Anticipating SYRO the new (2014) album by Aphex Twin

RDJ has always liked Stockhausen's music afaik, his infamous retort aside

I realise that this probably sounds as if it is in direct contradiction of what I said in the "why does ILM hate new music" thread, but...

Looking at whole list of "first listens" and "track by tracks" I realised that I have absolutely 0 interest in reading any track by track or review of this album at all.

(I mean, it's not really in opposition, because what I wanted was a brief recap/why I should care about a piece of *unknown* music, while this is a piece of work I have already made up my mind to buy and investigate, no matter what.)

And I'm wondering if this is a reaction in terms of not wanting "spoilers"; of not wanting my enjoyment pre-dictated or even influenced by someone else's words or impressions. (Or if it's symptomatic of some greater disenchantment with music writing in general.) Or maybe I just hate the way, in general, journalists write about Aphex Twin.

But I'm half, like "OMG, want to discuss this, anticipate this, speculate about it!" but at the same time want actual "track by tracks" to kinda go away.

(Though by no means saying they shouldn't be posted in this thread or discussed or whatever; any and all appropriate links are good. I'm just feeling very "no spoilers" about this record.)

I think Drukqs if anything has become underrated now but honestly another album in that vein would be the most underwhelming possible outcome.

I suppose I should download the Analord series now. Weird that he's been releasing a reasonably steady stream of music for years to almost total indifference but now there's an album out everyone's getting excited. Maybe it's just the right time for him again.

That Joe Muggs preview really does make it sound exciting though.

but the Quietus and FACT previews seem to confirm my worst fears

(ie that it'll only be really good)

Looking at whole list of "first listens" and "track by tracks" I realised that I have absolutely 0 interest in reading any track by track or review of this album at all.

i don't know why anyone should want to read a track-by-track review of anything when they haven't yet heard the album

and even if you have heard it, this format lends itself to the shittiest music criticism

agreed, for example, i don't care to read a review of a movie that i'm going to see. however, in this case, a few of these tracks are several years old. versions of the new single have circulated on youtube for the last four years (at least), with very superficial/minor variations. was curios whether or not the "metz" track would be on the new one, because it's fucking excellent, and it's also been around for years. these review/impression/accounts feel slight anyhow, not too worried that they're gonna 'color' your listening experience unless you've no mind of your own.

i don't know why anyone should want to read a track-by-track review of anything when they haven't yet heard the album

and even if you have heard it, this format lends itself to the shittiest music criticism

― I dunno. (amateurist)

Also Aphex Twin and "IDM" music in general is sort of pointless to try to review.

why is it more pointless to review than other kinds of music?

less words about moons, balloons, june

june angels

Well, what I meant is not that it's pointless but that it's hard to describe without referencing previous work by the artist. Let's take a look at pitchfork's review for the track:

This is analog maximalism, made possible by the plinky, translucent synths of Selected Ambient Works, AFX's restless 303 sequences, Caustic Window's brawny drum machines, vocal abstractions à la Richard D. James Album, and an excitable dissonance owing as much to Drukqs as it does Polygon Window's Surfing on Sine Waves. Not one frequency in the spectrum is unaccounted for on "minipops 67 [120.2][source field mix]", and yet James doesn't sound like he's overcompensating for his extended absence as he crams so much of himself into the limber, rigorous production work. The music world at large has spent the past 13 years trying to translate Aphex Twin's unscalable discography into a language it can speak, so now the teacher has simply returned to give us all a whole new lesson in vocabulary.

It's been 13 years... many people have never heard of him before and this review, per example, is pretty much pointless.

I just think it's a genre which is much harder to describe than others. The references are there but IDM tends to be willfully obscure and shifty.

and also less words about the moon and june.

i actually think people writing about electronic music often do a better job describing what's going on, musically, than do people writing about guitar rock etc.

and this stuff in its formalist inclinations lends itself to description better than a lot of stuff, honestly

disagree that talking about past work is necessary or desirable. yes writing about sound design is hard, but you can do it without falling into "it's like a barrel full of ball bearings falling down stairs ... but funky!"

xposts

also the more 'conceptual' aspects of aphex twin make him a little easier to write about, i think

idk what that means but I'm curious

I don't actually know a ton about Aphex Twin, because my interest in dance and electronic stuff came a little after his 90s heyday -- but beyond an intro paragraph or two about his return, or some setting up of his impact on IDM (and perhaps even EDM) in general, curious as to why this record wouldn't be written about in terms of how it relates to new electronic dance music. For example, why not just talk about its merits alongside recent stuff by Actress, Lone, DJ Rashad, new Planet Mu releases, new Hyperdub, etc? Following that, what kind of impact it has just as a stand alone release? I am interested in this record, but am wondering how many reviews will actually contain as much "criticism" as backstory, or pining for old days.

idk what that means but I'm curious

― ugh (lukas), Friday, September 5, 2014 3:57 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sometimes his songs/albums are driven in part by high-concept ideas, which provide a way "in" to them

see video above, no?

...well, clearly he had a massive impact on, erm, Skrillex!

(I kid, I kid.)

ugh, x-post to Dominique

I like the Skrillex tidbit because the Come To Daddy EP totally blew my mind open too and he's 1 month younger than me. There but for the grace of God.

maybe I should have joined some screamo bands in high school

xpost yeah would be very cool if reviewers that weren't steeped in pre-2002 stuff were assigned to review Syro

that makes sense amateurist. I'd also say that Aphex is easier to write about than say, Autechre since his stuff tends to cohere into a single-pointed emotional or artistic impression, I don't think Autechre cares about that as much.

yeah autechre stuff is kind of defiantly low-affect in a way.

http://i.imgur.com/NwlH3Ge.jpg

^^^OK, I was still on a "the design is more clever than beautiful" but this is straight-up beautiful. As well as conceptually "wow". In terms of "information is beautiful" but also in terms of, well, that settles every single "did he use a Korg or a Roland on that?" gearhead idiot question.

