I hate to rant on in a sort of 'freaky electronic music' binge, but it's all that's on my mind lately, excepting progressive time signature crap - and that's not for everyone.
Neither is breakcore, really, and I can see why. A synopsis couldn't hurt. Basically, as I understand it, Breakcore is a fusion of the genres of gabber, glitch, noise, and IDM. Just as speedcore was a response to the childishness of nu-style gabber and happy hardcore, breakcore is the response to IDM being too ambient... or something like that. I see Aphex Twin and Squarepusher listed as Breakcore a lot, and I'm not sure if it's true. I doubt that AFX (that's Aphex Twin, don't ask me why, it was his idea - him being Richard D. James, fyi) really qualifies, unless some of his more obscure and harder to find stuff fits the label. As for Squarepusher - he's really all over the place. As long as no one calls him jazz, it's all good. Anyway.
Breakcore, in my experience, is typified by harsh breakbeats, and a maximum output of sonic density. Artists will try to cram a lot of sound into one piece of music... resulting in what can sometimes seem an imposing wall of noise. Noise music, however, is an altogether different thing - it's made with lots of static, tape-looping, and vicious feed-back. I do enjoy some noise music, but it takes a very specific taste to like it. If someone you know doesn't like Venetian Snares and calls it 'not music', do not show them noise music. Heck, even the most hardcore VSnares fans don't like the searing feedback... I do, but again, I'm not everyone.
Breakcore is primarily made with sampled drum noises, synths, and crazy smooshing off sounds together to create sound effects that can't be replicated acoustically - a good example is the 'snare rush' VSnares does in a lot of his songs, that blurs the sound together into one continuous grating stream. If you're a fan of gabber, IDM, glitch or noise music, breakcore is probably a good idea to check out. There's some melodic type stuff out there: notably, a lot of Dev/Null's tracks, and a huge amount of VSnares, cosnidering his vast discography - especially the much toted album Rossz Csillag Alatt Szuletett by Venetian Snares - the title is Hungarian, and means 'born under a bad star'. Everyone who like VSnares usually loves this album, and it's reccomended by people getting other people into breakcore, which bothers me immensely. It's like reccomending Metallica to people looking for Progressive metal... perhaps not that bad. But the album doesn't really epitomize the genre - it is an amazing album, don't get me wrong. Hungarian feeling string orchestras mixed with vicious VSnares-esque breakbeats is awesome, but... it's not the best example. VSnares goes melodic on a lot of his other albums too, so people should check those out. I'd reccomend Rossz, as well as The Choclate Wheelchair Album and Higgins Ultra Low Track Glue Funk Hitsn 1972-2006 - yes, they all have long and weird titles, but those are some good albums.
In any case, I'm going to link BrEaKcOrE-AdDiCts, and say that anyone who's intersted in checking out this totally diverse, unreal, out of the way and awesome genre gives it a look. I reccomend Dev/Null and Speedranch - they have the most stuff for free download. Dev/Null is a lot more melodic, and Speedranch is a lot more noise influenced, but their both good.
As a sample of this delicious genre, I'm providing todays song of the day - Bolt Thrower In A Chinese Resteraunt by Dev/Null. This might not be the best song he offers, but it's my favorite. It starts off a bit frighteningly, so for those who want something more accessable, check out Symphonies of Suckness. Instead of wasting my bandwidth, and dealing with Megaupload (though I love them), I'm just going to link to the page for downloads on Dev's site. Here is the link - the MP3 section isn't hard to find. If you like it, please check out more, and if not... well, you're silly.
Showing posts with label Venetian Snares. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Venetian Snares. Show all posts
Monday, January 15, 2007
Saturday, January 13, 2007
As Promised
Like I said - second post.
I have some things to cover in this one that are actually important. First, an update on my jam session with emotional yet not so technically proficient guitar player, Django!
Things went quite well this time, I think a lot better than they did last time. I'm not even sure if it could be called a jam session - basically we tried to get down parts to a song for all the time he was over. We actually succeeded to a degree as well. I was convinced I didn't want to do something in normal time, and I had been working on this crazy 5/4 / 6/4 intro thing that I wanted to work with. We started on that, and didn't really get very far with it - so then we started working on an intro hook in that pattern - alternating between 5/4 and 6/4 every bar, essentially amounting to 11/8. Then we took a chorus pattern in 6/4, and then started working on a bridge in 5/4. Basically, we had to go back over some stuff, and we don't have anything solidly finished, but we have a lot of components for what promises to be a sweet song that's a hybrid of prog-metal, mathcore, and some form of death something. I'm loving the math-core influence.
