Courtesy of Planet Mu
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"The modular is really interesting actually," says the artist. "You're spitting stuff at it and it's spitting stuff back, which you then have to react to and then it's reacting to your reaction. It's this real back and forth, like you're communicating with another entity. It's almost like a bandmate, but you somehow have access to their neural network."The whole thing was recorded at Funk's home in Winnipeg, Manitoba, despite the fact that he named his 2005 album Winnipeg is a Frozen Shithole. "It's cool here," he says. "I've got a house and a nice studio setup that I've built over the years. Winnipeg is such an affordable place to live too, compared to a place like Toronto. It costs about a quarter of the money to live here. Also, Winnipeg's a really wicked place for artists and weirdos that don't wanna have to hustle all the time."Residents of the Manitoba capital may have even unknowingly seen Funk perform over the last month or so. If you've been to a show headlined by DJ 1997 Rave Flyer then congratulations, you've attended a secret Venetian Snares performance, although chances are you wouldn't even recognize the music. "I was using this Elektron analogue rhythm drum machine and a 303, so I've been sampling and chopping jungle breaks in that thing. I sampled about 50 trailers from YouTube, but just sampling the names of different actors. I set it up so that each time that triggered, it would randomly say the name of a different actor. It was lots of fun."Read More on THUMP: Venetian Snares' New Album is Made Entirely With Modular Synths
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However Funk's time in the Canadian electronic scene hasn't always been so enjoyable. His formative years were actually a bit stifling. "The 90s were kind of awful for me here," he says. "I'd go to raves and jungle parties, but all those people thought my music just sounded like random nonsense. It was just too much for them. That felt weird to me because I was like, 'I'm making some rad jungle tracks that are even more mental than what's happening right now,' but it really didn't go down too well."Read More on THUMP: Scratch and Switch: Red Bull Thre3style Nationals Brought Winnipeg to Life
Even now, Canada's love for Venetian Snares pales in comparison to places like Ireland and the UK. It seems that Funk's homeland has swept one of its musical geniuses under the rug. Whatever the reason for that, it's not going to stop the artist, who'll be producing caustic brain-melters until his dying day."I'm just sort of compelled to make music. I'll be doing it for the rest of my life, I think. Unless I get stabbed in the ears or something. Fuck, I would be so sad if I got stabbed in the ears."Traditional Synthesizer Music will be released on Feb. 19 via Planet Mu's imprint Timesig, preorder the album here.Venetian Snares is on Facebook // Twitter // SoundCloudDaryl Keating is on Twitter.