Filth

Aaron Funk, the insane mastermind behind Venetian Snares certainly is a busy chap. In the past 11 years he's released 28 albums and EPs as Venetian Snares, and that's not counting his numerous other projects. Filth has arrived less than a year after Detrimentalist, and is only the first of two releases he has planned this year (the Horsey Noises EP is scheduled to come out in a few weeks at the time of writing). And while Detrimentalist was a pounding slab of jungle-influenced breakcore set to demolish eardrums worldwide, as Deep Dicking tears your speakers a new one it's clear that Filth is something of a left turn. Having said that, seemingly every new release from the Snares camp is a left turn of sorts. Filth then, isn't nearly as filthy as you'd imagine. With such charming titles as Chainsaw Fellatio and Splooj Guzzlers, you'd expect an aural whiteout on par with his demented Winnipeg Is A Frozen Shithole. Instead, Filth is a surprisingly restrained work, sounding more like than an IDM album on steroids than anything else, and I've got to admit it's something of a step-down from Detrimentalist. Despite the wonderfully puerile song titles, the music contained within is oddly chin-stroking fare, breakcore presenting itself as high art. Not that I really have anything against that, Cavalcade Of Glee And Dadaist Happy Hardcore Pompoms prove Mr Funk can make reserved, intelligent sounding breakcore. And of course, his classic Rossz Czillag Alatt Szuletett is perhaps the ultimate attempt at making “intelligent” breakcore, fusing vicious drum programming to samples by the likes of Bela Bartok. But here it all feels a little too held-back for its' own good. Perhaps Filth is an attempt by Aaron Funk to lose those who view Venetian Snares as something of a novelty, moving away from the typically mental sounds we're used to hearing from him. Indeed, the likes of Crashing The Yogurt Truck and the ending of Mongoloid Alien almost sound like something mere mortals can get their heads round, propelled by a stomping techno bass and acid house synthlines. There's nothing particularly bad on Filth, in fact the likes of Labia and Mongoloid Alien are very good. But even at it's best it sounds like an out-take off Cavalcade Of Glee, and at it's worst it sounds like Aaron Funk threw some beats together on auto-pilot. Filth just doesn't have a handle, anything to grab on to, and too often it just feels like a bewildering array of drum beats and synth-y bits that sail over your head without making a dent. The core Venetian Snares sound is still strong enough to make Filth an album worth listening too, but at the same time it really is just another Venetian Snares record. It would have made more sense to package this as an EP, as the best bits are more than worthy of Aaron Funk, even if they are a bit overlong. At the end of the day, Filth is a difficult, muddled record, one which I just can't grasp after several weeks of listening to the thing. Venetian Snares fans should get some enjoyment out of it (Kimberly Clark is a genuinely top-drawer tune), but anyone looking to get into Aaron Funk's bewildering body of work would do better to get any of his last few albums. Let's just hope Filth is a blip, rather than the beginning of the end for Venetian Snares.