12. Venetian Snares – Cavalcade Of Glee And Dadaist Happy Hardcore Pom Poms
I love all of Aaron’s music equally but when this album came out, around when we were making Stadium Arcadium, I would get stoned and listen to it and just be like, ‘What the fuck?’ I had never heard melodies like it. I’d never heard beats that fast. Where in many ways electronic music was a mystery to me in terms of how it was done, that just sounded like… woah. I know him well and I’ve learned a lot from him, but I listen to that and I still don’t how the fuck it’s done. What he’s able to do with the synthesiser, or a drum machine, or a computer, it defies comprehension.
I feel like his album is a good, well-rounded example of his ability to create beautiful melodies and rhythms that are faster and crazier than anything else, but in a way that compliments the melodies perfectly. I know that despite how happy that album is, he was in a sad period of his life when he made it. There’s a beauty to that because it’s one of the happiest records he’s ever made. It’s like he was trying to cheer himself up by making music to make himself feel better. Once I developed a taste for that record, nothing else could make me that happy. There was no other music that was as celebratory. Considering I was destined to work a lot with him, something about the melodic approach to it really connected with me and made me start to get excited about transferring my own to that kind of music.
I first saw Ventian Snares at the Autechre ATP in Camber back in 2003. It was genuinely life-changing. I was already deep into quite a few of the artists that were playing there, but to be able to have that experience of being in a rave-type environment in England, on ecstasy, was crazy. The Venetian Snares set was like a punk concert. Everybody was jumping around and bumping into each other in a circle, like a slam pit. It was about the best festival experience that I could imagine ever going to.
Aaron and I became good friends and made a lot of music together off the grid. I needed that experience at that time. He was the only person that I could imagine making music with no consideration whatsoever of the possibility of it eventually getting released. To make music specifically with the idea that we don’t care if it ever gets released. Only caring about being 100% in the moment. Everything that I did as a solo artist during that time, I was seeing more as what I was doing on the side, and I was seeing the main thing as being what I was doing with Aaron. I can’t imagine having done that with anybody else and we continue to do it to this day.
