Venetian Snares
Horse and Goat

It was one of those bar nights, unhealthy and sticky with beer and cigarettes, where men flaunt their unstitched and dusty sneakers while the collar of their too-large shirts cling maliciously to their necks. The pilsner is ordinary, but money is scarce, and all you have left is the shredded, sour tobacco at the bottom of the packet. The few girls, as interesting as they may be, are six years older than you: those evenings, in short, that permit us, companions of snacks, to play badminton in the middle of civil protection parking lots and, above all, to unleash all the most idiotically cerebral and intellectualoid discussions that emerge at the moment. Probably because such debates have few opportunities to arise: the topics we favor, like a commentary on the figure of Eugenio of Savoy or a critical evaluation of a 1969 Traffic album, interest the average peer as much as a nil-nil draw in Serie B on a rainy Sunday morning. Tackling the inevitable topic of music with a friend, one of the rascals present interjected, saying: "But if you like Afecs Tuìn, you also have to listen to Venésscian Snèirs!" "And who would this Venessiàn Snàreo be?" I replied. "Venésscian Snèirs is like Ricciard Di Gièíms, but much nastier and more powerful," the guy answered. And that was enough to convince me.

I listened to Rossz csillag allas született, and I was satisfied: "I like this Aaron Funk, who releases music under the name Venetian Snares." Then I listened to Horse and Goat and truly understood what kind of pervert Aaron Funk was. I always wonder what effect it must have to blast tracks like "Prophilactic Eyehead", "Hepatitis Sundae", or "Richard Devine A+ Student" in the average Jesolo disco: the dancers go crazy and start writhing on the ground in spasms of the lower limbs due to the vain attempt to dance under tectonik, while the bystanders either try to flee in pangs of earache, or remain struck on the road to Damascus and, assuming the same expression as Aphex Twin on the cover of ...I Care Because You Do, begin to writhe in joy while colors and shapes start to distort for illogical reasons that we do not care to know. The only ones who remain unchanged are a few passing fifteen-year-old metalheads wearing Trivium t-shirts: since all electronics is the same and commercial, made without real instruments, and therefore soulless, there is no difference between the electronics of Venetian Snares, that of György Ligeti, and a mash-up between Igor-S & Lady Brian's violins and Destination Calabria.

Finally, the review:

In this short EP of six songs released in 2004, it goes beyond drum'n'bass or breakcore. And to say that in terms of malevolence, the brutallari are a breeze compared to breakcore. Glitch is the search for error, dissonance, what is usually avoided, the one in question is what connoisseurs (or rather those who explained it to me) call glitchcore. Aaron Funk knows the rules of harmony perfectly and breaks them all, punctually. The skillful conscious search for error and the wrong in music: indecipherable sounds mix with sounds that seem produced by a Milton Babbitt on acid and overpower all sampled, segmented, chopped, and rendered unrecognizable melodies. The little background music hummed on the way home after a Saturday afternoon of goofing off in trendy downtown bars is mutilated, raped, beaten, and occasionally recomposed but trampled by sounds that require more than one listen to be identified as sound or noise. The highly censored cover is eloquent: something falsely cute and cuddly that turns out to be perverse and "wrong."

At first approach, it may not be easy, so those who know little of electronics or do not have open enough views should abstain from listening: with all the good intentions, this album is, for them, the supreme horror. To be taken with caution in any case: doses taken in wrong moments or quantities might make one yearn for "California Gurls."