Venetian Snares — Doll Doll Doll

Canadian Aaron Funk, the mastermind between Venetian Snares is a musician highly regarded by me. He is truly one of the most innovative and uncompromising artists in technoïd music. He has just released a new album called "Doll Doll Doll".

The techno-part label of Ant-Zen, Hymen, has picked up Venetian Snares. This label has quite a reputation for releasing awesome but above all original things in the technoïd and ambient music genre. A label that suits Venetian Snares perfectly, because what we get served here is certainly not the usual shit. Chaotic break beats, harsh noise mixed up with accelerated drum and bass parts, crazy samples, walls of bizarre sounds... A good reason to dig somewhat deeper in Venetian Snares' music.

"Doll Doll Doll" starts off with the "Pygmalion" track. It begins as a quite normal break core track, but it gets a lot weirder using evil sounding piano samples and constantly changing beats. "Remi" is different, having a less dark atmosphere, using more strange samples and a somewhat jazz feeling. The following "I Rent The Ocean" is even more jazzy, and one of the most dark tracks on the album. The ambient part (I think it is sampled from the soundtrack "Ghost In The Shell", but I'm not sure) is extremely sinister but the disturbing saxophone and high-speed drum & bass give it a whole new dimension. "Dollmaker" is the next track, with nervous piano play and haunting strings, hard break beats, a roller coaster ride through all kinds of musical forms of expression (yes, even hip hop samples are used here). Still wondering how this could ever worked out, we get the next tasteful course served in the shape of "Befriend A Childkiller". It takes off quite softly (for Venetian Snares' basics anyway) but ends in the same hostile and offensive way the other tracks do. "Pressure Torture" is without doubt the harshest and most brutal track on this disc. Very intense, complex and violent, yet remaining catchy. It seems impossible that in this wall of noise and distorted sounds a happy trumpet shines through. The two finishing tracks, "Macerate And Petrify" and "All The Children Are Dead" less hard and more in the vein of the previous tracks, combining dark samples, incredible scary ambient parts and unusual break beats, squeezed together in an unrelenting package of sound overkill.

The sickness of the music is even made stronger by featuring artwork from Trevor Brown. Molested dolls in hospital beds, heavenly wounded and bandaged. Check out his website if interested.

Although Venetian Snares has released quite a lot of stuff (especially 12" vinyl) this latest album is definitely the best. It is also the most suitable album to start with if you're still unfamiliar with this artist. It combines the brutality, quirky ambient tunes and the jazzy & funky tracks from previous releases. The music remains somewhat indescribable due to the use of a lot of different styles, cultures and everything, but think of a really fucked up version of Aphex Twin on drugs. Or something. Sick and twisted, and recommended. Go play with dolls, if you dare...

For more information and some samples, visit the Hymen website.