Ventricosa – Gods

Everyone wants to make their mark, everyone wants to make something of themselves, everyone wants to “make it”.  People reach middle age all the time, it’s part of dying, and once it hits most sit back and look at themselves and say “what have I done, what is this pile of filth in which I live?”  It’s the scream of mortality we all give.  But why?  Why does everyone have to “make it?”  What does it even mean?  Is it a desire to stand upon the mountain of fallen victims of life to scream “I have accomplished something?”  Pfff, please, everything is forgotten, you only have to prove something to yourself in the end.  But not in electronica.  In electronica “making it” requires skill beyond skill and the ability to catch viral attention so the world takes control.  It has nothing to do with just you.  Ventricosa is an up-and-coming act from out of Seattle, WA with a focus on glitch and the psychedelic revolving around “the beat.”  It’s nice to find something obscure like this that’s actually listenable, because usually the more obscure the electronic, the more it’s because it hasn’t “made it,” meaning it hasn’t proven itself worthy of anyone’s attention.

  

Not so with Ventricosa, he’s not there yet, but his first step is more of a leap than a step.  Let’s start by saying this was an enjoyable listen.  And my wife says that too (editor), and so does our unborn child (no lie).  She was in there, digging the beats, seriously finding some sort of larval groove within her amniotic sack, some way to connect to the outer world and the pulse of Gods.  Ventricosa appears to be a single musician based on info you can find on the label’s website, but at the same time the song titles refer to other musicians whose work you can find on the same page.  So maybe it’s some sort of big collab, we’re not sure.  Aside from the confusion in presentation, though, it’s clear this guy knows how to program.  Gods provides a great deal of experimentation with plenty of addictive beats, though the third track, “DAT-1 (This Dying Spaceship)” was our unborn’s personal favorite, with “Wrye (Wrye Remix)” being a close second.  She will be born to songs like this, apparently.

 

So if a child who has yet to learn of the horrors of the human race in the form of pop music directed at molding her into a Sweet Sixteen mind-slave enjoys it, it must be something, right?  Mostly, yes.  Ventricosa can put things together in the right ways, he can make things in the right ways, though there is a certain simplicity to it all.  If there’s one complaint to be had with Gods it’s that it’s not dense enough to really get the attention of the electronica horde waiting for the next big beat.  The beats here are accessible, they break when they need to, the fluctuations in sound are pleasant or morbidly psychedelic, but yet they’re quite singular.  In the past when we’ve dealt with music of this type, such as a recent review of a collab between Igorrr and Ruby My Dear, there’s one thing that can be said for the stuff we liked.  Complexity.  Programming skill is one thing, but the sound needs to be dense these days, filled with a multiplicity of sounds and structures that the user can never access in only one listen.  Gods, however, in spite of its pleasant drive, is completely deciphered within the first round.  Our daughter digs it, but she’s been raised thus far on some pretty complex stuff, it’s just that her mind is simply not advanced enough to grasp that she needs more than a simple throb.  Everything sounds like a rumbling muddle in there anyway, to her, so when she comes out, Ventricosa, be prepared to wow her, because she’s going to be raised on the best and she’ll tire quickly!

 

Ventricosa Official Facebook

Written by Stanley Stepanic

Ventricosa – Gods
Phantom Wave Records
4.3 / 5