Venetian Snares

Aaron Funk (born January 11, 1975), known as Venetian Snares, is a Canadian electronic musician based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He is widely known for innovating and popularising the breakcore genre, and is one of the most recognisable artists to be signed to Planet Mu, an experimental electronic music label. His signature style involves meticulously complex drums, eclectic use of samples, and odd time signatures, in particular, .

His 2005 release, Rossz Csillag Alatt Született, combined breakbeats with orchestral samples, and was released to critical acclaim, helping bring Funk and the genre into popularity within the experimental electronic music community.

Funk is a very prolific musician, often releasing several records each year, sometimes on several different record labels, including Planet Mu, Hymen, Sublight, and his own imprint Timesig, and also under different aliases, including Last Step, Snares Man!, Snares, and Speed Dealer Moms. He has also explored other electronic genres such as glitch, IDM, modern classical and acid techno.

Career

1990s to Early 2000s: Greg Hates Car Culture 
Funk began producing music as early as 1992, when he was experimenting with several 'ghetto blasters': I'd use a bunch of ghetto blasters playing all at once to play different sounds I'd recorded with some shitty ghetto blaster. Most of my sources I'd get riding around on my bicycle and just listening for interesting sounds. I'd use garbage bins and streetlights and anything else I could find that was hollow or metallic to bang out rhythms on. Then I'd set up all the ghettos and record them all playing into that same ghetto blaster. Then I'd play a bunch of those tapes all at the same time and record that and so on. Then I would do cut-ups or pause-ups of those tapes to create a more startling rhythmic effect. A strange ritual in retrospect.
I somehow came across this looping delay pedal that would hold a 2 second sample. This pedal coupled with the ghetto blaster experiments really changed my life.Funk then got an Amiga 500 computer, where he initially produced music through a music tracker, OctaMED. He formed the name 'Venetian Snares' after '...writing a track with really fast snare rolls that sounded like scraping a stick across a grate or running a pencil down venetian blinds in a distracted classroom'.

He would self-release several cassettes during the 90's, before making his first official release with the 1999 12" EP, Greg Hates Car Culture, followed by a split album with Stunt Rock, Fuck Canada // Fuck America, and more EPs in the next year 2000, including Salt, 7 sevens.med, Shitfuckers!, and his first full-length album, printf("shiver in eternal darkness/n");. Funk then moved to using a PC sometime before 2000, producing music in MED Soundstudio, a Windows port of OctoMED.

Early to Mid 2000s: Planet Mu Records and prolific output 
After hearing Greg Hates Car Culture while browsing a Minneapolis record store, Mike Paradinas (also known as μ-Ziq) immediately signed Funk on to his record label Planet Mu, leading to three releases for the label in 2001, a collaboration album with Speedranch, Making Orange Things, a 7" EP, Defluxion, and a full-length album, Songs About My Cats. In addition, he also released Doll Doll Doll, as well as split 12" with Cex and a raggacore 7" as Snares Man!, all in the same year. The Snares Man! 7" has been cited as influential in the development of raggacore. The following year, 2002, Funk released three full-length albums, Higgins Ultra Low Track Glue Funk Hits 1972–2006,  2370894 (Under Vsnares), and Winter in the Belly of a Snake, plus a 15-minute limited edition EP, A Giant Alien Force More Violent & Sick Than Anything You Can Imagine. 2003 saw the release of The Chocolate Wheelchair Album, Find Candace, a 7" EP Badminton, two split 7" EPs, one with Fanny under BeeSnares, and the other with Phantomsmasher, and an experimental collaboration album with  Hecate, Nymphomatriarch. Following 2004, Funk released Huge Chrome Cylinder Box Unfolding, three EPs, Horse And Goat, Infolepsy EP, and Moonglow/This Bitter Earth and a remix of Doormouse's Skelechairs. During this time period, Funk started using Cubase next to MED.

Mid-2000s to mid-2010s: Rossz Csillag Alatt Született and slowing output 

Funk first released in 2005 his tribute album to his hometown, Winnipeg is a Frozen Shithole, before releasing Rossz Csillag Alatt Született, an album inspired by Funk's recent Hungary trip that combines fast breakbeats with classical strings and trumpets, to critical acclaim. Tiny Mix Tapes called it Funk's '...most accomplished album to date', describing the album as '... of uncouth beauty that is at once sublime, timeless, cinematic, sporadic, and moving from start to finish for the uppity junglist or the CBC Radio 1 listener in your family'. At the same year, Funk has also released another album, Meathole, and debuted under his new acid-oriented alias, Last Step, in You're a Nice Girl.

