- Velvet Club, once solely a rock music venue, has made quite a change over the past three years. By giving more and more time to electronic music, it has turned into a landmark for heads in northeastern Italy. Its formula is bold but smart: three collectives of local DJs share two rooms, accompanied by an international act at almost every event.
The decision to host Venetian Snares was an interesting one: how would his twisted eclecticism work at such an event? The audience, ranging from the Narkotek-loving raver to the inquisitive metalhead, had been pre-heated with a well-picked selection of drum & bass tunes courtesy of the resident DJs.
Right from the off, Aaron Funk made it pretty clear that he would go with the love-me-or-hate-me approach he's stuck with for the past 20 years. During 75 minutes of raging beats, the Canadian producer ravished his mixer, seasoning his performance with shredding-metalhead facial expressions. Few were the calm, relaxed moments when you got to hear string-based melodies before they were crushed between jack-hammer kicks and the retrigger’s jaws.
As expected, integrating an artist like Venetian Snares into an event like this was not easy, especially when the club was filled mostly with Cocorico regulars that came to see Dilligas playing in room one. For the most part, Venetian Snares' set was but a noisy interlude for people casually crossing room two, but for connoisseurs, it was a deliciously brainy IDM performance delivered with a vicious, sadistic attitude.