New Aphex Twin!

this is excellent, like a refined version of some of the more melodic analords. sounds like he's been paying attention to stuff like luciano and cadenza records as well

crazy visuals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ivfcn_Zz8lU

v. into this now. keep replaying it.

do people recognize any other tracks in this? my ears perked up when he start playing in sync - storm in (3.1) above. also blue calx in (4).

this youtuber seems to have the whole thing, but sound quality is awful: hxxp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_00Kvi-wJk0

clicking around in second part of that one i caught pwsteal from analord.

my brane puts the last aphex release a Druqks (in 2001!!!!), analord was an experiment that just didn't do much for me. This sounds quite good though - perhaps not amazing, but then I'd be surprised if he managed to baffle and impress me once again in 2010.

that's just great. james is a giant peach of our time.

i wish he was still blowing minds too, but he did that for a solid i dunno... 8 years or so? that's an incredible run by pretty much any measure i bet. and besides, who has been pushing that same envelope lately? would love to know - really! will it take another technological leap?

i think he's carrying on successfully with his distinctive sense of melody and rhythm. analord was probly more a marketing experiment than anything, and there's loads of filler, but also many great tracks in there.

just curious if posters here are aware of the Tuss material that RDJ has put out/participated in since the Analord series. These (there are several) occurrences of new, high-quality, melodic material in his recent live sets are def reminiscent of the Tuss stuff. there's a track that's come to be known as "the manchester track" on youtube, and it's great. the quality isn't quite up to this Metz recording, but the track is fantastic. It's a couple years old. Another notable recording is the Minehead performance from 2007 (2008?) which contains a couple of unreleased tracks in the Tuss-y vein. Can only fantasize on a new album of this sort of material, been playing the Metz track obsessively

tuss is excellent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ0Ldfv4xyc
(manchester track), 7/12/07

have heard "the manchester track" before and it's cool. will seek out the Minehead set, thanks.

but the new one seems pretty special to me. was prompted to revist the tuss material as well yesterday. this new track seems to combine the things I like about the tuss project (super-intricate programming, a steady, seemingly constant introduction of new elements, a propulsive sense of momentum) with the hazy, ambient feel of his earlier stuff. love it.

If you find a copy of the Minehead set reference it here - I can't track one down

will do!

http://www.youtube.com/user/gabrielgabriel2000

The whole Metz show is online now. I'm loving the almost modern classical piece that starts up at the end of Part 1 and continues Part 2.

(Fireworks are a bit distracting, though. I'm finding it very hard not to lick the screen every time his pointy little nose appears beneath his ginger mop, as it is.)

((Yes, you can just copy/paste that directly to the "posts very much in character" thread. Sigh.))

can i just paste it into the "ban masonic boom" thread instead?

^^^ oh my gawrd!

here's a rip of the audio from that same dude http://soundcloud.com/gabrielsliveshit

Saw that yesterday - somehow the random shouting dude really close in the mic is more annoying on the live rip than on the YouTube.

(Just more proof that even though Aphex is one of my favourite artists on earth, his fans have a really irritating tendency towards being utter cockwads.)

Because they all *think* they could do it better?

Hrmm, maybe. Poorly socialised nerds with entitlement issues are such a fun bunch of people.

It makes me really happy how much of the SAW bits and bobs have turned up in the full set. It's a bit "spot that texture" at times but then I suppose the poor Phanboys can't exactly yell out the song titles "YAAAAYYY!!! It's blobby white pipe thing!!! I love this song WOOOOOOOO!!!"

I was a bit brutal, I guess.

Enlarging: People who regard RDJ as ... "'like me' but then get to the point of "Well, he was better when he did THIS, but he's now lost his way but if he knew me personally, I could explain to him where he's going wrong and he would go "thanks for that, you likeminded soul"...

That's any serious fanboy, really. Don't think that's exclusive to Aphex fans.

Hrmm, maybe. Poorly socialised nerds with entitlement issues are such a fun bunch of people.

OK I know I say this on the regular but PUH-LEEEZE make this the new ILM board description.

true, true..(xpost)

Obviously, I find this a really, really intriguing issue and would love to expand on it...

