Aphex Twin classic or Dud?

ICBYD was my favourite Aphex at the height of my fandom. It's just the quintessential record for me, straddling his hard-techno and ambient past while looking towards more conceptual territory which he would explore on things like Come To Daddy. Every track is different from the last. It's dated a fair bit now. It's kind of trebly and harsh for today's ears. But still, Alberto Balsalm will never not be a classic.

^^^

there's a great disco nihilist post where he talks about how Aphex records used to be like shocking brand new worlds, ICBYD epitomizes that for me.

I got into electronic music in high school after I bought a used Warp sampler that was 1/2 ICBYD 1/2 Spanners (I remember biking across the Mississippi to Dinkytown to the store where I found it.) Sitting on the floor of my bedroom with the light flooding in listening to the first three tracks especially, I felt like I'd escaped from grunge to some incredible world of Apollonian beauty, I wanted everyone in the world to hear what I was listening to. Changed my life yadda yadda.

ICBYD is the first aphex I heard and still my favorite album. it's just so ... different!

It's probably my least favourite of all the albums he released under this moniker.

ok, side 3 & 4 are really clicking with me now... mookid and alberto balsalm are really beautiful... don't dig em as much as RDJ LP or Come to Daddy but I'll hold off on selling this one...

i don't think i ever properly appreciated the RDJ album (listened to Come to Daddy a ton though).

i have a playlist of all the piano/percussion pieces from Drukqs for weekend morning listening, i think it's time to make one for all of his electronic tracks with pretty pretty melodies.

Aphex was such a big part of my life in the late 90s and early thousands that I have difficulty imagining what it would be like to listen to ICBYD or even RDJ Album for the first time in 2016. I identify very much with lukas's post, in that hearing these records at the time, I didn't have to make any mental allowances at the time: it felt very much like the sound of daringness and future-music. Ironically I can't help feeling that ICBYD sounds really of its time. Still very much a unique piece of work, it's nevertheless harder to appreciate what made it so outstandingly different and new on release.

cow cud is a twin

imo Little Lord Faulteroy towers over everything else he's done. Ridiculously brilliant song from beginning to end

94-95 best afx period

xp Come to Daddy as a suite is his (no pun intended) apex. Bouncing Bucephalus Ball and Flim were life-changing moments for me when I first heard them.

if/when it's starting to get warm where you live, go for a stroll and listen to acrid avid and cow cud.

icbyd has the best drums. they're made by special construction equipment that can dig out chunks of your brain and burrow inside.

think this was the last time he fully went for a super saturated mix with huge reverbs everywhere. i love that sound. no idea how he found so much space around all the gnashing cymbals.

paul woodford posted a peel session from 92: https://soundcloud.com/paulwoolford/sc-aphex-twin-peel-session-1992-live-from-sheffield-hallam-university-1993

https://twitter.com/RussellHaswell/status/716983519189327873

http://gcasfm.com/blog/hospital-radio-dj-food - DJ Food - Selected Aphex Works part 2

(this was part 1 by the way : https://soundcloud.com/ninja-tune/solid-steel-radio-show-1322015-part-1-2-dj-food )

19 Bradley echoes. So great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R74JBqM0lw8

PURE BUZZ

It's amazing that something this great was archived for years, unreleased and then dumped as part of an en masse.

i love this v SAW 85-92-sounding track -- it was my morning alarm for a few months

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI8Rc0vPmSA

Yeah that's great.