I also have a jam to go with Julien, the 'Metallica' kid. I dunno how that will go - I wrote lyrics to a song of his, would like to see how that goes - and maybe we'll get something accomplished.
As for the other things I wanted to rant about - I wanted to say some things about my posting of a VSnares album. I know that I have held that I will not post albums by my essential artists - and yet in two days, I've posted two of them. I think the MSI album speaks for itself - it was an accompaniement to the review - but why the Snares? Mostly because I realize that there's not enough exposure to Aaron and his wonderful music - I fell into the world of breakcore purely by mistake, but Venetian Snares makes tracks so innovative and wonderful I can't help but want to share them. I was originally just going to post one track from that album, because I found it amazing, but then I wanted to post another, and another, and now, I have uploaded my favorite Venetian Snares album for everyone to enjoy. I've also stumbled upon something amazing... BrEaKcOrE-AdDiCts. Holy crap. This site is astounding - almost every artist there has an MP3 download section, and over the course of just today I've exposed myself to tons of new artists. Expect to see some breakcore tracks posted in the next little while.
That's all for now, I suppose. For those of you who haven't immersed yourselves in the world of odd time signatures, I suggest you check out Dream Theater, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Venetian Snares... and that's all I can think of for now. Rush is pretty good for it too. Just do a Google for "Mathcore", and you'll do fine.
I have some things to cover in this one that are actually important. First, an update on my jam session with emotional yet not so technically proficient guitar player, Django!
Things went quite well this time, I think a lot better than they did last time. I'm not even sure if it could be called a jam session - basically we tried to get down parts to a song for all the time he was over. We actually succeeded to a degree as well. I was convinced I didn't want to do something in normal time, and I had been working on this crazy 5/4 / 6/4 intro thing that I wanted to work with. We started on that, and didn't really get very far with it - so then we started working on an intro hook in that pattern - alternating between 5/4 and 6/4 every bar, essentially amounting to 11/8. Then we took a chorus pattern in 6/4, and then started working on a bridge in 5/4. Basically, we had to go back over some stuff, and we don't have anything solidly finished, but we have a lot of components for what promises to be a sweet song that's a hybrid of prog-metal, mathcore, and some form of death something. I'm loving the math-core influence.
I also have a jam to go with Julien, the 'Metallica' kid. I dunno how that will go - I wrote lyrics to a song of his, would like to see how that goes - and maybe we'll get something accomplished.
As for the other things I wanted to rant about - I wanted to say some things about my posting of a VSnares album. I know that I have held that I will not post albums by my essential artists - and yet in two days, I've posted two of them. I think the MSI album speaks for itself - it was an accompaniement to the review - but why the Snares? Mostly because I realize that there's not enough exposure to Aaron and his wonderful music - I fell into the world of breakcore purely by mistake, but Venetian Snares makes tracks so innovative and wonderful I can't help but want to share them. I was originally just going to post one track from that album, because I found it amazing, but then I wanted to post another, and another, and now, I have uploaded my favorite Venetian Snares album for everyone to enjoy. I've also stumbled upon something amazing... BrEaKcOrE-AdDiCts. Holy crap. This site is astounding - almost every artist there has an MP3 download section, and over the course of just today I've exposed myself to tons of new artists. Expect to see some breakcore tracks posted in the next little while.
That's all for now, I suppose. For those of you who haven't immersed yourselves in the world of odd time signatures, I suggest you check out Dream Theater, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Venetian Snares... and that's all I can think of for now. Rush is pretty good for it too. Just do a Google for "Mathcore", and you'll do fine.
Apparently a cure for boredom
As promised, a new album is going up today - as well as perhaps a follow up post on some musical musings later on in the day. For now, I'll try to be concise.
Right now, I've got a jam with that fellow I spoke of some time ago in about fifteen minutes. We might have vocals for this mix, so that will certainly be something interesting - I've never garage-banded with a vocalist before. I'll post an update on how all that goes.