(I mean, not just the whole phenomenon of fanboyism, but also whether or not Aphex fanboys are in particular worse - or if it's just my experience of the kind of cultish fan who is still obsessed enough to, you know, still participate in internet communities dedicated to an artist 5 years after the artist's last "proper" release - though that said, they were just as annoying when he was still fairly active.)

BUT. I try really really hard not to let an artist's fanbase get in the way of the experience of their music.

I keep hoping that this kind of flurry of activity over the past year does mean that some kind of new release is imminent. But perhaps he's just playing/DJ-ing so many gigs because these days it's far more lucrative for him to do a live appearance (even if that means just MP3-J-ing teaser tracks) and get a massive fee each time than to put out an album.

I mean, to me, as much as enjoy Analords, it is essentially just the sound of an artist amusing himself rather than any sense of "this is an important statement body of work." I get the feeling that it's like looking through his sketchbooks rather than viewing a finished painting. (Or maybe just listening to a dude have a wank in semi-public if I can say that without setting off the irate phanboys above.)

But, carrying on from that other thread, after the response to Druqks, he's done with Statement Bodies Of Work and we won't ever get another. Or even if we do - a la The Tuss - we won't ever get an admission that it really is him.

Fucker. I kinda hate him as much as I love him. OH NOES I'M TURNING INTO AN UNSOCIALISED NERD WITH ENTITLEMENT ISSUES ABOUT MY FAVOURITE ARTISTS.

Yeah I've come to really really hate fan-ism but that's probably me being a boring superior middle-aged git and it hardly ever affects my liking for an artist.

Hey, it would be completely hypocritical for me to hate on fan-ism (given that I am actually a member of said kinds of forums and obviously indulge in spots of that kind of thinking.)

But what I *don't* think (which many Phanboys do seem to) is that my Aphex fandom makes me in any way superior to other people.

And what I really REALLY hate is the gendered (and also vaguely homophobic) approach to fandom that privileges one kind of fandom over another. i.e. that there *is* something inherently projection-y and quite romantic about this "OMG, no one understands me like my fave artist, therefore no one understands my fave artist like *I* do, ooh, quasi-romantic entitlement entitlement..." (as Mark G describes above.) But there's this kind of weird kneejerk "NO HOMO!" that kicks in (even though there is something *incredibly* homoerotic about this kind of fandom experience.) And that expresses itself in this utter LOATHING of fangirls when they are free to express *their* quasi-romantic feelings about the fan-object-idol in straightforward sexual terms because that highlights the supressed sexual nature of their identification in a way that makes them really, really uncomfortable.

Perhaps it's more extreme with Aphex phanboys because RDJ makes a habit of constantly rubbing their faces in it. He has quite a history of female-identification (can't remember the exact interview, but he's talked about expressing these aspects of himself in boy-songs and girl-songs - c.f. GirlBoy Song) even going so far as to project his own face onto female bodies, thus objectifying himself as part of the Image process. It's just such an interesting aspect of his work (where's Karen Tregaskin when you need him?) but it so rarely gets discussed in those terms and I've found that the fans get really really upset if you even try. (Even though I'm quite sure they've ALL wanked to the Windowlicker cover.)

in a way the analord series was quite ahead of the game in that the idea of rejecting digital excess in favour of vintage electronics and old fashioned recording techniques is all the rage now in dance music

barring a few exceptions i'm of the opinion that everything after donkey rhubard is some of the most overrated music ever -- all the shitty laptop music he made before the analord stuff seems to me way more overindulgent than a dude digging out his old 303 and just plugging in

Why do you think that r1o?

Wow, I so don't agree.

Donkey Rhubarb as cutoff point? Really? I mean, not least because "Richard D. James" is probably my favourite of the non-SAW albums. It just seems willfully narrow to draw the line there. I can understand how much of the rest of the genre probably went too far, but Aphex's stuff of 95-96-97 is still some of the most playful and inventive music - not just that he's done, but ever. There is a sense of "how far can we push this...?" in some of Drukqs but as far as I'm concerned he never quite loses a) his beautiful quirky sense of melody or b) his fluid rhythmic technique. Like, even at his most cerebral and skittering drill n bass moments there's a really appealing basic sense of musicality to it. It works on a pop level as well as experimental for the hell of it.

