venetian snares

Something dramatic was needed to break my obsessive aural dependency on the sound of Elliott Yamin’s voice, so I revisited Venetian Snares’ Rossz Csillag Allat Szuletett, which I’d been enjoying quite a lot before Elliott poured molten sex into my ears.

It isn’t easy to describe why this album’s fusion of (mostly) classical music with drill’n’bass works for me, because at first blush the concept sounds insufferable. The thing is, as drum’n’bass subgenres go, I like drill’n’bass because it has a certain drama and intensity that I find lacking in the jazzy stuff. On the other hand, classical music has lots of drama and intensity but lacks riddim.

Track 8’s sampling of Elgar’s cello concerto in E minor fascinates me. The sample of that famous bit of melody is cut off one note later than you expect it to be – one would have thought cutting the segment off on the D would make for the obvious easy loop but instead it’s left for one more note, which weirds up the time signature and the listener’s feel of the melody. Every time I listen to the track it always makes me feel a bit off-balance at the start, but then I descend into a geeky wanky happy place where I muse about whether I’d feel the same way if I didn’t already know the classical piece, and whether this use of the sample is deliberately intended to elicit this response in the listener, and then I look to the track title for any help but unfortunately it’s called “Szarmar Madar” so nothing gained there; meanwhile, there’s an opera singer throwin’ down high E’s and the chaotic beat’s just tearing shit up, and I start thinking tasteless thoughts about how even Jacqueline du Pre would dance to this except oh wait oops and I’m not even sure whether any of this is good or bad but I like the fact that the song is making me think it.