It's very nice but it could easily have been on Druqks, is my feeling
― Do I look like I know what a jpeg is? (dog latin), Wednesday, 21 June 2023 17:52 (eleven months ago) link
Wow. I was expecting a rave banger!
The programming is, per usual, absurd. The melody is is the most somber since Selected Ambient Works Volume II and the rhythm (and harmony) is nostalgic or even self-referential (it reminded me of ...I Care Because You Do more than Druqks). I do miss some of the mixing tricks he started using in Syro and recent live performances.
― Allen (etaeoe), Wednesday, 21 June 2023 18:04 (eleven months ago) link
(The mixing stuff might be present but lost on Spotify.)
― Allen (etaeoe), Wednesday, 21 June 2023 18:05 (eleven months ago) link
If there’s an album, I pray he does an interview similar to the interview he did with David Burraston for the release of Syro. There’re so many issues from the past decade that I’d love to hear him talk (or write) about: open source, SoundCloud (and Bandcamp), cryptocurrency, mixed reality, artificial intelligence, etc.
― Allen (etaeoe), Wednesday, 21 June 2023 18:10 (eleven months ago) link
I'm not sure I want to know Richard D James's opinion on cryptocurrency, mixed reality, artificial intelligence, etc.
― silverfish, Wednesday, 21 June 2023 18:31 (eleven months ago) link
This new track is fine, on first listen seems fairly generic, but that's what I thought about Syro at first too.
― silverfish, Wednesday, 21 June 2023 18:34 (eleven months ago) link
LOL, OK?
― Allen (etaeoe), Wednesday, 21 June 2023 18:35 (eleven months ago) link
I wouldn't say generic, and for sure his recent stuff has been quality. But I'll be honest, every time I play a new Aphex track part of me is hoping for more "shocking brand-new worlds" (as Disco_Nihilist put it on this board years ago.)
― official representative of Roku's Basketshit in at least one alternate u (lukas), Wednesday, 21 June 2023 22:20 (eleven months ago) link
Yeah I just don't know what I expect from Aphex any more, as opposed to "what to expect", that is.
I guess I really want to be blown away in the same way I was when I first heard Bouncing Bucephalus Ball when I was 17, but that's likely asking far too much.
That said, he seems quite happy making "just pretty good tunes with nice melodies and beats" these days, as opposed to doing something as conceptually daring as, say, Ventolin, Windowlicker or SAWII.
― Do I look like I know what a jpeg is? (dog latin), Thursday, 22 June 2023 00:06 (eleven months ago) link
I like the beats being sort of 92 breakbeat ardkore. Wasn't his old favourite Trigger's Stratosphere in his sets a few years ago?
― you can see me from westbury white horse, Thursday, 22 June 2023 00:25 (eleven months ago) link
"I like the beats being sort of 92 breakbeat ardkore."
this track is very nostalgic but also weird, I really like it
― Dan S, Thursday, 22 June 2023 00:57 (eleven months ago) link
I think it’s strange that it’s a single rather than an EP or album. It doesn’t say much as a single.
― Allen (etaeoe), Thursday, 22 June 2023 17:33 (eleven months ago) link
it's lovely but definitely generic aphex. if AI was fed in a ton of AFX i could imagine it spitting this out.
― stirmonster, Thursday, 22 June 2023 18:01 (eleven months ago) link
would not be surprised if that's how he made it, though I think it sounds too good to be AI right now
― frogbs, Thursday, 22 June 2023 18:02 (eleven months ago) link
I mean I wouldn't put it past him. But he's also his own AI generator, I wonder if Warp conducts night raids on his vault every few years to wrest a release from him. I'm sure all the QR code stuff is just marketing department bs too.
xp
― Random Restaurateur (Jordan), Thursday, 22 June 2023 18:04 (eleven months ago) link
It's definitely very weird, and a nice return to focusing on synth tones and use of voice. I feel AFX has become increasingly one note since 2001, and this track is one of the more atypical 21st century tracks he's dropped! Hope it's a sign of things to come.
― octobeard, Thursday, 22 June 2023 18:05 (eleven months ago) link
the sound of the opening beat reminds me of "Beat It"
― calstars, Thursday, 22 June 2023 18:08 (eleven months ago) link
it is an EP with four tracks, WAP480
― official representative of Roku's Basketshit in at least one alternate u (lukas), Thursday, 22 June 2023 18:30 (eleven months ago) link
― silverfish, Wednesday, June 21, 2023 1:31 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink
Maybe on mixed martial arts though
― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 22 June 2023 21:06 (eleven months ago) link
did folks cop the ambient version, I didn't do all the QR code nonsense so I would have missed it if not for Phil Sherburne's newsletter
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/19fcYuy4BlUXzZqxkeSDP-zd_7F55wdbC
― official representative of Roku's Basketshit in at least one alternate u (lukas), Thursday, 29 June 2023 17:59 (eleven months ago) link
https://aphextwin.bandcamp.com/album/blackbox-life-recorder-21f-in-a-room7-f760
― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 29 June 2023 18:20 (eleven months ago) link
Yeah I just don't know what I expect from Aphex any more, as opposed to "what to expect", that is.I guess I really want to be blown away in the same way I was when I first heard Bouncing Bucephalus Ball when I was 17.
I guess I really want to be blown away in the same way I was when I first heard Bouncing Bucephalus Ball when I was 17.
For me RDJ’s career was interesting in how it was getting progressively more avant-garde, from those rather sedate and melodic early works to the drill-n-bass and atonality of the latter ’90s. But then RDJ retired while Autechre kept producing music that surprised from one album to the next. So now Autechre has basically replaced Aphex Twin for me. Anyone else have the same experience?
