The Rock Blogger

World’s End Girlfriend. Hurtbreak Wonderland. 2007. 3.5 stars.

WEG is the solo project of Japanese virtuoso Katsuhiko Maeda who produces lush post rock songs tinged with neoclassical and break beat flourishes. Unlike WEG’s collaboration with Mono (see here), Hurtbreak Wonderland avoids sounding mournful and instead relishes in hallucinative fantasy, conjuring an Alice in Wonderland type of narrative as suggested by the astounding cover art.

The songs here are instrumental but are far removed from conventional rock dynamics, opting for wild pairings of melodic strings and intense electronic beats, creating a swirling experience similar to the work of Venetian Snares. Songs like “Birthday Resistance” and “100 Years of Choke” move from pleasant, classically inspired compositions into bombastic freak-outs, creating dramatic transitions that are often dizzying in their execution. Most of the album carries on in this fashion, as gorgeous piano, harp and brass fills are layered over the vivid drum and bass patterns.

Hurtbreak Wonderland is an incredibly detailed and eclectic album that consistently sounds organic and fresh, coaxing the listener to wander in its blossoming passages. Despite its technical prowess, some of the movements tend to drag on in spots, leaving portions of the album sounding unfocused. Maeda occasionally manages to anchor everything with his propulsive beats, but the surge of strings and keyboards is in constant lift, leaving some unresolved tension between the elements. Despite the often confounding juxtapositions here, Hurtbreak Wonderland is a beautiful and original record that clearly breaks new ground in the post-rock genre. The cornucopia of instruments and noises used here leaves plenty of room for continued exploration. In short, WEG has created a deep and dreamy effort that begs for multiple listens.

Birthday Resistance

Venetian Snares. My Downfall (Original Soundtrack). 2007. 4.5 stars.

Winnipeg’s Aaron Funk can feel my pain. Hailing from the frozen prairies, Funk (yes that is his birth name), has crafted cinematic suites that seem to capture the chills of a dark, Canadian winter. Under his Venetian Snares moniker, Funk revels in insanely kinetic drum and bass compositions (a la Aphex Twin), that blend seamlessly with weeping classical string, synth and choral movements - treading in the same post-rock shadows as Godspeed You Black Emperor, Mono and World’s End Girlfriend.

The combination of seemingly disparate musical forces is surprisingly seamless and fluid, allowing Funk to craft a unique musical language of his own, touching on his most frantic, isolated or contemplative frames of mind. The album’s progression moves from haunting choir samples and moving string arrangements to drilling beats and then back again, maintaining lush and organic transitions that are as emotive as they are composotitonally complex.

My Downfall provides, like its proto-classical contemporaries,  a soundtrack to a movie never made, with all its tension filled buildups, chaotic breakdowns and exhilarating climaxes. If you are looking for a companion piece for your winter odysseys, look no further than Venetian Snares.