A beautiful album from Venetian Snares

Advantages: Beautiful . Innovative . Intelligent
Disadvantages: None whatsoever!

...(no lifting, similarities are coincidential - past experience in reviewing) MY DOWNFALL Every single music critic has branded My Downfall as a companion piece to Venetian Snares' 2005 release Rossz Csillag Alatt Szuletett. Technically, this is correct but it doesn't really do much to aptly describe the album either. Ever since his 2001 album Songs About My Cats, Aaron has been using the kind of operatic and avant-garde tones found in this particular release. The artist obviously has a deep-rooted interest in modernist music, and in My Downfall this resonates more than anything else. I do not mean to sound snobbish, but I think that many of the fans do not recognize these elements and subtleties, so much that when My Downfall came out, it was immediatly percieved as "soft" or "too classical". You really have to know a bit about...

gantzgraf 26.03.2008 · Read review
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Review of My Downfall - Venetian Snares

The Venetian Fortezza

Advantages: Brilliant View, Never Crowded
Disadvantages: Can be Very Hot, Quite A Steep Walk

...Description ---------------- The construction of the Rethymno fortress (or Fortezza), by the Venetians, started about 1571 and continued until about 1600. It was built for the protection of the local inhabitants from the Turkish threat, i.e. the usual reason a castle is built on a Greek island. It is appears to be star shaped, with three gates and six bastions, and dominate the town below. In the middle is the church of St Nicolas which was turned into the Mosque of the Sultan Ibrahim Han by the Turks during their occupation of the island of Crete. There were the Commander' s house, the Counsellor' s house, barracks, stables, ammunition - storehouses, a cistern and houses which were later destroyed and are just ruins now. There does not seem to have been any systematic excavation on the site. There is evidence of the odd...

Wanchai05 09.11.2006 · Read review
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Review of The Venetian Fortezza, Rethymnon, Crete

Vile Venetians

Advantages: Good characters, good descriptions of Venice
Disadvantages: not too thrilling

...of the other books. As always we occasionally join the family in the dining-room and get to know some tasty recipes of the Venetian cuisine. Brunetti's colleagues at the Questura are an assortment of more diverse and thus more fascinating characters, I always look forward to reading about his pompous, vain and essentially stupid boss, the intelligent, pretty secretary Signorina Ellettra, who's not loyal to her boss but on the side of the staff, a gifted hacker who can get all necessary information from all sources imaginable - very useful for an author when the official means of communication are exhausted and the case comes to a dead end. They and Brunetti's partner Vianello are round characters, new facets are added in every instalment. How Donna Leon describes Venice for the umpteenth time and makes the description readable again is simply...

MALU 15.07.2008 · Read review
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Review of Through a Glass, Darkly - Donna Leon

Venetian violence

Advantages: Good plot and characters
Disadvantages: Similar to other authors

...of the neighbourhood, is found brutally murdered in her home. Despite the number of people who were happy to see her dead, suspicion immediately falls on her Romanian maid, who seems to have fled the murder scene. She is traced to a train on the Romanian border where Venetian police catch up with her. She flees and is mown down by a passing train. Case closed?or so it seems. Three weeks later, a neighbour whose flat overlooks Signora Battestini's, returns from abroad, where she had not heard about the murder. When she finds out, she immediately contacts the police. On the day of the murder, the neighbour, who had befriended the Romanian maid, had found her locked out of Signora Battestini's flat. Seen clearly by the neighbour, Signora Battestini refused to let her maid back in the flat to pick up her belongings. The neighbour took the maid to the station...

sunmeilan 28.03.2006 · Read review
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Review of Doctored Evidence - Donna Leon

Oriental Venetian bliss

Advantages: Close to the water bus drop off, central to the dity
Disadvantages: Room very small, walls paper thin

...Ai Mori d'Oriente Hotel We found this to be a charming small hotel. It straddles two buildings which is possibly its only disadvantage, in that we had to go up and under, round and down and up and under again through very narrow corridors to get to our room. Venice is an old city and I suppose that one of the charms that the buildings are not clones of each other. The hotel has a breakfast room, but does not provide evening meals, though you can get a snack from behind the bar, light salad or sandwiches. The bar staff are friendly but stop work with a punctuality which does not reflect the needs of the guests still in the bar! On arrival we were met by the night porter, an extremely friendly Venetian. The staff in the hotel on a whole though were fairly non engaging. Breakfast was absolutely...

bigfatdogs 02.06.2008 (31.05.2008) · Read review
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Review of Hotel Ai Mori d'Oriente, Venice

