Venetian Snares: My Love Is A Bulldozer (Planet Mu)

5:09 My Love Is A Bulldozer

Released: Now

- My Love Is A Bulldozer continues the relentless and manic pace that the Venetian Snares project is notorious for. For the uninitiated, Aaron Funk has been slicing and dicing a frenetic array of samples for well over a decade, fusing jungle breaks with metal and speed core influences, odd time signatures and a revery for 20th century avant-garde classical. Emerging at the start of the millennia with a slew of break-core releases that distilled a ferocious punk energy and an unashamed love of twisted noise, Venetian Snares began to really finesse his technique and the complexity of his arrangements, earning a coveted place on Mike Paradinis' Planet Mu roster. With prolific momentum, a healthy imagination and a dark sense of humour, Venetian Snares releases are amongst the most consistently innovative and expressive in the abstract electronic dance music scene, often drawing comparisons to contemporaries such as Aphex Twin, Amon Tobin and Squarepusher.

This record really doesn't deviate too far from the course, it's a fun psychedelic romp, well crafted and executed, with heavy jazz percussive sampling and sequencing pushing through to all out feverish jungle breaks, multilayered drones, textures and melodies, all demonstrating influences from throughout the musical spectrum.

It's refreshing to hear some lyrical utterances - a strange mix of perversity, sex and nonsense, that offers some human sanctuary from the rigid, electronic sequencing. Tracks like 1000 Years offer themes of fantasy romance, through a crazed arrangement that might be an effective alternative soundtrack to animations like Adventure Time or some of Chuck Jones' more adventurous Loony Tunes cartoons. It's almost like Aaron Funk has found some love in his life and moved a little sideways from his angry deviant schtick: there's a lightness in his attitude, perhaps best reflected in the lyric “I was born to kiss your smiling face“ on the track Your Smiling Face, The title track My Love Is A Bulldozer, amongst the best on the album and most symptomatic of his style, is practically a love song - albeit surrounded by mile a minute drum programming and harsh orchestral sampling. He sings “Only you can make my dick feel like this, oh baby! / My dick feels so hard it could break apart,”: compelling emotion from a fella that made the 2009 album Filth with a mix of dark acid sludge and porno samples, he almost appears to be having a good time!

Venetian Snares has carved himself out a niche of blistering, dense, chaotic DSP which certainly divides audiences. This record's another that fulfils expectations, but isn't without some filler and doesn't dangle the carrot too far beyond previous albums. It lacks the full shaped album experience that makes his electro side-project Last Step and many of his earlier records so listenable and repeatable, but it's a step up from his lazy last offering My So Called Life. I doubt he'll collect many new fans, but the old ones should feel pretty content.

- Patrick King.