What ever happened to Venetian Snares?

Remember that guy? He was quite tall.

When I was properly getting into the whole IDM thing he was boshing out 3 albums a year. I really liked maybe 2 or 3 of them at the time but it was a little much output for me and I fell out of love with it pretty fast. I've been browsing Spotify today and dipped into a few tracks of his I used to enjoy and noticed he hasn't released an album in five years. What happened? Did he run out of ideas finally? 24 albums isn't a bad innings so I wouldn't blame him for not having anything new. I did a google and it seems like he tweeted about having run out of money or something. I hope he has money though and I hope it means he has been able to relax in a nice house with his nice long, soft (I imagine) hair.

Also this is a funny video isn't it

he's fine afaik. he had tax trouble many years ago but with help from friends he got out of it w/o having to sell his house. he posts on IG all the time and looks quite happy. i'd guess he's making tunes and doing Aaron Funk things. 

Thought maybe he had to pay loads of royalties on uncleared samples

  On 8/4/2023 at 5:56 PM, ignatius said:

he's fine afaik. he had tax trouble many years ago but with help from friends he got out of it w/o having to sell his house. he posts on IG all the time and looks quite happy. i'd guess he's making tunes and doing Aaron Funk things. 

Good to hear. Traditional Synthesizer Music sounds just as fresh and immense as the day it came out.

I think he puts out stuff that takes longer to develop, some of the newer stuff has much more subtlety and continual variation, but he may also have lost some of the unusually extreme level of motivation he had before? It would make sense, it's hard to perform at that level as you get older, like chess grandmasters start to decline at a certain age... I'm sure he will release more stuff though, just maybe a bit more slowly - it's not a bad thing at all, his newer stuff is some of my favourite

But yeah he did put out requests for donations at one point - I assumed he got hit with a demand for huge unpaid taxes, then afterwards he released a free album to say thanks, that had some really cool stuff on it. I mean it's very niche music, I can't imagine he's ever been really wealthy. He can still do packed gigs if he wants, so he should at least have that source of income. He might have health problems, especially considering the presumable drug use, but who knows, maybe he's fine

The real question is what happened to Hecate - have you seen what she puts on facebook these days? Hoy shit some kind of serious mind rot, like slurring stumbling anti-Ukraine stuff and conspiracies about EU leaders murdering wolves... awesome taste in music though and occasionally awesome stuff like videos of Cossack sword dances

Didn't he get into modular stuff, maybe he's got caught up in all the wires Tetsuo style ?

Yeah I gotta agree that he said publicly like 8 years ago that he was in a bind (that was right after he put together a massive modular thing), so taxes seem likely. Since...yeah I dunno. People get burnt out work and life-wise. I dunno. Beyond "Traditional..." some of his stuff around that era didn't have a lot of the raw energy of his earlier stuff. I think migrating from the style to a more 'mature' well rounded musical thing was also likely very tough. 

his amens were too fast.

and too short. 

I see some social media posts of him hanging out in public places, so maybe he is just enjoying life after years of monk-like seclusion? I recall reading that he doesn't like releasing stuff, perhaps the pressure and marketing is a drag. Traditional synthesiser music was tip top.

Side note: Years ago when I was walking in downtown Toronto blasting Venetian Snares on headphones, he walked past me. How often does that happen??

Aaron funk is a really cool name.

He know that Breakcore trend came to an end 

More amen and orchestral music zzz.. "Music that don't change just gets boring after a bit" like a fella from Autechre said 

It is interesting that like...his youtube doesn't have Songs About My Cats on it, which I loved. Always just a lot of traumatic imprint on all his stuff. "Winter in the belly..." starts w/the Dad content....with some luck he rounded out a whole era of trauma, because "Dad" is a very early song w/him singing, and late releases include a lot of that sort of stuff. Also (and I know this is very annoying psychosocial tone...) a lot of his sexual stuff was more in the middle of his arc. I dunno. 

I remember listening to Meathole in high school art class. I got a lot of energy from the structural aspects of his music. But the content was never very relatable. It felt like a full indulgence in like......tim burton mixed with Requiem for a Dream, then shortly thereafter stuff like Into The Void. This was a theme I found many ppl go through in the 2000s. 

It was a level of horror mixed with detachment that I never actually related to. Being older, I can hypothesize it was a mix of childhood trauma, small town sickness (which I do relate to), then like...antidepressant medications. Odd drug use (which to me would be more chemical than say, weed and shrooms). 

Anyway. I think he managed to come out ok thru it. Glad for him. Drugs + trauma happen but many ppl never produce anything from it. 

Will say that Songs About My Cats to me is the perfect level of confusion, human approachable release of his. Maybe he learned how to deal w/other stuff thru that. Being alone w/a cat is a good thing. 

 

It's pretty clear that Richard, etc, many artists imprint stuff, but with intent, and with the desire to imbue even those psychedelic oddities with their own idea of 'good'. Or at least express 'there is no emotion here'. So it's an odd thing to hear a lot of his stuff that tries to combine the tracker insanity w/singing, etc.