(Some of these songs must be quite old, if they were recorded at the Bank. That was knocked down a couple of years ago.)

The thing is, at this point we are just following his music by inertia not because Syro would be a groundbreaking album if he were an upcoming artist.

curious as to why this record wouldn't be written about in terms of how it relates to new electronic dance music. For example, why not just talk about its merits alongside recent stuff by Actress, Lone, DJ Rashad, new Planet Mu releases, new Hyperdub, etc?

The simple answer might well be "it doesn't", because for all we know these tracks have been sitting around for close to a decade and he may have been working in complete isolation. But then the more you think about it the connections are everywhere - given his mate Mike Paradinas has been releasing footwork remixes for years it's likely he'd have heard some of them, although the influence in the other direction may be negligible. Lone is basically doing Artificial Intelligence/Black Dog/pre-Autechre IDM a lot of the time, I tend to avoid Hyperdub releases but around 2009 I was hearing a lot of Aphexy sounds and melodies in post-dubstep etc etc.

This all feeds into what I was saying about it maybe just being the right time for a new Aphex Twin album, in that he'd have been a cringeworthily unfashionable reference to drop in dance music discourse for most of the 00s, but now there are echoes of that sound all over the place. On Syro itself, we might be able to tell how self-consciously connected RDJ by what the bass sounds like.

Also "groundbreaking" is a red herring, he hasn't really been groundbreaking since the mid-90s, but one of the reasons for the excitement is that, on top of the pisstaking and the tanks and the videos and the sonic abrasiveness and the genuinely groundbreaking records he once made, he writes amazing melodies, pretty much better than anyone else in electronic music.

Why does music always have to be "groundbreaking"?

Can't you just like an artist for "that thing they do" and not have to have it at the forefront of something? (Wouldn't it be depressing if Aphex Twin released a new album and it was full of ~modern signifiers~ like footwork rhythms or post-dubstep wobbly basslines. That wouldn't be evidence that he was clued-in, would it? It'd be evidence that he'd given up trying to hoe his own row.)

I don't *listen* to Aphex Twin because he's "groundbreaking" (though I know lots of people buy into this way of thinking.) I listen to him because I like the things that he, specifically does, that no one else quite captures in the same way. I like the sad, floaty kinda melodies that drift in and out of texture pad gauziness. I like those frenetic, stabby, bass to low-midrange patterns that sound almost random, but reveal rhythmic and harmonic complexity on repeated listens.

I like the thing he does. I don't really care where he fits in the ~grand narrative of music~ though I know some people are very heavily invested in creating a narrative. If that kind of way of thinking about music makes you happy, by all means, do what you love. But please, just stop pretending that it meeeaaaaaannns something. This kind of spin is tedious myth-making.

ugh x-post now

'groundbreaking' is like 'surprising' - there is no such thing a surprising, there is only surprised

Yeah, but, some records surprise a lot more people than others.

of course, some records are heard by more people than others!

Okay, some records surprise a higher proportion of listeners, then.

But yeah the basic point I agree with. I can already envisage those begrudging 7/10 reviews where the writer admits they like every track on the album but they're still disappointed because their mind isn't blown the way it was when they were 16 and hearing 'I Care Because You Do' for the first time.

Yes. And this will happen.

It's not that every album or song should be groundbreaking or should defy unreal expectations. I was just stating that we are still following Aphex because he used to make groundbreaking music (back in the mid 90s) sure. And that Syro wouldn't warrant too much discussion if it was an album by someone new and Aphex Twin never existed.

Branwell OTM

Yep

the gear circle reminds me of the similarly massive gear list on the back cover of Yellow Magic Orchestra's BGM album

we are still following Aphex because he used to make groundbreaking music (back in the mid 90s) music that fans of his music really like, sure. And that Syro wouldn't warrant too receive as much discussion if it was an album by someone new and Aphex Twin never existed who hadn't got a 20 year plus catalogue of highly-regarded music.

I'm sort of feeling like I should agree with the above but at the same time I have to admit I'm torn. I'm a fan of new and exciting sounds, weird ideas - musical gimmicks even. On a personal level, discovering Aphex and getting into his stuff was very much about that. I was always amazed at how he rarely repeated the same idea twice and I was always blown away by how he could change drastically from album to album, or even track to track on albums like ICBYD.

That has always been a large part of the appeal for me - the fact you never really know what to expect or what you're going to get next. Enjoying the RDJ sound and how he has a great knack for melodies etc is one thing, but it's not like we're talking the Ramones or AC/DC here. More than the cult of personality, the beauty of his ambient work, his scatological humour, the insane rhythm patterns, I always felt it was the sense of discovery and the maverick attitude which went with his work that was the real draw.

It's something I cherish in nearly all my favourite artists and bands - a sense of diversity, not being tied down, trying out new paths etc... Is this the same as 'breaking ground'? Whatever this means is down to semantics and could be discussed at length, but it could also be a useful shorthand for what I'm saying above. I believe this was one of the key reasons some people were slightly disappointed when Druqks came out - it had all the right ingredients but it was largely an improvement on ideas he'd already sketched out on the Come To Daddy and Windowlicker EPs before it.

Obv people enjoy music for different reasons and this is just my perspective. I certainly don't expect to have my mind caved in by Syro the same way Bouncing Bucephalus Ball did when I was 16 and trying pot for the first time round at an older friend's house. To do so would be disappointing and highly foolish. