Someone had to take amelodic, claustrophobic, oddly timed, electronic insanity as far as it would go.  This album spits in the face of anyone who has called an album by Richard Devine or Autechre a soulless technical exercise rather than legitimate composition, making no attempt to provide melodies or thematic elements that could make the music accessible and instead taking the style to uncharted heights of alienating incoherency and disorienting chaos.  It would be wrong to dismissively classify such left field music as IDM, though this music surely originates from the Warp records school of thought. “Hard IDM” would make a more fitting term, maybe.  Xanopticon’s “Liminal Space” is an experience so overwhelming one might easily need a break part way through.  This music moves at about 1.5x the speed of even the fastest death metal or grind music, and there are no repetitive rhythms to ground you.

“Liminal Space” is the sound of stress, of thinking too much, too quickly.  The music makes no attempt to breathe, or even to let the beauty of its own individual elements shine.  There are layers and layers of ambient sound in these tracks that are almost completely buried into inaudibility by distorted, forceful, frantic percussion - break beats and danceable grooves granulized into pulp and pointilistically shoved down the listener’s throat in an impossible rapid barrage bent on completely overloading listeners’ minds.  These desperate beats scream in your ear for the entirety of this record, but it feels a lot less like a aggressive display of force than an intense expression of panicked confusion, unlike the work of (fellow?) breakcore producer Venetian Snares, who is in my opinion the closest reference point for this kind of rhythmic ridiculousness.  In order to actually hear the subdued elements hidden beneath, one would have to play the music at a volume at which the beats would be unbearably loud.  Ironically for an album with the word “space” in the title, Friedrich seems afraid to let any emptiness or space into his music.  There are few dynamics; this music is consistently at full tilt and full volume.

Repeated listenings allowed me to more adequately keep pace with these busy rhythms, though every song has so many parts that it would be impossible to memorize or truly absorb them.  At best, this music falls into a bizarre, completely undanceable eight legged groove.  The mind can move to it, even when the body cannot.  The beats are very human despite their absurd complexity…  It is clear that the endless variations were sequenced rather than mathematically generated, and that the endlessly morphing beat is the aspect of his music Ryan Friedrich pays the most attention to.  The detailed nuances of the composition and production of the rhythm are truly his voice, the elements he uses to describe images and concepts inexpessible in ordinary language…  And through this cataclysmic blizzard of sound, one can glimpse a hallucinatory universe created by the vast networks of sonic layers that is absolutely one of a kind.

This music is perhaps best experienced one song at a time.  When evaluated alone, almost any of Friedrich’s tracks seems fresh, original and rich with ideas.  There are no weak tracks on “Liminal Space”, but it does appear that Friedrich has a formula.  Some tracks begin quiet and ambient, but in the end all are overtaken by heavy percussion by the 45 second mark.  The songs vary stylistically only in that some are even more dense and claustrophic than others.  In the less busy tracks, such as “Indec” or “Symphwrak”, some mournful, wintery synth chords and melodies can be clearly heard, showing traces of a less deranged side to Xanopticon’s musical intellect.  These melancholic tonal elements don’t add much actual warmth to the music, but at least they are expressions of easily understood emotions.  It’s not enough make me feel like any real respite has been provided, and the album is very exhausting to listen to as a whole.

Yes, I could easily justify giving this album a 4 star rating, docking it 1 for being too hard to listen to, or being too repetitive within its own bizarre idiom, but I must admit - I continue to be fascinated by this enigma of an album, and as it would seem “Liminal Space” is destined to be the sole full length of this unique and irreplacable musician, I feel compelled to give this unforgettable album 5 stars.

Aaron Funk’s new EP “Horsey Noises” might be his most consistent EP yet.  Continuing the druggy acid theme that crept into the record Funk released earlier this year, “Filth”, “Horsey Noises” is a lot more subdued, psychedelic and accessible.  Whereas “Filth” operated by its own unique, nearly untrackable, strange sense of rhythm, “Horsey Noises” is often danceable and feels quite human.  The vintage acid basslines squall in less chaotic, dissonant patterns, beginning with a song that seems destined to be a new anthem, the title track “Horsey Noises”, which features a single repeating vocal line delivered in Funk’s underused, smoky baritone.

