Venetian Snares ‎– Cubist Reggae

Like a tweaking Picasso on acid-laced ganja, Aaron Funk deconstructs the basic elements of reggae, then shuffles them around the straight edges and outlines of his twisted psyche. Foregoing his staple Venetian Snares delicious insanity of drill and breaks, Cubist Reggae is a four-track EP, on which Funk bends and chops basic loops into short studies of the genre. Instead of a smooth head-nodding smoke-filled vibrations, the sounds of Cubist Reggae are snipped, dropped, and then left to reverberate across extensive delays. Cutup, layered, and indeed dubbed over itself, the experimental production of the tracks strips the reggae off its glamor, leaving the naked, flesh-dripping skeleton to stumble over itself into a neurotic blender of Funk's surgical kit. Where You Stopped The Heaviest reminds me a lot of the melancholic Öngyilkos Vasárnap, from Funk's 2005 milestone, Rossz Csillag Allat Született (Planet Mu). Overall, VSnares satisfies the cravings of warped time signatures, triggered samples and low rumbling dub, enough to perhaps hold us over since his last full length, My So-Called Life, was released on his very own label Timesig, sponsored by Planet Mu. Only the lengthy track titles hold some unsolved mystery. Could these be the remains of the original reggae sources? The EP works well within its sixteen minute span (not sure how the concept would stretch out to an hour), and it's definitely nice to see Funk explore another territory. True fans of VSnares will understand...

I agree with both previous comments. Truly an awesome outlet for such a technical wizard. I love dub music. I love digital destruction. However it just didn't work as well as it could have (for me).

It's great, but the tracks are very similar which is a bit of a let down. Nice and original, but a bit boring as 3/4 tracks are very repetitive and barely progress into anything that differs from the intros.

I would love Venetian Snares to pursue this sort of sound more, but with more variation throughout.

3.5/5.00.

This release excited me at first, but didn't quite reward additionaly listens the way I thought it might. The first two tracks are great (with the exception of that cliched womans-voice-ohhing-and-ahhing interlude in "heaviest"). They explore unconventional time signatures in a fluid, natural, groovy way. The last two were a bit mediocre, to me. Still I would label this a strong release by dint of its originality/freshness.

I hope Funk continues in this direction with a full-length of this sort, though - it could be amazing.