Aphex Yay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg_frWfGNmQ&list=RDJI8Rc0vPmSA&index=3

oops meant to post this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg_frWfGNmQ&list=RDJI8Rc0vPmSA&index=3

fuck

https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13346617_10153445376705566_8240176362879208248_n.jpg?oh=4c240948d4caefc00336b2ccfbd5ee98&oe=57C1AFD1

LOVE the cover

I used to work for a business to business advertising company and pretty much every ad they designed looked exactly like that, but a good 15 years after that's was the style du jour.

http://www.cheetah-ep.com/

Aphex Twin
Cheetah EP
WAP391

Released: 08/07/2016
Formats: Vinyl, CD, Ltd Edition Cassette, Digital

01. CHEETAHT2 [Ld spectrum]
02. CHEETAHT7b
03. CHEETA1b ms800
04. CHEETA2 ms800
05. CIRKLON3 [ Колхозная mix ]
06. CIRKLON 1
07. 2X202-ST5*

*CD, Cassette and Digital track only, included on download available with vinyl

http://www.gforcesoftware.com/extras/syntharchive/cheetah-ms800

"The preproduction unit didn’t have a single factory sound, well, not that I could bloody well find” Chris recalls.

"During the course of the next few weeks I translated the manual into a series of diagrams and charts that visually allowed me to understand the ‘flow’ of the parameters, after which I set about creating ‘Tones’ and 'Patches' for this 15 note polyphonic, multi-timbral, filterless (what?), stereo bell box. The most bizarre thing is that you couldn't hear your parameter changes in real-time. You have to enter ‘edit mode’ adjust your parameters and then exit ‘edit mode’ to hear your changes."

Beyond daft? We think so because given its almost totally incomprehensible editing system could it have been a contributing factor to Cheetah vanishing soon after the MS800's release?

Nonetheless the MS800 had an almost unique tone and parameter structure which made it sonically interesting and reasonably useful back in the day. Nowadays though, we think it's a more interesting box of tricks than it was back then and the tones that you can coax from it provides a great counterbalance to analogue. The best description of the MS800's sound we've heard is "a PPG meets a Wavestation via a Sid Station."

Nonetheless it remains the most difficult instrument to program on the planet - If you don’t believe us trawl the net and find a manual. Once you've read it, if you're still interested in giving it a go, let us know, we’ve still got ours.

sounds like programming the DX7

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-P6vjIE8T3Ws/V1i-iWsKGmI/AAAAAAAKZ5M/qVe0ZxSzQJI0SgIMzBDCab1OlaogmWFXgCLcB/s640/13339478_1203121433031596_8653733728797572480_n.jpg

nice

ah, yes, thought i remembered the name. they made a bunch of spectrum peripherals.

Spec-Drum anyone?
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=1000062

http://youtu.be/cLfYT6yXgEc?t=45s

$17 USD for a normal bias (type i) audio cassette at BLEEP.. seems slightly ridiculous

Uhm.. Cassettes these days are a novelty. That's what you pay for. Not normal or high bias or type 1 or 2. That shit don't matter any more. You shell out for novelty value or go to Spotify.

labels (like Drag City) sell new cassettes at a reasonable price ($8 for The Arizona Record), some labels even use good quality tape stock (chrome or cobalt), like Notice Recordings. BLEEP charge approximately $14 for shipping to the US... that's fucking ridiculous. i mean, why spend $32 on a cassette if you're actually going to listen to it? i know, i know. it's a NOVELTY

If it's shipping costs you are on about I get that, absolutely. But otherwise? Tapes is tapes, man.

AT pretty much the only music I need at this point

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEP-Qpw3lHg

the director:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ottJOVPduoM

cool track

streaming on bleep for those who preordered

http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2016/06/29/aphex-twin-had-a-booth-at-the-summer-namm-trade-show-and-yeah-it-was-a-little-strange/

Obv dud

love u, but get the fuck off of ILM

Fair!

new ep is dope (safe to say).. it's deceptively simple-sounding. i wonder how much of the material is actually sourced from the Cheetah (ms800?) synthesizer, the short interludes sound like they could be.

It's ok, kind of boring tbh

I still prefer the more mellow, slower sound loud tracks

cheetah 3 + 7 TEAC are a couple of the mellow, slower SC tracks.. but they sound better/more detailed (especially 7) on the ep. cheetah 3 (Cirklon3) does sound livelier in the context of the other cheetah ep tracks. the whole thing has an Analord 2 vibe, it's very chill