― Melomane, Thursday, 29 June 2023 19:38 (eleven months ago) link
*raises hand*
― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 29 June 2023 19:46 (eleven months ago) link
Huh, I feel like it was almost the opposite for me; I dug how he was moving from esoteric early stuff to releases with progressively more "popular" appeal... culminating in "Come to Daddy" on TRL (and winning!), and the elaborate music video for "Windowlicker," etc.
Then he went away and resurfaced with a series of (dull) vinyl-only releases, and it was like... ok, I guess you're done with that trajectory.
― Bittern Storm Over My Hammy (morrisp), Thursday, 29 June 2023 20:06 (eleven months ago) link
Though I like Autechre, even at his most glitchy/experimental/esoteric there is an air of melodic, otherworldly melancholy with RDJ that I just don’t quite get with those guys.
― Davey D, Thursday, 29 June 2023 20:12 (eleven months ago) link
gotta love people accusing RDJ of using AI to create new music and then hyping up autechre as the more exciting alternative. isn't their whole deal using "algorithms" to automate their music-making?
― na (NA), Thursday, 29 June 2023 20:15 (eleven months ago) link
e.g. Their studio set-up or system varies from album to album but is a labyrinth of possibilities relying on self-written mathematical algorithms that induce their sounds and rhythms to behave in specific yet experimental ways after Autechre manipulate a massive range of parameters.
that's AI, baby
― na (NA), Thursday, 29 June 2023 20:17 (eleven months ago) link
I wasn't accusing him of it upthread but rather speculating he might be a guy to generate a ton of it and release the best stuff and then have a good laugh about it, which I think is very different from what Autechre do
― frogbs, Thursday, 29 June 2023 20:25 (eleven months ago) link
Definitely that feeling, Melomane. It's not dissimilar to Plaid - I like it when a new Plaid album comes out because it's like buying a fresh pair of my favourite brand of underpants. I know what I'm going to get and it feels good nevertheless
I'd argue that even Autechre are starting to sound kinda similar from album to album, or at least you know what an Autechre album sounds like by now, but somehow they manage to keep me on my toes
― Stomp Jomperson (dog latin), Thursday, 29 June 2023 21:51 (eleven months ago) link
if argue that that's not AI, baby. generative, perhaps, but not AI.
― koogs, Friday, 30 June 2023 00:05 (eleven months ago) link
i'd argue...
just like AI, aphex, autechre and plaid were all better in the 90s
― the late great, Friday, 30 June 2023 00:25 (eleven months ago) link
what's better than all of their music combined is reading the same opinions about them for 20+ years
― ꙮ (map), Friday, 30 June 2023 00:34 (eleven months ago) link
mine is that anyone who didn't like / wasn't impressed by syro has a screw loose.
― ꙮ (map), Friday, 30 June 2023 00:37 (eleven months ago) link
pfft that’s nothing imagine posting the same opinions about them for 20+ years :-P
― the late great, Friday, 30 June 2023 00:41 (eleven months ago) link
― assert (matttkkkk), Friday, 30 June 2023 01:03 (eleven months ago) link
lol cmon Oversteps -> Exai -> elseq -> NTS is like the greatest run of albums in this genre ever. and if not, it's at least the longest.
― frogbs, Friday, 30 June 2023 01:35 (eleven months ago) link
tl;dl
― the late great, Friday, 30 June 2023 01:38 (eleven months ago) link
matttkkkk otm
― the late great, Friday, 30 June 2023 01:40 (eleven months ago) link
personally I think it's all been downhill since the first AI comp for all of them and most music in general.
― dan selzer, Friday, 30 June 2023 02:51 (eleven months ago) link
actually I agree with frogbs more, I just couldn't resist the quick grab
― assert (matttkkkk), Friday, 30 June 2023 02:58 (eleven months ago) link
matttkkkk offfftm
― the late great, Friday, 30 June 2023 03:39 (eleven months ago) link
dang
― assert (matttkkkk), Friday, 30 June 2023 04:48 (eleven months ago) link
TBF, you could pick almost any four albums from Ae's catalogue and call it the greatest run in history.
Chiastic Slide - LP5 - EP7* - Confield is another one
*Yeah it's an album idgaf
― Stomp Jomperson (dog latin), Friday, 30 June 2023 07:12 (eleven months ago) link
Sign and Plus are the kinds of left turns and changeups I'd love to see from Richard. I feel he's got some wild and beautiful stuff packed away (can I fantasize about SAW III for a sec?) But I feel something is holding him back...
― octobeard, Friday, 30 June 2023 08:41 (eleven months ago) link
OTM.
What drew me to his work all those years ago was the handbrake tunrs. You just didn't know what to expect from release to release, or even track to track. And Windowlicker did feel like the peak of his empirical phase, just hinting at going full-on pop but with B-sides representing his most experimental and most melodic sides.
― Stomp Jomperson (dog latin), Friday, 30 June 2023 09:09 (eleven months ago) link
And Windowlicker did feel like the peak of his empirical phase
that's just your experience, man
― ledge, Friday, 30 June 2023 09:12 (eleven months ago) link
icwydt
― assert (matttkkkk), Friday, 30 June 2023 10:41 (eleven months ago) link
yeah I don’t really buy into this whole innovation narrative, I think he has still continued to produce excellent funky electronic music, analords and syro both rule
― brimstead, Friday, 30 June 2023 14:31 (eleven months ago) link
TBF, you could pick almost any four albums from Ae's catalogue and call it the greatest run in history.Chiastic Slide - LP5 - EP7* - Confield is another one*Yeah it's an album idgaf
I mean, starting with Tri Repetae it's a continuous run of just one of the greatest albums of the genre after another, at least according to autechre fans like me.
― silverfish, Friday, 30 June 2023 14:32 (eleven months ago) link