In the later years, Funk's amount of releases would decrease to at least one each year, compared to as many as six earlier before. The next year, 2006, Funk released one album, Cavalcade of Glee and Dadaist Happy Hardcore Pom Poms, and a single EP, Hospitality. 2007 saw the release another classical-styled album, My Downfall (Original Soundtrack), an EP, Pink + Green, a 10" series of dubstep-styled Black Sabbath covers under Snares, and his first full-length self-titled album under Last Step. Funk followed it next year, 2008, with another Last Step album, 1961. He also released the Detrimentalist album and the Miss Balaton single in the same year. 2009 saw the release of the album Filth, and the Horsey Noises EP. Afterwards in 2010, Funk released the My So-Called Life album and a 12" collaboration with Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante under Speed Dealer Moms. Funk's only release in 2011 is the EP Cubist Reggae. 2012 saw three new releases by Funk, with two EPs Fool The Detector and Affectionate, and a Last Step album, Sleep. After an unusual absence in 2013, Funk's next release came in 2014 with a new album, My Love is a Bulldozer, as well as a self-titled debut collaboration album with Joanne Pollock, Poemss, and a self-released Last Step EP, Lost Sleep. Funk released the EP, Your Face, the following year 2015.

2015 to present: Bandcamp 
On August 26, 2015, Funk posted on his Facebook page that he was '...suddenly in very serious financial trouble,' and announced that he has launched his own Bandcamp page, re-releasing a majority of his releases, especially those previously out-of-print. Funk topped the whole Bandcamp best-selling list within the next 24 hours. As thanks to his fans, Funk self-released Thank You For Your Consideration on his Bandcamp page for a pay-what-you-want price. Funk later announced a new album coming February 19, 2016, called Traditional Synthesizer Music, with a preview single available to listen to now. This album was the product of Funk's experimentations with modular synthesizers, and was created exclusively on modular synthesizer hardware.

In 2017, Funk announced a collaboration with Daniel Lanois. This was recorded in Toronto and released in 2018 as Venetian Snares x Daniel Lanois.

Odd time signatures
Funk is well-known for using odd time signatures, especially . The track 'Szamár Madár' from Rossz Csillag Alatt Született uses a  time signature, being based on Edward Elgar’s 'Cello Concerto', which also uses this unusual signature. The album Thank You for Your Consideration also employs unusual meters instead of the  time used in most electronic music.

Discography

Studio albums
 Eat Shit and Die (1998, split with DJ Fishead, self-release)
 Spells (1998, self-release)
 Subvert! (1998, self-release)
 Fuck Canada // Fuck America (1999, CLFST, split with Stunt Rock)
 Rorschach Stuffocate (1999, self-release)
 printf("shiver in eternal darkness/n"); (2000, Isolate Records; 2013 re-issue, self-release)
 Making Orange Things (2001, Planet Mu, collaboration with Speedranch)
 Songs About My Cats (2001, Planet Mu)
 Doll Doll Doll (2001, Hymen Records)
 Higgins Ultra Low Track Glue Funk Hits 1972–2006 (2002, Planet Mu)
 Winter in the Belly of a Snake (2002, Planet Mu)
 The Chocolate Wheelchair Album (2003, Planet Mu)
 Huge Chrome Cylinder Box Unfolding (2004, Planet Mu)
 Winnipeg Is a Frozen Shithole (2005, Sublight Records)
 Rossz Csillag Alatt Született (2005, Planet Mu)
 Meathole (2005, Planet Mu)
 Cavalcade of Glee and Dadaist Happy Hardcore Pom Poms (2006, Planet Mu)
 My Downfall (Original Soundtrack) (2007, Planet Mu)
 Detrimentalist (2008, Planet Mu)
 Filth (2009, Planet Mu)
 My So-Called Life (2010, Timesig)
 My Love Is a Bulldozer (2014, Planet Mu)
 Thank You for Your Consideration (2015, self-released)
 Traditional Synthesizer Music (2016, Planet Mu)
 She Began to Cry Tears of Blood Which Became Little Brick Houses When They Hit the Ground (2018, self-released)
Venetian Snares x Daniel Lanois (2018, Timesig, collaboration with Daniel Lanois)
 Greg Hates Car Culture (2019, Timesig)

References

External links

 Venetian Snares / Aaron Funk at Discogs
 Venetian Snares at Last.fm
 Last Step's page on Discogs

Category:1975 births
Category:Breakcore
Category:Canadian electronic musicians
Category:Intelligent dance musicians
Category:Tracker musicians
Category:Musicians from Winnipeg
Category:Living people
Category:Renoise users