Label: Planet Mu Format: CD,2LP
If anything is going to show the diversity and breadth of Aaron Funk‘s talent, Rossz Csillag Alatt Született should. Taking a breather between bouts of full-tilt Breakcore insanity for a little lighter – but not lightweight – electrical string-led conceptualising, this album is nothing less than a meditation on what it would be like to be a pigeon living atop the Királyi Palota royal palace in Budapest. Featuring orchestral compositions as the basis for each of the eleven pieces on the album, Rossz Csillag Alatt Született (try ordering that in a shop in a non-Hungarian-speaking country for a fun way to break the ice) floats on high with a beady eye for detail in the shimmering textures which draw a strangely compelling picture as life as what many regard as little better than a flying rat.
So the electric violin (which Funk learned to play especially for this recording) sweeps with melodic Hungarian-inflected swoops and trills around trumpet runs and emergent Jazzy percussion which can as easily warble off into Avant-garde melodies as Junglist frenzy. There are naturlly dollops of richly-flavoured Central European texture to savour, and a pleasing consequence is that the tearing rinses and intricate weave of drum and bass merge and counterpoint the fury of arpeggiating strings just so. When Tom Jenkinson does this sort of thing with Squarepusher, the results can be sometimes a little overdone, but the Venetian Snares offering is perhaps more carefully considered and restrained – though that is not necessarily an appropriate description for some of the breaks in operation in “Hajnal”, for example. No, it’s more the way in which the disparate worlds of vibrantly-composed orchestral motifs, spoken word meditations on pigeonhood and intricately, even sometimes delicately, mashed-up breakbeats are laid out in separated sections – movements, even – are pushed into collision to staggering effect which works so well here.
Beautiful and breathtaking at times, the intricacies of Rossz Csillag Alatt Született may well pass a lot of amphetamine-fuelled Breakcore fans straight by, but many should be absorbed thoroughly into Mr. Funk’s peculiar vision of the pigeon’s perspective on matters aural, urban and aerial. After hearing this record, perhaps the much-maligned scavengers will get a few heads turned up towards their roof-edge eeries with something closer to empathy from some listeners too. That is assuming the conceptual framework makes any difference: otherwise, it is a stimulating and thoroughly immersive work which stretches the parameters of several genres which are not necessarily always in close proximity.
-Freq1C-