As for the album promised: I present to you, Winnipeg Is A Frozen Shithole by Venetian Snares. I try to avoid uploading stuff by the Funk man, but I consistently realize this album is too good to not expose people to.
As I said, I'll post thoughts about music, jam progress, and new track discoveries later - for now, enjoy the breakcore. Megaupload link is here.
Right now, I've got a jam with that fellow I spoke of some time ago in about fifteen minutes. We might have vocals for this mix, so that will certainly be something interesting - I've never garage-banded with a vocalist before. I'll post an update on how all that goes.
As for the album promised: I present to you, Winnipeg Is A Frozen Shithole by Venetian Snares. I try to avoid uploading stuff by the Funk man, but I consistently realize this album is too good to not expose people to.
As I said, I'll post thoughts about music, jam progress, and new track discoveries later - for now, enjoy the breakcore. Megaupload link is here.
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Power Surf-Metal? Win!
Song of the day: Mr. Sandman by Blind Guardian. This is without a doubt one of the best covers I've ever heard. For one, this song is utterly addictive by itself... adding in the little chorus hum is almost impossible not to do. Secondly, Blind Guardian, one of the premier pioneers of the power-metal sound, deserves some recognition - they started talking about wizards and swords in their songs and actually meant it. For note, the 'breakthrough' album for power-metal was Helloween's Keeper of the Seven Keys Part 1, though I haven't listened to it as much as I should. Suppose there's always more music for me to dip my tastes into. Megaupload link is here.
On the note of new music, I just recently came into the possession of Necrophagist's amazing two album discography - I was listening to their first album, Onset of Putrefaction last night, and I have to be honest - I didn't know death metal bands like this actually existed. Song names like Dismembered Self-immolation and Intestinal Incubation - I was totally taken aghast. This is one of those bands that people use when they want to make fun of death metal. And yet, I actually liked listening to them. So far, that first album is a top contender for album of the week. At least they didn't stretch quite as far as "Dripping Bloodgore in the Demonic Rancid Filth of Your Putrid Wounds", or something. Though, that would be a cool song. I will go about trying to work out what it would sound like.
The great thing about the year 2007, is that it holds more releases from one of my favorite artists - I speak here of Venetian Snares. If you hadn't gathered from the blog url, VSnares is, in my opinion, one of the best artists out there - and at three albums a year, it's hard for me to not be excited about his next releases. I got into Mr. Funk a while after he'd been producing, so while I can appreciate all his older albums, it's different than saying that I liked him while he actually produced something - though, to be fair, I thought Hospitality (his latest release, in October 2006) was just an in-part continuation to his prior album. It was only six-tracks long, and didn't do much for me. Thankfully, however, new soundscapes are always being explored, and maybe his next album will push boundaries even further. In case anyone really wanted to know, my favorite album of his is Winnipeg Is a Frozen Shithole. Love love love.
On the note of new music, I just recently came into the possession of Necrophagist's amazing two album discography - I was listening to their first album, Onset of Putrefaction last night, and I have to be honest - I didn't know death metal bands like this actually existed. Song names like Dismembered Self-immolation and Intestinal Incubation - I was totally taken aghast. This is one of those bands that people use when they want to make fun of death metal. And yet, I actually liked listening to them. So far, that first album is a top contender for album of the week. At least they didn't stretch quite as far as "Dripping Bloodgore in the Demonic Rancid Filth of Your Putrid Wounds", or something. Though, that would be a cool song. I will go about trying to work out what it would sound like.
The great thing about the year 2007, is that it holds more releases from one of my favorite artists - I speak here of Venetian Snares. If you hadn't gathered from the blog url, VSnares is, in my opinion, one of the best artists out there - and at three albums a year, it's hard for me to not be excited about his next releases. I got into Mr. Funk a while after he'd been producing, so while I can appreciate all his older albums, it's different than saying that I liked him while he actually produced something - though, to be fair, I thought Hospitality (his latest release, in October 2006) was just an in-part continuation to his prior album. It was only six-tracks long, and didn't do much for me. Thankfully, however, new soundscapes are always being explored, and maybe his next album will push boundaries even further. In case anyone really wanted to know, my favorite album of his is Winnipeg Is a Frozen Shithole. Love love love.
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