Venetian Snares

Heptaedium – A M E N

a1822716383_10Heptaedium is best known for mixing metal, djent, breakcore, game music and French madness. 2018 saw a pure Djent album in The Great Herald of Misery, it is only logical there’s a pure breakcore album too! I’m much more of a breakcore fan than of Djent, best of all A M E N is name your price/free download in Bandcamp.

A M E N is basically Venetian Snares worship without the neoclassical influences, darker beats, a pinch of metal and a few below the belt jokes. Very close to Detrimentalist (2008) era. It is bursting with short experiments of different electronic genres, most of them very successfully and imaginatively executed.

A M E N is at its best when its not trying to be funny and is satisfyingly complex. The too much repeating clips of  S i s l o v e m e  and  L o g i s t i c  get tiresome but in  A c i d ‘ n’ S e x  one could expect the porn movie clips to be funny, but they are not. The composition is so frigging dark and horror-like the clips come across as disturbing, awesome.  S i s l o v e m e  is really imaginative and has one of the strongest breaks of the album.

L e a v e  is like Heptaedium’s version of Kétsarkú Mozgalom (Venetian Snares – Rossz Csillag Alatt Született, 2005), with a sad melodramatic female narrator. The beats of the first half of  L e a v e  are so frigging strong. It even has some Gabber destruction, extremely violent beats. The end of  B o u l e m a g i q u e  has another particularly good short experiment, groovy outro that resembles of driving music breakbeat/synthwave or something!

Aaron Funk might have gotten bored of this sound on his newest record but I sure haven’t. Good shit!

8+/10

Free download in bandcamp:
https://heptaedium.bandcamp.com/album/a-m-e-n

Venetian Snares Modern Classical Breakcore collection

Venetian Snares is Canadian Breakcore artist Aaron Funk who has released quite a few albums. This collection is based on the best bits of his modern classical works. At 53 minutes I had to leave a couple of songs out but I feel shorter length serves this kind of orchestral electronic clattering better.

Unlike many albums this collection does not go all in in the beginning, but is meant to collect steam along the way and in my opinion the last 4 tracks Room 379, Integraation, Senki Dala and Miss Balaton conclude as one of the strongest endings in the history of electronic music. I am humble, I know; but in actuality the strongness of the two whole tracks Integraation and Miss Balaton is to blame. That is not to say the beginning is weak,  I love Frictional Nevada but its end chaos is a bit annoying.

What really brought Venetian Snares into my regular playing cycle is these tracks; the way he mixes complex electronic music with organic sounding classical orchestrations. Among his other albums Venetian Snares has released two full modern classical electronic breakcore albums Rossz Csillag Alatt Született (2005) and My Downfall (Original Soundtrack) (2007). This collection is based around those two albums which have many of his best works.

After these albums Aaron Funk incorporated modern classical as a more subtle part of his style, a track may not necessarily be a modern classical track or something else. One can only stand so much classical violin squeaking which is why bunch of tracks having other elements along with the classical have been included in this collection (from albums Hospitality (2006), Detrimentalist (2008), My-so-called-life (2010), My Love Is A Bulldozer (2014)).

I wanted to include Hajnal and Kétsarkú Mozgalom from Rossz Csillag Alatt Született too but for the sake of big picture, I had to turn them off.

Favourite albums and tracks of 2015

Top 5 (alphabetical order)

A Forest of Stars – Beware the Sword You Cannot See
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Leviathan – Scar Sighted
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Mgła – Exercises in futility
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Paperi T – Malarian Pelko
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Tähtiportti – Tähtiportti
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Top 6-7

Abyssion – Luonnon Harmonia ja Vihreä Liekki

Swallow The Sun – Songs From The North I

Top 8-15 (random order)

Sigh – Graveward (possible grower)

Venetian Snares – Thank You For Your Consideration

Enshine – Singularity (possible grower)

Shape of Despair – Monotony Fields – I really wanted this to be awesome but its just good, allthough the first ~4 minutes of The Blank Journey are among my favourite metal moments this year.

Tribulation – The Children Of The Night

Pryapisme – Futurologie

Misþyrming – Söngvar elds og óreiðu (possible grower)

Ghost Bath – Moonlover

Possible growers that I haven’t listened enough

Swallow The Sun – Songs From The North II & III

Venetian Snares – Your Face

Arcturus – Arcturian

Paradise Lost – The Plague Within – I actually got a semi-kick out of it but then started listening to Tragic Idol and so far I haven’t seen any reason why to go back as Tragic Idol is so much better.

Carpenter Brut – Trilogy – Recently used it as background music for

Binding of Isaac Afterbirth and it worked really well in it, but haven’t tested longevity yet.

The Morningside – Letters from the Empty Towns

Opeth – Pale Communion

Mogwai – Music Industry 3. Fitness Industry 1.

Disappointments

Melechesh – Enki – Almost the whole album makes me want to fall asleep. I would use it as sleeping music if I wasn’t so annoyed that it is so fucking boring.

Last Step – Lost Sleep – Sideproject of Venetian Snares, I suppose Acid (genre) is not my thing.

