Composer Reszo Seress is blamed for at least 17 suicides, as urban legend has it. His 1933 ballad, "Öngyilkos Vasárnap" or "Gloomy Sunday"-- written after he made up with an ex-fiancée, but before she poisoned herself--- had been banned in the United States and his native Hungary. "The Hungarian Suicide Song", it was later called. Suicide notes allegedly hint to the tune's lyrics, and one tale says a delivery boy jumped off a bridge after overhearing a man whistling ...more

The Wire 254, April 2005
Unedited transcript by Susanna Glaser

Venetian Snares

It seems the more complex and fucked up your music becomes, the more we love it. What is that about?

Maybe what you really desire is more and more fucked up music? I know I do sometimes.

Why though? Why do we desire increasingly 'discordant' music - there seems to have been a trend in music making to do this from year dot...

I suppose, ...more

Although I wish I was, I'm not an expert on classical music. I know it's out there waiting for me and once I get in I probably won't be back for a very, very long time. But there's so much good music already out there. I can't afford to drown in the classical swamps just yet. I'll regret it but whatever, first things first. What I do appreciate is that some musicians pick out the very best parts that make classical music so appealing to me and involve them in their own ...more

Aaron Funk, most commonly referred to as Venetian Snares, has made some really intense, noisy, and from time-to-time danceable tracks over the years. He's produced some vicious abstract gabber type releases (Vs. Speedranch's Making Orange Things), variant experimentalist drum and bass (Chocolate Wheelchair, Doll Doll Doll), and even a few concept albums (Songs About My Cats, Winnipeg Is A Frozen Shithole EP). Never content on doing the same thing twice, he has followed ...more