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A TAV Curator’s Pick.

My Love Is a Bulldozer is an album by breakcore artist Venetian Snares, originally released in 2014 by Planet Mu Records.

Aaron Funk, known professionally as Venetian Snares, Canadian electronic musician based in Winnipeg. He is widely known for innovating and popularising the breakcore genre, and is one of the most recognisable artists to be signed into Planet Mu, an experimental electronic music label. His signature style involves meticulously complex melodies, eclectic use of samples, and odd time signatures, particularly 7/4. His 2005 release, Rossz Csillag Alatt Született, was released to critical acclaim and has helped bring Funk and the genre into popularity within the experimental electronic music community. Being a very prolific musician, he often releases several records each year, sometimes on several different record labels, including Planet Mu, Hymen, Sublight, and his own imprint Timesig, and also under other different alias, including Last Step, Snares Man!, Snares, and Speed Dealer Moms. He also has explored other electronic genres such as glitch, IDM, modern classical and even acid techno.- Wiki

Breakcore is a style of electronic dance music influenced by hardcore, jungle, digital hardcore and industrial music that is characterized by its use of heavy kick drums, breaks and a wide palette of sampling sources, played at high tempos. – Wiki

“With 'My Love Is A Bulldozer', Venetian Snares first new album since 2010's 'My So-Called Life', Aaron Funk surprises yet again, drawing on new ideas and on moods that have only been touched upon in his previous work.

The album seems to have a flowing sense of narrative, something akin to an opera, and unusually Aaron sings songs on it, which reinforces the sense of an emotional journey. Sonically he meshes together sometimes thunderous yet complex drum programming with delicate musical structures, creating, in places, a sense of haunted, atmospheric Jazziness, as well as spiky autumnal strings recalling the gothic orchestral beauty of his previous work.

Right from the start it's clear we're in new territory, with the distressed and violent '10th Circle Of Winnipeg', featuring a world weary jazz singer intoning deep emotional loss between crashing breaks and a corkscrewing bassline, giving us a sense of bewilderment and hurt, whereas 'Deleted Poems', all mournful strings and flamenco guitar, evokes empty desolation. '1000 Years' is the first time we hear Aaron's romantic singing with its orchestral accompaniment, coming across with a slightly medieval quality, cut up dramatically with angry fitful drum programming. On 'Your Smiling Face' Aaron's voice is both lamenting and slightly manic over an empty downbeat drums and piano, switching quickly in mood to the cartoony rush of 'Amazon'.

Title track 'My Love Is A Bulldozer' is as close as Snares gets to a pop song, with its gothic, self-deprecating vocals and dark synth melodies, but this is quickly splintered apart by rushing drumwork and metal stabs leaving you breathless. 'She Runs' sees things get warmer and more romantic, with epic chords and building, fidgety drums, rushing closer and closer in anticipation towards the end as if they're speeding towards a destination. 'Too Far Across', drops back to sparse, lonely lyrics, the vocals yearning to see a distant lover, over sad plucked guitar.

'Dear Poet' is an epic track that starts by working up strings and brass into shivering shapes cut with violent stabs, before amens drop in and the orchestral work becomes a dramatic accompaniment, the melodies darting across the deftly programmed drums. 'Your Blanket' finishes off the album, cold, beatless and balletic, gently building some light into the string arrangements, before the track finally forms together with bombastic brass, suggesting a potentially positive end.” – Venetian Snares Bandcamp

“For a genre with such distinctive features, breakcore has always been a multifaceted beast. Due to the very nature of the style, it can absorb other genres with ease, creating a specific sound without compromising the frantic brutality of its hardtek and jungle roots. No one knows this better than Aaron Funk, AKA Venetian Snares. His use of neo-classical sounds on 2005's Rossz Csillag Alatt Született made that record one of breakcore's most important albums. The rest of his back catalogue shows that he's no stranger to a high concept, either—something that's especially clear on My Love Is A Bulldozer, his first album as Venetian Snares in four years.

As you might imagine from the cover art, My Love Is A Bulldozer is a deeply ostentatious album, though knowingly so. Essentially, it's a breakcore musical, and every bit as ridiculous as that sounds. The album begins with the strings and jazzy breaks of "10th Winnepeg," complete with Shirley Bassey-esque vocals. It's not long before the track descends into a lurching bassline and Funk's furious percussion, but the flamboyant nature of the song is ever-present. Jazzy beats appear throughout the record, in a consistently impressive feat of drum patterning. "Shaky Sometimes" is a particularly great example—were it not for the occasional unmistakeable amen, you would presume it was simply a live drummer, and a fantastic one at that (at least for the first minute and half).” – Resident Advisor

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