Another release from Finland's Fonal records, related in membership (and thus not surprisingly also sound-wise) to Es and Kiila. Velvolino are a mostly instrumental guitar-bass-drums trio whose compositions range from moody and mellow to more energetic, foot-tapping fare, reminding us of everything from fellow Finns and AQ-faves Circle to the Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet to film noir soundtracks! Throw in jazz flourishes, organ on the appropriately titled, Bohren-like "Sicilian Dirge", and the mysterious field recordings that crop up between some tracks, and you have an excellent, eclectic listening experience. Oh, and the lone vocal track "How To Make Love Quietly" strangely enough makes us imagine an unthinkable Circle / Weezer collaboration! So yeah, we said 'eclectic', yet Tango does have a cohesive sound of its own. Another lovely release from Fonal's Sami Sanpakkila and friends!
Retrospect, the label that put out those 3 awesome Pandemonium reissues (the '80s Alaskan rockers whose Heavy Metal Soldiers disc we made a Record Of The Week recently, the other two highlighted this list) has done a lot of other '80s metal and hard rock reissues too, many of 'em leaning towards the hair/glam/AOR side of things though. Lots and lots, it's kind of insane. Especially since, most... well... we hadn't heard of them, and probably for good reason! Atomik Cocktail? Bad Candy? Ginger Roxx? Nasty Nasty? Sidekixx? But, in scouring their catalog, we did turn up a few gems. Cubic Zirconia, perhaps, but still gems! Here's one we had to share, originally released on Epic Records in 1982, the only album ever from Detroit's Vendetta, a trio led by African-American vocalist/guitarist Niki Buzz.
Certainly it's one for all you Citay fans (sort of) - 'cause the very first song, "Night Time", goes something like this: "Night time, is the right time, in the citaaaay!" And it's damn catchy, we like how Mr. Buzz throws in a sudden little screech when he sings the word "night". Yep, totally cheesy stuff but fun fun fun. The exuberant second track is even cooler, it's called "Jet Eye Knight", and we're pretty sure that's an intentional pun (or whatever) referring to the Jedi knights from Star Wars, then a quite current pop culture reference (Return of the Jedi came out in '83). Even though the song otherwise has nothing to do with Star Wars, it's more or less nonsense. But again, good times. The other songs here follow suit, with titles like "Deadly Like A Rose", "Bite Your Lip", and "Bablyon Rocks". With powerful wailing vox, big beat '80s production, and some really rather heavy riffs & shredding leads for this sort of melodic quasi-metal stuff, this is total cruising around in the car, summertime in the citaaaay music - and we've done just that! Plus, if you're gonna listen to some '80s guilty pleasure cock rock glamminess, why not make it something super obscure like this to keep yr music nerd cred up? So you can still be all snobby with fans of Foreigner, Billy Squier, Sammy Hagar, etc.
Bottom line: we're reviewing and recommending this 'cause we can't stop listening to it, and we're not afraid to admit it!
Hymen have always treated us to some of the most amazing packaging, from elaborate deluxe lps to cd sets/shirts in stickered tupperware containers, but this has to take the cake. A small red box, constructed from gorgeously thick textured, deep red card stock, with the credits embossed on the cover. Open it up to reveal a three inch cd in a full color sleeve with perfectly photoshopped street signs again depicting the credits. But lift out the cd and a small plastic television is set in a little television-shaped cut out. It's one of those little tourist/souvenir plastic TV's that you hold up to the light to see the tiny photos inside. And the photos inside are all the credits of the cd photoshopped into different locations, on billboards, on grain silos, on insects even. Just amazing. Even people who don't like Venetian Snares have been buying this after seeing the packaging. So, the music. The 3" cd contains one 15 minute track, of skittery, slithery, Aphex-like beat heavy electronica. None of that SUPER abrasive drill and bass VS is infamous for, this is surprisingly varied and melodic and quite possibly one of his best tracks.
Short, two song blast of skittery, noodly, spastic breakbeat weirdness from Canada's biggest breakcore/drill and bass export. One side is funky and skittery, with blooping bass, and warbly melodies not unlike the VS we're used to, the other is an all new direction, a sort of jazzy fusion-y funk workout, complete with slap bass, and little bursts of soulful horns as well as a latin percussion breakdown about halfway through. Think Squarepusher meets Mahavishnu meets Tito Puente. Cool.
The string soaked brooding post Aphex cinematic skitter of 2005's Rossz Csillag Allat Szuletett showed us the dark and haunting side of Venetian Snares' usual head spinning electronic fuckery, which definitely threw us all for a loop. The record right after though, Meathole, was a return to the spastic breakcore slice and dice sound that pretty much defined the Venetian Snares. So where to next for this one man beat terrorist? How about to the brilliantly titled Cavalcade Of Glee And Dadaist Happy Hardcore Pom Poms. A record with all the splatter and splutter, skitter and scuffle as Meathole, a wild world of dizzying drill and bass, a dense spazzscape of machine gun beats and hiccupping loops, but as the title might lead you to believe, lots more fun and funny, playful and goofy weirdness.
This Cavalcade Of Glee is a confusional world of circus melodies shattered into a million pieces, packed into a cannon and fired right into your ear, beats shuffle and skitter, sometimes into snarling swarms of near digital hardcore, but just as often a lumbering lope through a world of big soft shapes and crazy dayglo colors. The melodies twist and turn, a kaleidoscopic swirl of synths and sonic snippets, lo-fi blasts of deconstructed 8 bit crunch, voices drift in and out, swathed in reverb or drenched in distortion, a totally exhausting but completely exhilarating ride. Like Aphex Twin, Chris Clark, Lesser, Autechre, and Squarepusher all tossed into a blender, the resulting sonic goo, drizzled over cotton candy, sprinkled with tabs of acid, placed in the mouth of a really scary clown, who proceeds to do spit-take after spit-take, splattering you with gobs of gloriously grinding, bizarre breakcore!
Killer cover art too, lots of cow parts, pipes and gears. Euwww.
We're so used to Venetian Snares, aka Aaron Funk, constantly taking the piss, we assumed the title of his new ep was just that, a title, a clever turn of phrase that would go well with Funk's super frantic, slice and dice drill and bass, but lo and behold, this is actually a reggae record, but done Snares style. Not sure if this is old reggae jams redone, or if Funk whipped these up from scratch, but this is about THEE most exciting reggae record we've heard in ages. The classic sounds are all there, that up-stroke jangle guitar, the dubbed out rhythms, the melodies, the skittery snare drum, but here, it's all tangled up, and augmented with some creepy deep growled vox, the sounds careening all over the place, melodies surfacing and then pulled apart and sent careening into the ether, sounds are clipped, pulled apart, beats stutter, there's some super thick synthbass buzz too, a little bit of a dubstep vibe here and there, but somehow, with all the fucking about and sonic alchemy going on, it still sounds like reggae, and it still sounds respectful to the form, if that makes any sense. This isn't so much subverting the sound as it is glorifying it, Funk seems to be taking a classic sound and making it all his own, while remaining true to the spirit of the original.
And we have to say, while we don't dig too much modern reggae, and are WAY partial to the classics, the old Trojan records and all that, at the risk of pissing off purists, holy shit, this just might be the best modern 'reggae' record EVER!
The problem with a list like this (well one of them at least) and with bands who release a record or two every year, after a few years, you begin to run out of things to say, you end up wanting to just say something along the lines, of "read that old review" or "sounds like that other one we loved". Which is sometimes fair enough, as some bands do continue to mine similar ground. But in the case of Venetian Snares, it's not that easy. We thought we had him pegged, as a mash up jungle drill and bass freak, but then he learns how to play strings, and hits us with a gorgeous elegiac suite of moving Eastern European gypsy jams, with only a tiny bit of manic drum programming, the focus on actual songs, on mood and melancholy, then he'll flip again and kick out a disc of old school rave jams, then some old school raga jungle. The thing is, it's ALL great, and somehow it all sounds distinctly like Venetian Snares, which is especially difficult with this kind of music, sample based, chopped rhythms, but VS has such a distinctive vibe, the rhythms impossibly complex, the samples usually goofy, but sometimes freaked out, other times creepy, all the various elements seamlessly smoothed into something not really seamless or smooth at all, but wild and chaotic and well over the top.
This latest disc is all over the map, but the focus seems to be a mash up of classic hip hop, nineties rave music, and as always furious rapid fire jungle rhythms, often bordering on gabber. Listening to this, it's easy to just get lost in the flurry of beats, the chopped up and reassembled loops and samples, without asking "how the fuck does anybody make this shit?!" One can only imagine he assembles it measure by measure, slowed down to quarter speed, painstakingly assembling each beat, but then somehow being able to visualize it all revved up and lightning fast. Even then, it boggles the mind. It's like trying to figure out the working methods of a mad scientist. It's almost better not to think about it at all, just to revel in the madcap, kick ass blown-out-beat demented dancefloor world of Venetian Snares.
So how does Detrimentalist! stack up? Well obviously it's not at all dark and brooding like his two string-ed records, but it fits pretty well amidst is other dancier discs, this one somehow seems more of a party record, with lots of vocal bits, fragments of raps, bits of toasting, all chopped and tangled up within the impossibly convoluted rhythms, which here are as funky and impossible sounding as ever, thick slabs of buzzing snarling synth, even a bit of a dubstep vibe here and there, some definite nods to that classic Aphex sound, a handful of 8-bit videogame jams, dizzying rave collages wrapped around classic Amen and Apache breaks. There's an awesome ravey raga jungle jam that goes from almost traditional sounding to some sort of video game rave with some of the most awesome drill and bass all synched up with stuttering rave synths, and a toasted refrain about some motherfucker wanting to see his dogs die (?). There are a handful of the tracks laced with minor key melodies and have some serious musical weight to them, moody and intense, droney and atmospheric, even peppered with dizzying squalls of rapid fire rhythms, they still feel like more than dancefloor fodder. But it wouldn't be VS without some seriously cracked and wacked sonic wickedness, and there's plenty of that too. Once again, ESSENTIAL Snares, as it's quickly becoming one of our favorites, and for newbies, as fucked up and freaked out as Detrimentalist is (then again they all are sort of), it's a pretty excellent introduction to what will no doubt blossom into a full blown obsession.
More hyperspastic drill'n'bass from the super prolific Aaron Funk. Less aggressive and painful than last year's "Making Orange Things". Less playful than the recent "Songs About My Cat". "Doll Doll Doll" is a more straight ahead techno/d'n'b effort,
Yet another blast of misanthropic, demented and damaged, ultra complex and super sick splattercore-broken-beat-drum-and-bass madness from Aaron Funk aka Venetian Snares. This stuff is so much more complicated and fucking creepy than any of his contemporaries. Take Aphex Twin at his most complex (Boy Girl maybe) mix in some Lesser (totally irrational beats chopped to bits) plus some truly creepy samples and some hateful misanthropy (Pornography, S+M, Snuff films, Whitehouse, Trevor Brown who once again supplies the suitable pervy album art, etc.) and filter it all through the 'Snares wicked sense of drama and melody, and his knack for making impossibly stuttery beats and retarded rhythms coalesce into some painfully dark, amazingly appealing and truly nightmarish electronic mayhem.
MPEG Download: "Befriend A Child Killer Remix" [/audio/venetianbefriend.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Befriend A Child Killer Remix" [/audio/venetianbefriend.m3u]
Aaron Funk steps back from his supercharged darkcore breakbeat noise mashups for a more accessible, yet still jacked up, ass moving and wicked as shit record. With drum programming much like mid-period Aphex Twin and faux fusion jazz breaks ala Squarepusher, "Higgins Ultra Low Track..." sounds as if it could've been on Warp back in 1996. Not a bad thing, though we suspect this record is just a break from the noisecore aesthetic that Funk is so good at. Here we see not-so-old-school rave styles clash with hyperspastic in-yr-face d'n'b attacks. Operatic vocals are mutated, timestretched, diced and recontextualized amidst rapid waves of snare rushes and pummelling beats. Extremely poppy and ultra catchy, this is far far away from the jackhammer assault of his collaboration with Speedranch, "Making Orange Things", but still retains that sinister edge inherent in all of Funk's work.
Just found a very, very small stash in the back of the store of this we think now out of print release, which we reviewed way back on list #193, so let's list it again, and put it on sale too while they last (it was $14.98 before)...
This may not be the best Venetian Snares record, a brief 25 minutes (6 tracks) of Aaron Funk's immediately recognizable spastic cut and paste, drill and bass madness, but it's quite possibly the most striking, with some depraved and amazing Trevor Brown artwork (and supposedly banned, as the artwork is only fully revealed on the inside). You know, the usual TB business: naked young Japanese girl, toys, lollipops, dildos, etc. That said, this is definitely a decent slab of short attention span, anti-dancefloor splattery buzz, and not only will Venetian Snares' completists want to snap this up, so will you Trevor Brown obsessives.
We love Venetian Snares, every record, we're faced with the possibility of more of we love, or something new and twisted that's bound to confuse and confound. Whether it's splattery drill and bass, or cinematic string drenched soundtrackisms or old school nineties retro techno weirdness, we're pretty much into everything this guy give us.
That said, the most recent full length, Filth, was the first one in a long time that just didn't hit the spot, it just wasn't... well, filthy enough. A little bit of the same old thing, and even then not the same old thing that we loved, definitely sort of blah.
But then comes along Horsey Noises, and we're flipping our lids. The firs thing you'll notice are the vocals. Yep, vocals, the title track is weird fractured electro Depeche Mode-ish slow burn groove, complete with crooned vocals talking about how he wants to make the horse teethed girl make horsey noises. Sick and twisted, and the music suits it perfectly, rubbery buzzy basslines, skittery beats, even handclaps, but all blown out and woozy, lots of atonal abstract melodies, like Venetian Snares remixed through a mainstream pop funhouse mirror. By the end, all the sounds and the vocals are chopped up and twisted and super distorted and twisted all around into a noise drenched electro noisejam. If there was ever gonna be a hit single (there wasn't!) this could be it, if it wasn't so fucked up and jumbled and chaotic and if the lyrics weren't so bizarre. But we love it. Kinda has us hoping VS will sing more in the future. Picture Venetian Snares as some twisted electro pop crooner. Could be cool.
The title track gets remixed, the vocals get pushed way up, but the music is even more far out, eventually exploding into some classic super damaged drilled out jungle craziness. Might be the jam of the record!
The other two tracks are pretty bad ass too, "Horsey Vag Island" is post Aphex, Squarepushery jazz bass bit of looped skittery buzz and stutter, groovy and danceable, but filtered through a sort of ADD, full frontal lobotomy, DJ meltdown. The second track "Pig Dync", about a pig's special part, is a tad more tame, with woozy synths, haunting late night melodies, some total house music synths, but the beats still plenty convoluted, everything chopped up, and thrown back together, even mixes in what sounds like some 'oinks'. Crazy shit. But so good. So good in fact that we might have to revisit Filth. But for now, "Horsey Noises" and the even more mutated remix "Horsey Noisers" will remain in constant heavy rotation in the wild all night dancefloor that exists only in our heads. That's where we dance to stuff like this. Yeah, weird, we know....
After the strange and glorious string drenched, Eastern tinged, drill and bass drama of Rossz Csillag Allat Szuletett, we were all sort of surprised when Venetian Snares' next disc Meathole was a return to his old more straight ahead, chopped and clipped, skittering, head spinning drum and bass buzz and sputter. Then the record after that, Cavalcade Of Glee And Dadaist Happy Hardcore Pom Poms, continued in the same vein. Which we're totally fine with. More than fine in fact. As much as we loved the ultra cinematic vibe of Rossz, that classic Venetian Snares spastic insanity never fails to get our blood rushing and our ears bleeding, all over the place!!! But we'd be lying if we didn't tell you were were pretty dang thrilled with Hospitality, and a surprising return to the sound of Rossz. Pizzicato strings, fluttering flutes, plinkety plonk percussion, all tangled up in grinding splattery, lightning fast, rhythmic chaos. Sweet minor key melodies splinter into schizo skitter, huge sweeping epics, strangely lilting and melancholic, burst into a hail storm of jagged beats and fractured drill and bass. Church organs hover and wheeze over a skeletal framework of super spare but still all tangly and convoluted hiccupping stutter. Aphex Twin may have invented this particular strain of emo-melodic-drum-and-bass-whatever with his classic "Girl / Boy", but Venetian Snares has definitely run with it, turning an experiment, into a full fledged new world of emotional electronica.
Fierce and funny, funky and fresh, dark and mysterious, brooding and totally catchy. So essential.
This one's for everybody who loved Aphex Twin's Boy / Girl ep and haven't felt the same since. The latest from Aaron Funk aka Venetian Snares is a surprisingly listenable and sweetly melodic chunk of buzzing, stuttering glitched out electronica. Gone is much of the caustic brutality and purposefully acerbic noisiness and in their place are lilting melodies, warm fuzzy synths, and playful bouncy rhythms. Don't panic though, this may be a nicer prettier Venetian Snares record, but that doesn't mean this isn't still a dense splattery chopped and diced, spastic blast of maniacal ADD electronica. Because it most definitely is. It's just so well composed and assembled that instead of just rhythms and sounds, these are actual songs, with melodies and memorable parts and hooks and everything. Definitely a testament to Funk's blossoming skills as a great musician and not just an amazing noisemaker.
The more recent Venetian Snares albums (all of which we've loved) from Canadian electronic wizard Aaron Funk have fallen muchcloser sonically to the maudlin minor key string soaked IDM sound of Boy / Girl era Aphex Twin. However, Meathole returns to the beligerent head-ache electro-shock breakcore albums that dominated his early records. This records fucking hurts; and I'm sure that Mr. Funk wants us to hurt; and it's same kind of damage that J Lesser has been known to giddily inflict upon his listeners: a non-stop pummel of drill 'n' bass rhythms, menacingly stalking basslines reminscent of Ed Rush circa 1996, scalding hot electronic blasts of noise, and post-Rotterdam 909 kicks to the head. Given that the album had been constructed under the influence of "devil worship and murder," Meathole seems custom made for the Aquarius Records infatuation with bloody-minded teeth-gnashing. Sprinkled with horror film sountrack samples downpitched for an extra-heavy creep factor, Meathole recalls much of the brilliantly ridiculous / ridiculously brilliant Digital Hardcore and Position Chrome stuff that we raved about many years ago. So good!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
New two track blast from Venetian Snares and he's gone JAZZ! Fear not though, this is still plenty weird. The A side is a lounge-y jazzy workout with stuttering Blue Note loops, horns, vibes and of course some of those VS spastic-shuffling-funky-drummer-fed-through-the-leaf-shredder beats. Side B is a smoke-y minor key torch song, all muted snares, sizzling cymbals, soulful horns, choir-like angelic vocals and the occasional kittenish growl of a mysterious chanteuse all over a moody late night mantra. Really cool.
As much as we love pretty much everything Venetian Snares has done, from wild drill and bass to damaged techno to furious breakcore and even (especially) his recent foray into dubstep with the kick ass Sabbath Dubs, like most people we were totally smitten by Rossz Csillag Allat Szuletett, Aaron Funk's musical love letter to Hungary, a gorgeous string soaked symphonic epic, dense with orchestral strings and moody melancholy arrangements, then tangled up with Funk's insane and hyperkinetic drum programming. He even learned to play the trumpet and the violin so instead of just sampling parts he could play them himself. The perfect blend of baroque majesty, and insane manic skitter, the drum programming not distracting, but somehow enhancing the emotion and intensity.
Follow up records found Funk returning to a more straight ahead (if anything Funk does could be considered straight ahead) drum and bass template, offering up more twisted and tangled post Aphex jungle, which off course we totally dug, but we couldn't heel hoping for more of that string soaked drill and bass drama like on Rossz Csillag Allat Szuletett.
So here it is, the musical sequel if you will to Rossz Csillag Allat Szuletett. Another gorgeous expansive, super dramatic world of darkness and hopelessness. Each track minor key and mournfully majestic. Not sure if this is really a soundtrack or not, but it sure plays like one, and the trademark Snares drum programming is kept to a minimum, with only 4 tracks (of 14) featuring any rhythms at all. The rest are moody instrumentals, that drift and shimmer, each a haunting mini epic, rife with pizzicato melodies, soaring emotional strings, moaning cellos, choral voices, simple orchestral percussion, harps, choirs, dark liquid pianos, completely breathtaking in scope, falling somewhere between Morricone's The Mission and Arvo Part.
And when Funk introduces his tangled rhythms, it only gets better, those tracks definitely stand out, all the more since they are brief and far between, the rhythms contributing their own tension, sometimes skittering subtly, other times pounding along sides sweeping strings. We used to think that Aphex Twin's "Girl / Boy" was the ultimate chunk of melodic drum and bass, but these tracks, and the ones on Rossz Csillag Allat Szuletett, take it to a whole 'nother level, in terms of complexity, emotional resonance, and sheer musical power.
Another twisted electronic gem from Mr. Aaron Funk, aka Venetian Snares, and much like or favorite records of his, and there have been many, My Love Is A Bulldozer, is another dizzying mashup, this one, combining his wildly tangled drill and bass and frenzied jungle, with jazzy torch songs, and haunting Scott Walker like ballads. Sounds like a weird mix, and it is, pretty jarring too, but in a really cool way. All it should take is a few minutes of opener "10th Circle Of Winnipeg", which begins with swoon some strings, then jazzy drum skitter, then throaty female vox, then some thick dub step bass warble, the drums gradually cranking up, the sounds wreathed in weird little flitting fireflies of FX, before exploding into a gloriously chaotic drum and bass freakout, all wound around that swoon some torch song opening, veering wildly back and forth between buzzing droned out skitter, to wild cascades of spastic drum programming, to dark jazziness, and back again, often all of those edges blurring and bleeding into something confusional and downright mad scientist brilliant. And heck, that's just the first song.
The rest of the record is rife with strings, and choirs, the sound classical, baroque, folk, Flamenco, in equal measure, with long passages that could be mistaken for some lost Arvo Part piece, but inevitably, the sound explodes into some classic Snares drum programming.
The male vocals, presumably Funk's, are super emotional and distinctive, dramatic and over the top, sounding a little like Scott Walker, and when wound around dizzying drum programming, it's pretty stunning.
And those vocals definitely define much of this record, those tracks sounding like some weird seventies prog-folk record re-envisioned as modern warped electronica, while other tracks (like "Dear Poet"), are epic and cinematic, and sound like they could be the score for some Game Of Thrones style epic, or some steam punk space opera, the jungle perfectly meshed with the orchestral stapes, the droning synths, the strange chorales, the strings, totally over the top, confusing, and utterly and entirely addictive. Like every Venetian Snares record, we can't stop listening to this one, and feel compelled to proclaim it the best yet, at the very least it's currently our favorite, which is saying something, considering that the Venetian Snares catalog is pretty much all favorites. Needless to say, WAY recommended.
What can we say, we just love Venetian Snares, pretty much everything he does, whether it's twisted tangled electro, lush symphonic string laden electronic soundscapes or super complex drill and bass, Aaron Funk, the man who is Venetian Snares, just has the magic touch. His drum programming is INSANE, head spinningly dense, frantic and frenzied, the samples ridiculous and WAY over the top, but woven seamlessly into the tumbling explosion of beats and buzzing basslines, the songs managing to be super catchy, even though they're so explosively frenetic. My So Called Life is the sound of VS we like the best, a wild, wickedly fun and funny, super fucked up and freaky, relentless and dancefloor destroying collection of jungle/rave/drill & bass mashups, laced with dancehall style toasting, or choruses created from awkwardly stitched together samples, but those are just filigree for the main attraction, the speaker shredding, ear drum blasting avalanche of wildly twisted beats, as if someone took a handful of the most intense jungle beats, tossed em in a blender, poured the resulting mix into bazooka, and fired it directly into your earhole. So fucking great! Compact disc version due out in 2 weeks, vinyl is here now!
As much as we do try to avoid judging a book by its cover, it does seem to be getting easier and easier to get an idea of what to expect from a Venetian Snares record by the cover art. Take the last disc.�Cavalcade Of Glee And Dadaist Happy Hardcore Pom Poms, the cover was a strange cybernetic blend of gears and pipes and cow parts, all in a big confusional tangle. And inside, the music reflected that (well, maybe not the cow parts), a wild snarl of buzzing drill and bass, circusy sound samples, confusional loops... Then of course there's�Rossz Csillag Allat Szuletett, with it's spare grey sky filled with silhouettes of birds in flight, very classic and mysterious and romantic, and� thus inside, the darkest VS record yet, all stately strings, and dramatic swells, held together by a framework of melodic squalls of drum and bass.�
Which brings us to Pink + Green, and to be honest, we're not sure what to expect. A wild My Little Pony world of pink skies and rainbows, pinballs raining from the sky, dayglo colored foliage, balloons and strange spaceship like buildings, but most striking of all, the ponies themselves, here blessed with extra eyeballs, skull and crossbones tattoos, leg warmers, mohawks, cigarettes, hypodermic needles, and at least one pair seems to be engaged in some sort of lewd and lascivious frolicking. And you know what? Even though it's nearly impossible (and not a little bit scary) to imagine what the aforementioned scene might actually sound like, it's not that long a stretch to imagine it sounds like this.�
Falling somewhere between old Venetian Snares, Shitmat, and a handful of other chop-it-up-and-wrap-it-all-around-insane-spastic-drum-programming audio practitioners, but VS, aka Aaron Funk, has always had a special way with the slice and dice, and the drum machine set on stun, and not much has changed, this stuff is wild and dizzyingly complex, huge fuzzed out bass lines, skittering drums EVERYWHERE, the most notable difference here, are the vocals, or more specifically the original remnants of the songs before they were all chopped up, the twee girly 'pink and green' vocals on the title track, the 'get fucked up' toasting of "Husikam Rave Dojo" complete with some almost buried rave diva wailing.�
As the record progresses it gets faster and faster, more and more chaotic, like some robotic dance party gone awry, the machinery suddenly malfunctioned, sending the poor human dancers into a frenzied dance to the death. "Husikam Rave Dojo" is a dancehall rave all fucked up and twisted and tangled. The VIP mix of the title track sounds like the programmed drums were replaced by REAL drums (and they were according to the liner notes, although that seems impossible) and the record finishes with the awesomely titled "Sporto Fucking Sellout Cocksuckerface" a slow building gabber flecked spastic drill and bass freakout with bizarre (and goofy) vocal samples, fuzzy speaker melting synths, and of course a futuristic dumpster full of garbled beats poured out all over everything. Phew...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Venetian Snare's post-'ardcore/post drum & bass brutalism picks up where Panacea left off on "Twisted Science" with stalking breakbeat fragmentation, laser strike explosiveness, and super dark atmospheres.
We've come to expect a lot of things from Aaron Funk and his Venetian Snares. But not this. In the past Funk was the master of splattery, maniacal drum and bass, all chopped up and poundingly complex, relentless and completely brain frying. Which we obviously love, but on this here new record, everything has changed. There's still plenty of maddeningly complex drum programming, but now it's merely a framework for actual songs, gorgeous, achingly mournful and surpsrisingly melodic songs. Piano, soaring strings, delicate pizzicato melodies, horns, moaning cellos, even occasional smokey torch song vocals. Remember the Aphex Twin song "Boy/Girl", quite possibly our favorite Aphex track ever, and rightfully so, a totally catchy, immediately memorable string section, wrapped in spikey swaths of drill and bass. Well, this is basically a whole record like that, but with a decidedly more Eastern European vibe, minor key and melancholy, with entire tracks of just strings and piano, NO rhythms. It sounds a bit like Arvo Part jamming with Aphex Twin if you can imagine that. One of the highlights is track three, a cover of Rezso Seress' notorious "Hungarian Suicide Song" which ends up sounding like some lost track from Portishead or Lamb. Slinky and sexy and so so good. The whole record is just amazing, every track offers up something new, whether it's dark doleful gypsy strings, mournful minimal piano, ridiculously intricate drum programming or all three somehow perfectly melded together. Haunting, deeply emotional and totally intense.
Venetian Snares is the damaged electronica outfit of Canada's Aaron Funk, whose work has absolutely nothing in common with his last name. After his previous record of overdosed digital noise and excessive breakbeat velocity (a collaboration with Speedranch), Venetian Snares' "Songs About My Cats" is a comparatively calm (but still complex and nervous) concept record about
Two new Venetian Snares on one list. Lucky for us (and you) they're both good, and they're both quite different. "Electronica" in general has the tendency to not really progress or stray stylistically (see Aphex Twin, Squarepusher (no that jazz crap doesn't count), etc.) so it was kind of exciting to throw this VS record on and hear...singing! And weird keyboard melodies and piano!! And SONGS. I mean don't get us wrong, we LOVE Venetian Snares' hyper-spastic drill and bass workouts, but seeing as none of us spend much time on the dancefloor, it's kind of cool to hear a record that incorporates that crazy programming and those pro-tooled beats into actual melodies and songs that sort of work, well, like -songs-. A lot of the record is actually quite sedate, and melancholy, with an emphasis on being melodic and evoking moods. The skittery rhythms and wry sense of humor are still present, but everything's just a bit more subtle. Very soundtrack-y at points, some tracks are actually AMBIENT and almost beatless, but fear not, this is Venetian Snares, so you're never far from a blast of ultra complex beats or a burst of mind melting grind. Nice cover art by Trevor Brown!
Not sure what it is about Venetian Snares but even when he's doing stuff everyone else is doing, he just does it better. Nothing here is especially groundbreaking or earth shattering, but it just all sounds so fucking good! The master of ADD-plunderphonic-mash-up-big-beat-drum-and-bass splatter/crunch, VS takes everything and the kitchen sink, chops it up, and comes up with some of the best dancefloor clearers we've ever heard. The opening track is all chopped up jazz horns, that quickly devolve into a crunchy digital jungle workout. 'Hand Throw' is probably the best jungle dancehall track we've ever heard, and that's saying a lot! The best track though has to be 'Too Young', a plunderphonic masterpiece based around mutilated snippets of Motley Crue's 'Too Young To Fall In Love'!
Venetian Snares and Speedranch take a Roland 909 around the track at Rotterdam hardcore speed, adding plenty of Kid 606 / Lesser style noise assaults, possibly the result of a serious chemical dependency. These two electronic maniacs then drop in plenty of
We never thought anyone could improve on Venetian Snares' Rossz Csillag Allat Szuletett album from a few years back, an amazing blend of brain bending glitch and spastic drill and bass stutter, tangled up in soaring strings and Eastern melodies. A super emotional and cinematic slab of Arvo Part meets Aphex Twin. But then along comes a fella by the name of Bong-Ra who manages to take a handful of tracks from that record and give them a killer new twist, with a strangely jazzy makeover. Not necessarily an improvement, but definitely a whole new sound that rivals the original. This 12" features 4 tracks from Rossz Csillag Allat Szuletett, each given a jazzy Bong-Ra tweak.
The opener is a slow jazzy shuffle, with massive earth shaking low end (we're dying to hear this blasted through some huge P.A. system) with the original strings chopped into strange stuttery rhythms, resulting in something that sort of sounds like some string soaked Hitchcockian horror electronic jazz. The second track is much more drifty and ambient, swirling masses of vocals and strings, very choral, like some modern electronic take on Arvo Part. Everything cloudy and shimmery, all hovering over some simple shuffling jazzy percussion.
The B side starts off with some very James Bond sounding spy music, horns and wildly propulsive jazz drums, but all wrapped up in fuzzy, gritty synths and wild spacey effects. A slow build into a wild electronic free jazz freakout. The record finishes off with a dark late night smolder, all back alley noir, with throbbing upright bass, and simple smokey club jazz drumming, while all around drift haunting, ghostlike female vocals. So nice.
Halifax may be Canadian ground zero for classic pop music (Eric's Trip, Sloan, Super Friendz, Thrush Hermit, Hardship Post, etc.) but like any city, there's a dark side of town, and if said dark side was in need of the perfect soundtrack, it might come from these grim industrial metal blackdrone heavies. Vennt are a power trio consisting of bass, drums and electronics, their sound is a doom drenched slo-mo creep, the bass unfurling massive tarpit riffs, the drums a Neanderthal pound, the two locked into a lumbering plod, while all around electronics swirl and screech, the sound very reminiscent in fact of big time aQ faves Geronimo, albeit a bit less mathy and a lot more sludge-y. The vibe is also a little shoegazey, with ethereal female vox buried in the mix, that is until the sound erupts into virulent gouts of doomdirge power violence and power electronics, the vocals transformed into dueling shrieks and bellows, while the drums crush and the bass flattens, but once the vocals drift off, the song slips back into a more meditative slab of blackened dirgery, mesmerizing and hypnotic.
And so it goes, each song an abject crawl through clouds of blackened buzz, the bass detuned and superdistorted, the vocals doused in effects and swirling around that main lurching riff, the sound seasawing back and forth between, speaker shredding fury, and low slung electronics laced blackbuzz dirge.
A stunning slab of doomsludge power electronics/violence for worshippers of the slow and low, along with similarly inclined noisemakers like Bastard Noise, Geronimo, Moss, Bunkur, Monarch, Wicked King Wicker, Whitehorse, The Body, Ultraphallus, Thou, Dead Peni, Corrupted and the rest...
LIMITED TO 400 COPIES, each one hand numbered, housed in gorgeous screen printed metallic ink sleeves.
So-called metalhead Andee says he never got into Venom 'cause they sounded too much like Bad News. But, Andee loooves Bad News. Sure, they were a joke band (Spinal Tap done by the Young Ones guys, basically) and Venom's a real band, meaning the joke's on them...but I think they had a sense of humor too. How can you not love a metal album with a song called "Aaaaaaarrghh" on it?? They knew what they were doing.
This was their third album, from 1983, and while it's got sturdy Venom compositions like "Rip Ride" and "Women, Leather And Hell", it's really essential for the plethora of bonus tracks alone, seeing as how they include two of Venom's all time best songs, "The Seven Gates Of Hell" and "Manitou" (taken from 12" vinyl eps). In addition, you get Monster Truck racing style TV adverts for the album which are of course hilarious, and a bunch of other great 12" tracks.
"Lay down your soul to the gods rock and roll!" Do it here and now, by buying the reissue of Venom's 1982 sophomore album, the timeless statement known as "Black Metal".
Super raw, heavy, and fast (for the day, anyway, back when Venom were the world's ONLY black metal band). A looser, scarier Motorhead basically. The story goes that they had to record some of these songs twice simply 'cause they got 'em RIGHT the first time... Includes faves "Countess Bathory" and the genre-defining title track, along with the Van Halen-gone-NWOBHM "Teacher's Pet", demonstrating Venom's more frivolous side. And the final track is an "At War With Satan" preview! Yes, a preview of the title track from their next album. Had (has) anyone else ever done that?
Like the other recent Venom cd reissues, the jewel case is packaged inside an embossed cardstock slipcover. The many bonus tracks include four Radio One recordings of songs from the album, some 12" versions of tracks including the classic "Die Hard", and the outtake "Hounds of Hell".
All the Venom you need, pretty much!! And you do need it.
The original black metallers are, again, back, with the follow-up to their "Cast In Stone" comeback from a few years ago. The trio now includes new drummer Antton, because former drummer Abbadon has left to pursue a metallic/industrial solo "career". Anyway, it sounds like a Venom record, with Cronos' characteristic melodic growl and lots of Satanic imagery. With better production, of course, than on their '80s classics, but without the spark of naive genius that they had back then. Still, a good bit of fun, even if they can't really compete with the likes of the Mayhem release described elsewhere on this list.
Because the domestic version is now sadly deleted, we took the trouble to track down a few more of this reasonably-priced import title, a pretty-much essential collection for any true Black Metaller! It's also a pretty ace comedy record, and in saying that I'm not trying to put down Venom. It's just that along with the re-mixes and re-edits of classic Venom tracks like "At War With Satan" and "Manitou", this disc also features over-the-top Venom TV adverts, portentous tour intro tapes, and best of all, seemingly drunken radio station ID's, in which Cronos and Co. sound exactly like the "Gumbies" from Monty Python. There's also four unreleased songs (including one called "Bitch Witch") and other treats. All hail!
"Home taping is killing music...so is Venom" so it says on the sleeve to this much needed newly remastered reissued cd edition of the debut by British black metal pioneers Venom. This was, in fact, truth in advertising, and music today needs killing as much as it did back in 1981, so thanks to Sanctuary for this reissue. Like the other two Venom reissues we now have in stock (their second album "Black Metal" and their third "At War With Satan") this comes packaged in a jewelcase w/ cardstock slipcover, with a cd booklet full of photos and liner notes. Better yet, there's eleven bonus tracks, including demos and outtakes like "Bitch Witch" that were previously available on the long out of print "Skeletons In The Closet" anthology. As debuts go, "Welcome To Hell" was a stunner, establishing Venom as THE most extreme band of their day. They were the rawest, dirtiest, most evil of the celebrated New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) bunch, with, say Def Leppard at the opposite end of the spectrum. Today's black metal bands, even if they seem so much more serious and artistic than Venom, still owe these guys big time, however cartoonish Venom's Satanism seems now.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Pre-Dirty Three Mick and Jim (gtr and drums, respectively).
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Pre-Dirty Three trio WITH vocals but WITHOUT violin. There are only about 12 of these in the whole USA, and as far as we know we are the only store carrying it.
What do you get when your band is made up of Shane Embury (Napalm Death), Kevin Sharp (Brutal Truth), Buzz Osbourne (the Melvins) and Danny Herrera (Napalm Death). Well, if you were to believe (don't) the sticker on the front of the jewel case the answer would be "the most handsome band in punk rock." However, the reality is a band that sounds like classic Napalm Death but with a very hi-fi, decidedly unpunk production. Which is a good thing. Massive and heavy. Makes me fantasize about Napalm Death's classic Scum album recorded in a state of the art studio in 2004. If only... But for now, revel in the classic crusty grind of Venomous Concept, replete with an album cover collage of wartime atrocities and a very anarchy-like VC logo. Comes with a video playable on your computer. Minor gripe: The cover art is on a clear sticker stuck to the front of the jewel case, which means if the cover breaks, which they often do, your VC record is suddenly without its proper cover (which -is- actually pretty cool, a clear spine / skull superimposed over the black and white photos).
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
2006 steel cage match, a brutal grind metal hardcore duel to the death between Japan's epic grindthrashers 324 and the old school Earache style supergroup Venomous Concept, feturing Shane And Danny from Napalm Death, Kevin from Brutal Truth and Buzz from the Melvins.
Cover artwork by Kevin Sharp.
We got a brief taste of USBMers Venowl on the now out of print 4 way split tape with Horseback, Njiqahdda and Cara Neir, release on Handmade Birds earlier this year. Their contribution a particularly sick slab of lo-fi doom/sludge heaviness, replete with weird oinking pig vox and terrifying crusty creep, which is precisely where the A side of this new single lands, the same sort of super low fidelity practice space sound, which perfectly suits their abject lo-fi blacknoise, here rendered into something more approaching black metal, but a mutant slo-mo strain, that seems to lurch and stumble, a blackprog variant, that finds the music slowing down and speeding up, exploding into a frenzied blast, before devolving into another monstrous creep, and those freaky vox make a return too.
The flipside, subtitled the "Iron Forest Reimagining" compacts the 7 minute A side into 3 minutes, and transforms it into a weird pulsing, processed industrial electronic dirge, the sounds crumbling and blown out, the voices weirdly robotic, the song alternately driving by metallic pound and warped electronic skitter, gradually seeming to melt and ooze into one demented black hybrid, gristly, and crusty, skeletal, eventually shedding sounds until it's just a strange spare cold wave-y creep.
LIMITED TO 220 COPIES, already sold out at the label, so these are most likely the last copies we'll be able to get. Pressed on grey vinyl too.
Scott from local heavies Kowloon Walled City turned us on to these guys, knowing full well of our love for classic math rock, and holy shit, how did we not know about these guys? Their sound is essentially a modern version of that classic nineties sound, think Rodan, Shellac, June Of 44, A Minor Forest, Rumah Sakit, the same sort of dense, intricate arrangements, melodic and carefully crafted, with a distinct emo vibe, and blasts of explosive heaviness, interspersed with spidery, skeletal passages of delicate melody and woozy loping rhythms, the best parts when those various elements come together. Probably the most distinctive element is the addition of violin, which gives the sound a darkly dramatic vibe, at times conjuring up a slow build tension a la Godspeed, and at others channeling something more like the Dirty Three or Rachel's, but when the drums are pounding and the guitars are crunchy, and the violin is singing, it's pretty goddamn great. The recording too is crisp and clean, letting all the instruments shine, even at its most dense and busy, and the vocals are pretty ace too, usually a weak spot in bands like this.
And while these guys tend toward the more melodic side of math rock (unlike some of the above mentioned bands who leaned toward the heavy), Ventid are certainly capable of some serious rocking, but the fact that the playing is so nimble is what makes this stuff so good, these guys can flit from spidery psychedelic tangle to mathed out churn, to near metallic pound and back again without breaking a sweat. Plenty of stop/starts, and some serious stretches of progged out majesty, and all the while, these guys are writing some seriously catchy songs, you'll find yourselves lulled and entranced by some mathy movement, when all of a sudden a guitar or vocal melody will pop out, and lodge itself in your head. Really great stuff, and kicking ourselves big time for only finding out about these guys now.
Packaged in super cool hand screened jackets, and probably pretty limited.
Wow, when we reviewed those two J.P. Massiera Psychoses compilations, a couple of years back, we somehow assumed that this eccentric French producer recorded so prolifically under so many monikers that many of the groups (especially the space disco ones) were probably just single releases and not complete full length albums. Well, the Mucho Gusto label has proven us wrong once again, by reissuing the full length albums of both Venus Gang and Herman's Rocket, two of the zaniest freakout space disco-funk outfits that Massiera ever created. Commissioned in 1977 and 1978 by an Italian producer to jump on the European Space Disco craze, Massiera teamed up with his half-brother, Bernard Torelli and the singers Mickey and Joyce to create these two amazing groups. Amazing also in the sense that while he used what is basically a cookie-cutter disco template (he blatantly borrows lots from American funk and disco - but really who didn't? And at least he borrows well!), he managed to create such a crazy, unique sound with lots of Moogs, strange vocal effects and lots of spacey noises and sounds. Considered too crazy at the time for marketable appeal (check out the great covers!), both records have gained a cult following over the years and sound so good right now especially with all the modern throwbacks of Italo-disco trying to sound like this, these two groups are by far way freakier and so worth your time. We're curious if all of Massiera's disco incarnations released full length albums, and if we'll be soon gifted with reissues of The Human Egg, Sex Convention and The Starlights too. Here's hoping!
Both albums were only reissued on vinyl, not on cd, but do come with mp3 download cards!
Issue #33 of this mag for, about and by gals is the DIY Special. It has features on M.I.A., Rilo Kiley, Deborah Harry, Office, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, as well as smaller bits on Gogol Bordello, Juliette Lewis, arts'n'crafts, fashion, and a heap of music reviews including one for Jenny Hoyston's new album Isle Of written by Jenny Hoyston herself.
Yet another collection of fantastic and far out musical weirdness from Finnish madman Verde, also known as Mika Rintala, one time member of Circle and Extroverde, but by now, much better known as a mad scientist instrument builder, whose records are constructed using the various and sundry electronic devices Rintala designs and assembles. The inside cover of Verde's new disc offers up a cool snapshot of some of these contraptions, all brightly colored, with tubes and switches and levers and speakers and knobs, and all placed in front of a field of blossoming flowers.
They may be pretty and colorful, but those machines can create pretty out there sounds, which Rintala deftly mixes with bits of jazz, looped droniness, and hypnotic rock. Fans of Circle and the various Circular offshoots will definitely find much to love here. Analog synths swoop and shimmer, wrapped around a repetitive guitar figure and some sizzling cymbals, deep pulsing bass tones throb underneath atonal steel string clang. The result a little bit new age, a little bit abstract electro, pretty hard to describe, as is the whole disc, from old timey jazz accompanied by what sounds like whales songs, wreathed in tape hiss and whirring fuzz, to ominous downtuned looped low end rhythms, peppered with percussive thumps, and squalls of creepy robotic buzz, to wildly malfunctioning electronics wrapped around off kilter guitars and thick sheets of feedback, to gorgeously warped chamber music, played on what sounds like the inside of a piano and some thick warbly rubber band strings, to gorgeous minimal rhythmscapes, with muted percussion, and mesmerizingly woozy melodies, fractured detuned steel string guitar, found sounds, a men's choir speaking not singing and more weird sounds and musics than we could ever find words for.
The cool thing about Verde records, and this one is no different, is that these are not just collections of 'weird sounds', or even sonic experiments, these are actual proper (or perhaps IMproper) songs, pieces, movements, they just so happen to be composed and recorded using a motley collection of hand assembled machines, which if anything, makes the music of Verde more bizarre, but also, way more special and unique.
Okay fellow Finnish obsessives! It's that time again. The arrival of another super cool, and of course super limted (only 300 copies worldwide!) sonic missive from the bizarre musical world that is the Finnish Underground. The is the second release we've carried from Verde, AKA Mika Rintala, who sometimes plays with Circle and Ektroverde, but more often is holed up in his home studio concocting all sorts of far out sounds. And far out they are, from bleeping alien melodies, to shuffling electronic jazz to minimal music concrete to droney hypno-rock and everything in between. Utilizing homemade instruments as well as traditional ones, Rintala constructs his own vison of the future (and at the same time, the past), a world of sonic mystery, assembled from unlikely parts into bizarre and beautifu arrangements, resulting in a truly curious, and truly wonderful collection of songs and sounds.
More Finnish musical madness in the form of this, the third and latest release from Verde, who just happens to be the musical alter ego of one Mika Rintala, who occasionally plays with Finnish dronerock legends Circle, as well as their jazzier offshoot Ektroverde. But when he's not helping with the rock or the jazz, he's holed up in his mad scientist laboratory, building homemade instruments, and using them to create incredibly demented, droney and druggy, beautifully abstract spaced out electronic soundscapes, that totally blow our minds.
Think Tangerine Dream, Space Machine, Christine 23 Onna, Hawkwind, Popol Vuh, Circle, it's some sort of Alien Krautrock, long drawn out buzzing blissful soundscapes, drenched in homemade FX, buzzing and blurry, super affected rhythms wrapped in slippery shifting whorls of dizzying synthesized sound. Like an android Can, all motorik and propulsive, shiny but always teetering on the verge of collapse. A complicated mechanical band, assembled from spare parts in the basement, wound up and wheeled into the studio. Angular melodies, abstract music box tinkles, simple shuffling drums, warm washes of synthesizer swoosh, skronky horns, splattery garage rock funk rhythms, bits of found sounds and field recordings, long stretches of primitive synth warble, bits of warped horns all tangled up in strange little space rock epics. Verde really shines when the sound is in full on far out space rock mode: a simple rhythm is unleashed, barrelling relentlessly toward infinity, leaving a swirling trail of junked FX, clouds of clank and clatter, thick whirls of bleep and bloop and whoosh, jagged fragments of melody left to drift weightless, angular guitar grit, a shimmering sparkling contrail of divine sonic detritus.
So cool.