Messer Chups – The Incredible Crocotiger – What happened to Messer Chups, they used to be so fun, merging b-movie clips and incredibly imaginative melodies with surf. Now they are just plain surf without any other flavours.
Lasten hautausmaa – Lasten hautausmaa – overhyped, yeah they aren’t bad but no they aren’t the new Mana Mana or even close.

Grave Pleasures – Dreamcrash – What a suitable name, after the surprise debut, still with the name Beastmilk, this album is so shy. All the great melodies and freshness are gone. Beastmilk was dangling on the edge of hipsterness and ridiculousness but miraculously avoiding it and being stunning. Grave Pleasures crashes headfirst, being both annoying and pretty good in every track. There may be a jewel there but I haven’t got to powerlistening this mess yet.
Trepaneringsritualen – Perfection & Permanence – Such a ridiculously bad album it created a time paradox and appeared in this list even though it’s been released in 2014.

Favourite tracks (random order)

Top 11

Venetian Snares – Ötvenöt 3

Tribulation – Melancholia

A Forest of Stars – Drawing Down The Rain

Mgła – Exercises in Futility IV

Ghost Bath – Happyhouse

Swallow The Sun – Lost & Catatonic

Leviathan – Scar Sighted

Mgła – Exercises in Futility VI

Tähtiportti – Viimeinen Tähtiportti

A Forest of Stars – Lowly Worm

Paperi T – Mainstream Solo

Next 6

Pryapisme – Futurologie 3–5

Opeth – Eternal Rains Will Come

Tähtiportti – Tähtiportti IV: Luciferin Pylväs

Tähtiportti – Tähtiportti I

Ufomammut – Daemons

Misþyrming – Söngur heiftar

Favourite cover art

Ufomammut – Ecate

BONUS – Top 2 2015 games to play while listening music

Rocket League (anything with a bit of a pace)

Binding Of Isaac Afterbirth (anything grim and gloomy)

MonuMental Progressive Collection I – from Progressive Rock to Black Metal to Breakcore

The first MonuMental Progressive Collection playlist starts with suitably uncommercial Finnish Progressive rock, advances to black metal and finally ends with modern breakcore classics. It’s idea is to progress naturally from genre to genre and also ramp up the quality track-after-track. It is a challenging ride, but when you are in contact with masterpieces, that’s what you bound to get.

1. For someone whose mother tongue is not Finnish the first track Kuha. – Tohtori Krabolan Telekineettinen testilaboratorio (From Telekineettinen Testilaboratorio, 2005) might seem like an odd bit. To be honest it was a slow starter for me as well. But from that Kuha. emerged as the best pure progressive rock band in Finland since Kingston Wall.

2. Dillinger Escape Plan‘s best instrumental, always surprising When Acting as a Wave (From Ire Works, 2007) serves as a small bridge to Chapter I: Introverting Dimensions by The Fall of Troy (From Phantom On The Horizon, 2008).

3. I know what you are thinking here, what is that half-emo band doing on a metal playlist. But that’s the thing, they are only half-emo, the other half is firmly rooted in Progressive rock, and most so on their EP Phantom On The Horizon. Give it a listen and you will see. Thomas Erak’s guitar playing is truly mesmerizing. At some point you may get mixed up and think you are listening to bastard cousin of The Mars Volta instead of an emo band.

4. A Prophet For a Pound of Flesh by Forest of Stars (From A Shadowplay for Yesterdays, 2012) is the first step to metal. On of the many bands who builds their flavour from black metal but has grown a vast amount of tentacles since their first efforts.

5. The Fecal Rebellion is by Mirrorthrone (From Gangrene, 2008) which is one of many Vladimir Cochet’s project. This one man powerhouse has such an amount of talent it is ridiculous. All his projects have only a few albums which I must take as the main reason of the fact that he has only advanced to cult classic status so far. If you mix modern classic music with complex black metal this is something you may get. Plus there’s harpsichord!

Waters of Ain by Watain (From Lawless Darkness, 2010) is a track that leaves me speechless every time. For me, this is the ultimate black metal track, mixing elements of black metal, progressive rock, Celtic frost and heavy metal perfectly. It is everything.

6. The only way to top Waters of Ain is to abandon metal completely with Venetian Snares – Integraation (From My Downfall (Original Soundtrack), 2007). Integraation is from Aaron Funk’s neoclassical releases where he mixes complex electronic beats with classical music elements. Also at best Integraation is actually as heavy as any metal track.

7. Venetian Snares – Miss Balaton (Bonus track) (From Detrimentalist, 2008). I know you aren’t supposed to put two songs of the same artist into a compilation. Whateva I do what I want. In truth I could not exclude Miss Balaton as it is even better than Integraation and fits perfectly after it. I won’t even start describing the goosebumps.

P.S. The playlist originally had Kuha.’s 25 minute Kalifi Myy Mustaa Valoa as a starter but it is not in Spotify.

266576-1449435327You can also find all playlists from playlists.net
http://playlists.net/epic-progressive-collection