The drums are skillful and complex, yet tasteful.  For sheer complexity, Funk has done far more than this; the programming here doesn’t feel superhuman in speed.  One can actually follow these tracks!  But it’s really okay, because after all these years, Funk has finally found his groove… these are the grooviest beats he’s ever produced.

“Horsey Vag Island” hints at drum and bass and psytrance without ever really leaving the realm of acid, and then transitions into a section with live bass guitar and drums (!) which continue to play complex signature Aaron Funk parts.  There’s a 4 on the floor section with a fuzz bass.  It’s great.

“Pig Dync” is the longest, darkest, most alienated feeling track on the EP, and my personal favorite.  The synth parts struggle to stay in tune, Funk has turned to one his customary odd meters.  He starts to sample pig snorts.  A voice speaks “It’s like a corkscrew…  It’s like a spiral.”  It ends with ghostly voices repeating a mysterious progression of slightly out of tune chords.

The “Horsey Noises” remix turns the original groove on its head, making it a lot more frantic and off kilter.  Funk unleashing the classic amen break and rocks out.  He has fun with the vocal line, running it through a series of sound-mangling vocoders.  It climaxes with a beautiful and intense melodic section.  It’s a great track that reminds me why Funk is the greatest break beat programmer I’ve ever heard.

In conclusion, “Horsey Noises” is a consistent, accessible EP of acid techno inspired stuff from Aaron Funk.  It’s a lot mellower than “Filth”, but no less hallucinatory and spaced out in feeling.  “Pink and Green”, the title of Funk’s similarly drugged out feeling 2007 EP, still applies here.  Great and listenable stuff.  Highly recommended.

“Filth”, Venetian Snares’ latest record as of this moment - another thematic one - is refreshingly, unapologetically abrasive.

With this record, Funk lets himself wallow in the ‘filth’, the seedy underbelly of our society, and makes no attempt at sophistication.  Most of the album is incredibly fast, dissonant, and frantic, the song names pornographic and obscene.  The record does at times allow itself to be sensitive, such as in the signature, chiming melodies of opener “Deep Dicking”, but even then the tone is always lonely, isolated and emotionally unstable, recalling the ‘exploring a long abandoned attic’ feel of “Winter in the Belly of a Snake” or the straight up horror of another of his darkest records, “Doll Doll Doll”.

Summarily, the album feels like the most self destructive drug (stimulant) binge imagineable, taken further and further without any thought of self preservation.  It is the sound of desperation and extreme densensitization.  The rhythms will make you sea sick, attempting to dance will end in a heart attack or with your face flat on the floor.

But this is not Funk’s typical breakcore.  Funk’s favorite genre is now apparently acid, and what better to express the restlessness of a stimulant high?  The squalling, babbling basslines ramble with twice the insanity of any original early 90’s acid, the insanity only heightened by Funk’s penchant for time signatures.  If this is acid, it’s some pretty hard acid.  And the pieces are as complex as ever.  For sheer unpredictability of rhythm, little can match this album.  Aphex Twin’s “Analord” was a solid and competently produced entry into the genre of acid; “Filth” actually takes it in new directions.

There is one thing about the album though - every track really is extremely similar.  The formula described above doesn’t vary too much…  With similar tempos and acid techno timbres in every song, the tracks only begin to distinguish themselves upon many repeated listenings.  Only “Mongoloid Alien”, with its processed vocal, and “Kimberly Clark”, with its memorable fuzzed out bassline, manage to be at all catchy.  This and the constant, tense unease which permeates the album, seemingly on purpose, make it really difficult to listen to unless you really do have THAT much energy to expend.