A Venetian Murder Mystery

Advantages: Interesting setting, charming central character, entertaining
Disadvantages: Series may quickly become repetitive

...enough but didn't play much of a role overall. The real strength was the story which trotted along at a reasonable pace, allowing the reader time to digest the events and make some conclusions along the way. For armchair sleuths there is just enough to get your teeth into though the ending proves a little unsatisfactory and possibly suggests that this kind of ending may be something we can expect from any future investigations conducted by Commissario Brunetti. The star of the show, though, is the city of Venice and I am certain that this series of books will do much to entice visitors. Donna Leon's depiction of the city is not restricted to a physical description of Venice but also includes interesting references to the city's history and the general lifestyle and customs of Venetians, often in comparison with people from other parts...

fizzytom 06.09.2007 · Read review
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Review of Death in a Strange Country - Donna Leon

The Merchant for Venetians

Advantages: Purpose designed
Disadvantages: A bit fiddly

...This is a boring but necessary review. Boring because you'd all much rather be reading about DVDs or perfumes; necessary because now the spring sunshine is streaming in, have you seen the state of your venetian blinds? This is a purpose-designed gadget for a notoriously fiddly job. There are two parts to it: the brush and the anti-static fluid, so you get a twin-pronged attack on the wretched things. The brush looks like a huge, thin toothbrush with 6 "bristles". Each bristle rotates and is covered with a woolly yellow fibre (don't know what it is and the packet doesn't say). The fluid is in a 375ml spray bottle. Spray a little of the fluid on to the brush, then pull the trigger underneath the brush handle which pulls the bristles apart. Slide the bristles of the brush between the slats of the blind and release the trigger...

Chouchinciao 13.04.2006 · Read review
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Review of Blind Brite

Venetian Blind

Advantages: A superbly-written detective novel.
Disadvantages: The ending is not as strong as the rest of the plot.

...family still has a home. Whilst appearing to investigate complaints of harassment made by a family friend, Contessa Zulian, he's actually looking into the possible abduction of an American from an island in the Venetian lagoon. Some of his methods are unorthodox, even unethical and he has to examine his own conscience when a fellow detective is brutally murdered. Throw in a good helping of local politics and corrupt local politicians and you have the makings of an excellent story. The story is dominated by the city itself, with the title coming from the lagoon in which Venice is situated ? the Laguna Morta. This isn't a book written by a casual visitor. Michael Dibdin lived and worked in Italy for four years and when he writes of the cities in which the Zen novels are set he brings them to life in a way which few travel books are...

SueMagee 14.10.2003 · Read review
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Review of Dead Lagoon - Zen - Michael Dibdin

A little bit of Venice in the middle of the desert.

Advantages: Safe and secure great facilities very luxurious suites extremely comfortable.
Disadvantages: Time share touts in all the hotels in Las Vegas.

...The Venetian hotel is a 5 Star high quality hotel and like all the hotels in Las Vegas it is a spectacularly decorated and themed hotel based on Venice with a canal that goes from a lagoon on the outside right through the middle of the hotel and various squares restaurants and shopping malls inside. Nothing can prepare you for the brilliant and opulence of the hotel. Looking at pictures and its web site you are ill prepared for what you are about to see. After a short trip from the Airport you arrive at the arrivals area of the hotel foyer. It is a covered area and the porters and car directors are dressed in traditional black trousers, striped T-shirts and straw hats giving the impression that they are gondoliers. The area is quite busy and you need to have your wits about you as cars constantly drive in and drop off passengers...

garymarsh86 24.09.2009 (26.10.2009) · Read review
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Review of The Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino, Las Vegas

Miaow!

Advantages: Genius. Amazing.
Disadvantages: None.

...2001 was a significant year for Venetian Snares. He would release a total of 3 albums under Planet Mu and Hymen Records. After a string of self-released cassettes back in 1998, Aaron Funk would give birth to his first oeuvre Printf("shiver in eternal darkness/n") under Isolate Records in 2000. This would be a typical gabber release. Nothing terribly inventive... still worth a mention though. This would very much lead him into a collaboration with UK gabber artist Speedranch in 2001, with his highly disturbing Making Orange Things (Planet Mu). Although, M.O.T isn't a particularly skilful oeuvre, it does however contains some distinctive Venetian Snares-esque moments; very satisfying ones too. Then, Songs About my Cats came out. S.A.M.C is a hugely important release by Aaron. It showcases the full-blown genius of Aaron Funk...

gantzgraf 15.08.2006 · Read review
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Review of Songs About My Cats - Venetian Snares