  On 8/4/2023 at 9:22 PM, mcbpete said:

Didn't he get into modular stuff, maybe he's got caught up in all the wires Tetsuo style ?

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Yeah, the absolute death of creativity

Him and aphex are evidence of that, stay away from gear lust kids

  On 8/5/2023 at 11:10 AM, cheep_hardware said:

It is interesting that like...his youtube doesn't have Songs About My Cats on it, which I loved. Always just a lot of traumatic imprint on all his stuff. "Winter in the belly..." starts w/the Dad content....with some luck he rounded out a whole era of trauma, because "Dad" is a very early song w/him singing, and late releases include a lot of that sort of stuff. Also (and I know this is very annoying psychosocial tone...) a lot of his sexual stuff was more in the middle of his arc. I dunno. 

I remember listening to Meathole in high school art class. I got a lot of energy from the structural aspects of his music. But the content was never very relatable. It felt like a full indulgence in like......tim burton mixed with Requiem for a Dream, then shortly thereafter stuff like Into The Void. This was a theme I found many ppl go through in the 2000s. 

It was a level of horror mixed with detachment that I never actually related to. Being older, I can hypothesize it was a mix of childhood trauma, small town sickness (which I do relate to), then like...antidepressant medications. Odd drug use (which to me would be more chemical than say, weed and shrooms). 

Anyway. I think he managed to come out ok thru it. Glad for him. Drugs + trauma happen but many ppl never produce anything from it. 

Will say that Songs About My Cats to me is the perfect level of confusion, human approachable release of his. Maybe he learned how to deal w/other stuff thru that. Being alone w/a cat is a good thing. 

 

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Yeah, I like the early more dada stuff. My cutoff point is the cylinder box album.

Hated Rossz, which seems to be everyone's favourite. It's so mallgoth I can see it wearing a nightmare before xmas backpack. Then he did that thing where the more musically adept and learned he became, the less interesting his music got

pure genius

  On 8/5/2023 at 5:00 PM, Freak of the week said:

pure genius

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mhm

There's a reason my av has been some variation on that cover since 2008 or so

  On 8/5/2023 at 4:53 PM, hello spiral said:

Him and aphex are evidence of that, stay away from gear lust kids

Amen.

Never got into him much, but did enjoy the Fool The Detector and Cubist Reggae EPs. Thought they were pretty cool.

  On 8/5/2023 at 4:53 PM, hello spiral said:

Yeah, the absolute death of creativity

Him and aphex are evidence of that, stay away from gear lust kids

Yeah, I like the early more dada stuff. My cutoff point is the cylinder box album.

Hated Rossz, which seems to be everyone's favourite. It's so mallgoth I can see it wearing a nightmare before xmas backpack. Then he did that thing where the more musically adept and learned he became, the less interesting his music got

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And he start to singing more and more but realized how awful it sounded. 

I think many jumped ship when that love bulldoser album came lol 

  On 8/5/2023 at 4:53 PM, hello spiral said:

Yeah, the absolute death of creativity

Traditional Synthesiser Music and She Began To Cry Tears Of Blood Which Became Little Brick Houses When They Hit The Ground are very creative

  On 8/5/2023 at 4:53 PM, hello spiral said:

Hated Rossz

I don't like Rossz as much as other albums, it's too straightforward in it's melodic structure for my taste, but it led to some awesome stuff later, (for example the David Lynch collab wouldn't have been so good) no big deal, if you release 542376 albums not every single one will be to everyone's taste. He didn't stop changing and trying new approaches, this was one thing he tried, and I think did better on My Downfall

  On 8/5/2023 at 4:53 PM, hello spiral said:

Then he did that thing where the more musically adept and learned he became, the less interesting his music got

I love his most recent stuff. He does stuff emotionally and sonically that literally nobody else is doing but it seems like not many people notice

Also writing off everything including Filth, Cubist Reggae, Fool the Detector... just seems nuts to me, but hey, I am a huge Snares fan so maybe I'm biased who knows

I like the old and new stuff. Wish he made another album

Huge fan here and curious what comes next if any.

  On 8/5/2023 at 6:25 PM, cern said:

when that love bulldoser album came

wasn't that just a one off concept thing? not like he's singing on everything since is he? there's the Poemss stuff but that's a collab with 2 other people i think.  

i have a bunch of his releases from different times in his discography that i like. i chatted w/him around 2014 about his process and mentioned renoise and he said then that he hadn't used a computer to compose music for ages and uses hardware only even for mixing. i think he uses renoise as a clock for his modular/drum machine rig.  it's evident in his youtube videos that he's performing his tracks and going right to 2 track w/them which is pretty awesome.  and doing multiple performances to get different versions or pick which is best or whatever. 

anyway.. he was super nice to chat with and seems like a nice dude.  i like the video he did for the eurorack drum module from hexinverter. it's kinda goofy funny.