I mean, even on something as outright silly as Come To Daddy there'll be a B-side like Bucephalus Bouncing Ball which is both intricate and plainly beautiful.

in a way the analord series was quite ahead of the game in that the idea of rejecting digital excess in favour of vintage electronics and old fashioned recording techniques is all the rage now in dance music

I agree with this up to a point although (a) it seems he was actually behind the game wrt to his lil circle of producer pals ie Cylob/Mike Dred/those other old skool Rephlex dudes and (b) digital excess of the fidget/Frankenstein house type is just as much "all the rage" now even if ILM doesn't fuck with it much

I love Aphex Twin. He writes banging house tunes. I own pretty much everything he's ever done under all psuedonyms but I've been told by many people for the best part of two decades that I don't share their nuanced and cerebral understanding of the true phanboy. Usually by pasty, white spods who have a principled 'reason' for why they don't dance.

Current top three: Ptolemy, Metapharstic, Flow Coma (remix) by AFX

I wish he'd done more songs in his 'pop' period but only because I get a bit fed up of hearing Windowlicker at gigs and clubs, when the DJ could be dropping something that's easier to dance to.

(also 'Come To Daddy' is prob a relevant building block in at least the more obnoxious dayglo end of the fidget house thing, I'd say)

xp

Analogue revival is as much a fad as anything else, really.

It's not like producers en masse are dumping their DAWs or anything.

x-post yeah, I do not understand why DJs insist on playing only Windowlicker. Yeah, tis' a great tune, and instantly recognisable but it's not exactly danceable.

it's plenty danceable imo. there's a more straight-ahead remix of it by trentemoller which sort of sucks iirc.

It's way slow, though.

The "Original Demo" version is fairly straightforward/uncomplex, rhythmiacally.

I remember playing the Video on the PC, with Amber (14 months) on my knee. She thought it very funny.

It's way slow, though.

um, no?

i'm coming from a perspective where anything between 100 and 130bpm is optimum dancing tempo.

and nothing higher than 140bpm or so unless it's happy hardcore.

which is really more a music to stab to than to dance to.

I don't actually know what the BPM of Windowlicker is, but the past few times I've heard it out, it just seemed to drag.

(But I'm kind of influenced by pop & bubblegum to think of anything under about 120 as being "slow")

come on you slags, let's have your top threes.

Wrong thread. Is there an Aphex POX or POV?

or POIII

windowlicker i'm guessing is about 117bpm, which is quite a weird tempo for dance music - not slow or fast.

Aphex Twin - POIII (Pick Only Three)

DO YR WORST

Survey says.... 122 (but the tempo actually shifts during the course of the song.

has there been any other discussion/writing about the gender stuff? i didn't really get that aspect of his music until revisiting it more recently, though i think i've always had a sense that there's more noticeable "feminine" character to a lot of his tracks. scare quotes bc i don't really know how to explain that further. something there that stands out in the hetero-nerd world of IDM anyway. and then there's the donkey rhubarb video...

it was hard, but i gave up on expecting him to keep building his Important Body of Work. obv hope he surprises us again someday, but it was getting in the way of really digging his post-drukqs output, much of which is still great for the sense of melody and rhythm masonic boom talked about. would LOVE him to try something dancier again. i was suprised how well digeridoo worked in shed's fact mix a few months ago.

huh, I was sure there was a later interview where RDJ was mad at Oval for sampling him but I am failing to google this, beginning to think I imagined it

sorry all if I did! ps I like Oval and Aphex

oh hai
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yQRp4j2RQM

That's a pretty cool looking stream.

so many aphex twin threads...

anyway, the long awaited r d james / w h auden collaboration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0A0mMp48Rg

(there was apparently a 12" available at the above gig, that's from it)

Was at Aphex curates at WHP in Manchester Depot and that was some bloody show. Oh my lord, Polynomial C.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OXRME6UWSs&t=882s
fuck, this is good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OXRME6UWSs

14:42 is what Lowell was talking about