Higgins Ultra Low Track Glue Funk Hits 1972-2006 - Venetian Snares > Reviews > Aaron's best 2002 release

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Groundbreaking
Lyrics	Not applicable
Quality and consistency of tracks	Flawless
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Outstanding
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Masterwork, Original, Groundbreaking
Disadvantages:	None

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Snares delivers another mind-bending album.

Back in 2001, Snares delivered 3 interesting albums: Making Orange Things, Songs About my Cats and Doll Doll Doll. If it wasn't for the first 4 tracks, you could forget about Making Orange Things alltogether. Songs About my Cats and Doll Doll Doll, on the other hand, are masterworks.

In 2002, Aaron would release 3 more albums: This one, 2370894 and Winter in the Belly of a Snake.
But Higgins Ultra Low Track Glue Funk Hits is Aaron's 2002 gold nugget.

H.U.L.T.G.F.H is an extention on Doll Doll Doll's abrasiveness and Songs About my Cat's cleverness.

H.U.L.T.G.F.H features 10 tracks and the total running time is of 56 minutes approx. The cover and inlay design have some kind of primitive charm and closely resemble his next album's cover. Ben Curzon designed all of this.

Dance Like You're Selling Nails is a classic Venetian Snares track. It features nutty operette singing from a certain Jo Apps. The style is somewhat different from Doll Doll Doll; subtle breakcore collides with a strange fanfaresque setting, conjured in the strangled saxophone played by Mark Kaminsky. The main theme is twisted is all possible directions; even into some kind of medieval chamber music at one point.
This kind of layout has more in commun with Songs About my Cats than it has with Doll Doll Doll.

Banana Seat Girl is a flourishing and upbeat jazz experimentation. This doesn't stop it from being exceedingly technical.
The third track is very much a short introduction to the following pieces (a quick noise experimentation).

Tracks 4 to 7, Make Ronnie Rocket, Vokeheads, Deadman DJ and Cobra Commander, are all very Doll Doll Doll-esque in style. They contain a lot of darkness, dizzying breakcore, intricate mathematical patterns and jackhammer-like gabber.

Walmer Side, in contrast, has more in commun with Songs About my Cats. It is like a tornado, spinning furiously, hurling chunks of sliced snare-bits and fractured splinters of clicks and beeps.

Dismantling Five Years feels like a very personal track. The fluted melody and processed instruments create a warm but infinitly sad ambiance. This is very much like Lioness from Songs About my Cats. Intelligent and beautiful.

We Are Oceans, the final track, starts off in a similar way to the previous track.
Less than a minute in, flourishing rhythm scales alongside John Cage-esque piano sequences. This section, à la Rossz Csillag Alatt Szuletett (Planet Mu, 2005 - by the same artist), is soon corrupted by a flurry of iron-bar breakcore. This is all for the best though; the track works beautifuly and ends in a sustained note of electrified violin.

This album bears similarities with Songs About my Cats, Doll Doll Doll (Planet Mu, 2001) as well as Rossz Csillag Alatt Szuletett (Planet Mu, 2005) and even the Chocolate Wheelchair album (Planet Mu, 2003) - all of these by the same artist.

All in all, H.U.L.T.G.F.H is a perfect Venetian Snares release with a huge amount of imagination and variety.
It is also 2002's best experimental album, alongside Winter in the Belly of a Snake (Planet Mu, Venetian Snares) and Gantz-Graf (Warp Records, Autechre). Simply put, H.U.L.T.G.F.H is a masterpiece.

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(Written by myself - no violation, no lifting, no breach of copyright)