thought of self preservation. It is the sound of desperation and extreme densensitization. The rhythms will make you sea sick, attempting to dance will end in a heart attack or with your face flat on the floor.

But this is not Funk's typical breakcore. Funk's favorite genre is now apparently acid, and what better to express the restlessness of a stimulant high? The squalling, babbling basslines ramble with twice the insanity of any original early 90's acid, the insanity only heightened by Funk's penchant for odd time signatures. The pieces are as complex as ever. For sheer unpredictability of rhythm, little can match this album. Aphex Twin's "Analord" was a solid and competently produced entry into the genre of acid; "Filth" actually takes it in new directions.

There is one thing about the album though - every track really is extremely similar. The formula described above doesn't vary too much... With similar tempos and acid techno timbres in every song, the tracks only begin to distinguish themselves upon many repeated listenings. Only "Mongoloid Alien", with its processed vocal, and "Kimberly Clark", with its memorable fuzzed out bassline, manage to be at all catchy. This and the constant, tense unease which permeates the album, seemingly on purpose, make it really difficult to listen to unless you really do have THAT much energy to expend.

In conclusion, "Filth" is an interesting and complex record that, while unique, suffers from a certain lack of listenability. I've grown to enjoy the album a lot, but you've definitely got to be in the mood. Aaron Funk may have made the least relaxing album of the year. His new EP, "Horsey Noises" is both a more accessible and diverse exploration of the some of the same acid techno inspired ideas. 4 stars for "Filth".