In conclusion, “Filth” is an interesting and complex record that, while unique, suffers from a certain lack of listenability.  I’ve grown to enjoy the album a lot, but you’ve definitely got to be in the mood.  Aaron Funk may have made the least relaxing album of the year.  His new EP, “Horsey Noises” is both a more accessible and diverse exploration of the some of the same acid techno inspired ideas.  4 stars for “Filth”.

This rare EP consists of one song, 15 minutes in length, and it’s every bit as epic as one could hope.  Into a single track, Aaron Funk pours all his creativity, energy, focus and compositional meticulousness.  Could this be Funk’s greatest work ever?  After hearing most of the man’s fantastic discography, I do in fact think this EP could be my favorite.

Being that this is an earlier Snares release, Funk’s edgy horror tendencies are in full swing, and the volume is consistently set to 11.  This record is the perfect example of how this man used to be louder, scarier and just plain weirder than any of the competition.   While the newer Snares albums have a lot of beautiful, cleverly orchestrated melody and emotional depth, there’s a certain macabre ferocity on songs like this that’s just so raw and honest.

The album’s title might make you laugh, but it takes itself seriously.  From the beginning, the music feels huge, unsympathetic, smart, agile…  Funk’s beat programming dances around faster than the baffled listener can process through a single listen, but always keeps the signature caffeinated, hyperactive groove.  Listening to this album for the first time is like being suddenly hit by a completely overwhelming wave…  It’s so densely packed with ideas.  It’s really amazing how much drama he can create with simple drum sounds.   With only ambience and rhythm, he tells a story, and it’s entirely convincing; it really DOES feel like a message from an extra terrestrial tyrant, violently delivered in some strange language.

There’s a minute of ambience before the beat slowly forces its way into the mix through layers of filters.  Warbling, dissonant, almost random sounding chimes ooze out an odd melody.  The beat picks up…  smooth pads fade in, bass accents begin to form some kind of tonal idea.  The beats seem to fall apart… the kicks and snares change to odd shrieks and scrapes.  The tension continues to build.  And build.  At one point the beat pauses for a strange, animal scream of agony to drag itself into the mix.  Most of the middle of the piece is a distorted, frenetic beatfest, with gaps of eerie ambience, eventually leading into an epic chord progression, complete with squalling, distorted bassline, and the first and only coherent melody of the song.  All this happens around 9 minutes, and sounds not near as terrifying as the preceding sections, but no less mysterious.

Upon reaching the conclusion , I was pleasantly surprised to find that Funk knows that the end of an epic track like than this needs a little more “oomph” than usual.  Any sense of ‘hope’ or positive energy is shattered.  This is the most punishing, violent moment in Venetian Snares history, bar none.  Funk shows us why electronic music can be more hardcore than any death metal will ever be.  The beat becomes an absolute wall of noise for 2+ minutes, slamming merciless through the speakers in an inhuman, infinitely hostile ROAR.  It blasts itself into one final, absurdly groovy rhythm before sputtering out for good.

In conclusion, I cannot recommend this EP highly enough.  This is Venetian Snares’ best track ever, and he has a lot of great ones.  It certainly isn’t among his more accessible work, but if you can appreciate atmosphere in music, can stand a bit of noise, and don’t necessarily need a lot of melody to entertain you, I think it’s easily enjoyable.  It’s some of the most intense music known to man.  5 stars.

Chris Clark is a rising name in the IDM / glitch scene, and it’s really surprising how much his work seems to resonate with today’s youth.  Autechre and Aphex Twin really have become the music of the previous generation…  I’ve met several people in the Evergreen audio department who are heavily familiar with his work, but not the Autechre discography.  That’s a damn shame, but Clark is still definitely worth something on his own.

Clark is all about heavy beats, hi-fi yet very analog production, granular synthesis, and a sort of short, sweet and to the point attitude that could be called impatience (in other words, the opposite of Richard Devine).  Aphex Twin appears to be his biggest influence (the more energetic side of “Drukqz”, the better parts of “Analord”) on this EP, but Clark is a lot more focused on the overall sound than on meticulous and planned out composition.  He doesn’t have a lot of subtlety or dynamic range… everything is punchy and struggles to outblast the other elements of the song.  He’s also not afraid to leave a lot of grit in his songs…  there’s little clinical precision here.

