Venetian Snares, aka Aaron Funk, has proven himself a mad genius of drill'n'bass with Songs About My Cats. It's quite clear why
Mike Paradinas, one of the genre's pioneers and most masterful practitioners, has praised Funk left and right and released most of Funk's recordings on his Planet µ label. Songs About My Cats is unrelenting in its use of distorted samples and massively twitchy digital electronic sounds that pummel a listener. But despite the wicked throttle of fuzzy, crunchy sounds and lightning-paced clicks and blips, every minute is thoroughly engrossing and somehow almost relaxing. It's a sonic assault the likes of which
Aphex Twin,
Alec Empire,
Kid 606, and
Paradinas himself have been threatening to craft for years, but Funk takes it to a new level. There are melodies galore underneath the punishing noise-attack, and it's abundantly clear that Funk has slaved over each second of the album, twisting each individual note into some strange beast. But Funk doesn't resort to the usual loops and mathematical exercises of his peers, as there's an improvisational jazz feel to a majority of the songs, though the music would qualify as jazz only on a heretofore undiscovered solar system. Machine-gun staccato freak-outs lurk around every corner, and tender melodies start up and then warp into disturbing noir bubblings that sound like soundtracks for nightmares. Songs About My Cats is a masterpiece, and though it's bound to turn off many a listener, it's a sadistic yet emotional experimental electronic experience that just might be the crowning achievement of its genre. ~ Tim DiGravina