VENETIAN SNARES
MY DOWNFALL (ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK)
PLANET µ
WORDS: AW HENDERSON

My Downfall (Original Soundtrack) begins with what is absolutely Aaron Funk's most gorgeous song. "Colorless" is an entirely beat-free, slow moving piece sewn together with what sound like exhalations of different bodies. Strings, choirs, angels and corpses all breath out on this song, and you can perfectly see the color draining away from the face of a body lying in the snow. It is a song unmitigated in beauty, and it deftly introduces the listener to the mood, if not the style, of the rest of this record.

Venetian Snares' Aaron Funk caught the first glimmer of popularity outside of his niche with 2005's Rossz Csillag Alatt Született, a work the luddites criticized for re-treading territory ten years old but that we enlightened few saw for the masterpiece it was. Although it would have been all too easy for Funk to slip a Rossz Redux somewhere into his line-up of releases to capitalize on his newfound (relative) popularity, he chose instead to pursue a course of alienating releases that catered to fans of the harshest of drill'n'bass. Many wrote off Rossz as a piece of accidental genius at best, and a fluke at worst.

Ah, how little we knew. It turns out our Canadian connoisseur of catastrophe was working on something special the entire time.

Like an afflicted genius wrestling constantly with demons that both inspire and frustrate his vision, Aaron Funk had to siphon off the frenetic insanity that exists in his mind slowly over two years before he was able to release what could easily be his most mature statement yet. My Downfall is widely known to contain only four tracks with drum breaks, but they should not immediately draw all of the listener's focus. As proven by the opener, Funk's ability to articulate nuanced sadness is as fine-tuned as his unrelenting mastery over the drum machine. He knows that most fans want the breaks, though, and so when he does deliver them, it is with purpose and with perfect timing.

"My Half" weaves every kind of drum break under the sun around a raw emotional core of wilting strings like strangling vines wrapped around the trunk of a dying tree. These vines drip razor blades in typical Funk fashion, but there are enough gaps through the tangles to see the beauty that was sacrificed to provide them their bridge to the sky.

The other three beat-filled tracks, the most talked about of which is the fabulous "Integraation," prove that Funk has yet to exorcize himself of all of his demons. But the frequent peaceful instrumental interludes show that he has cleared enough of them from his frenzied mind to allow some semblence of calm to fill in the gaps. Whether or not this is a permanent change, or just a fragile and temporary condition, remains to be seen.

I'm happy either way. To "appropriate" Roger Ebert's review of No Country For Old Men, for Aaron Funk to create one such album was a masterpiece. To do it again is a miracle.