“Throttle Furniture” doesn’t have as much diversity as his full length albums, and focuses almost exclusively on his more aggressive side.  The tracks generally follow a formula…  cue extremely heavy, danceable rhythm, soon followed by a thick synth bass line reminiscent of drum n’ bass or Venetian Snares, and a floaty minimal Aphex Twin style melody to top it off.  He usually ends his tracks with a lot of quick filters and effect-laden flourishes that occasionally overload the mix in highly noisy fashion.  His beats straddle the line quite nicely between intensely varied IDM glitchfests and maintaining a consistent groove.  The only variation from this formula to be found in this EP is the  final track, “Dusk Swells”, which is basically a pretty synth string loop, but very emotional.

The first track, “Herr Bar” is probably the highlight, featuring a really well produced breakbeat groove and good use of musicbox / chime sounds for a melancholy, alienated feel that again recalls Aphex Twin.  “Re-Scar Kiln” is the danciest track, featuring a frenetic, dissonant bassline.

In conclusion, this EP sounds great and is fun to listen to, but ends up reminding me of the subtitle to one of its track titles - ‘brief fling’.  The songs don’t really have time to evolve and breathe; it’s over before you know it.  Clark’s strength definitely lies in his really powerful sounding production… his compositional skill, while definitely up to par in general, is not best represented here.  3 stars.

Mike Paradinas has clearly abandoned his formula and had some fun with “Bilious Paths”. The simplicity and catchiness of most of the “Lunatic Harness” album (”Mushroom Compost”, “My Little Beautiful”) is mostly absent, as are the more repetitious structures he used to employ… Old µ-Ziq tracks were essentially looping, layered, beautiful melodies with overlaid freeform drum programming. These songs, however, are constantly shifting, with no consistently present element to ground the listener. As many have said, they are easily the most complex music Paradinas has made. For that reason, “Bilious Paths” probably shouldn’t be anyone’s first µ-Ziq album. However, if you’re already a fan and don’t mind having to hear songs a few times before they stick in your mind, it’s hard to go wrong with this one.

It seems like Paradinas is finally paying attention to his sound design and production… sounds flow, blend, reverb and crunch more cleanly and precisely than ever before. He’s gone from the lo-fi sampled break beats of old to a fully polished sound on par with such perfectly engineered masterpieces as Aphex Twin’s “Drukqz”.

As some have mentioned, the sound is definitely a lot harsher this time around, too, although Paradinas has always loved his distortion. Those who speak of a more urban feel… well, it’s here. These tracks are the grooviest and most rhythmically focused in the µ-Ziq catalog, bar none.

Yet for all this talk of differences, there are still plenty of ways in which this is absolutely signature µ-Ziq. Looking for his characteristic string patches and fluid rhodes-ish melodic sounds? They’re undoubtedly here, and I agree wholeheartedly with the person who said that this album “glows with melody”. The feeling, the emotion, hasn’t changed too drastically either. The more aggressive parts of the album do little to cloud that perfect, carefree and yet totally hip optimism a lot of the best µ-Ziq moments have had. The spectrum of emotions here should be familiar to anyone who’s listened to this man before.

So really, unless all the detractors only heard the album once, I can’t imagine why anyone would label “Bilious Paths” some kind of let down or disappointment, especially after the wildly uneven “Royal Astronomy”. When I really think about it, this is probably the most consistent µ-Ziq album, and the one I have the least issues with. It doesn’t bludgeon you over the head with immediate standouts, but I can’t think of a single thing about it I don’t enjoy, at this point. Highly recommended.

And if you want something REALLY different from the usual µ-Ziq style, check out his latest, Duntisbourne Abbots Soulmate Devastation Technique, one hell of a nightmarish, hopeless and strange album. It’s even more ridiculously underrated than this one.

Originally published on Amazon.com on March 28th, 2009.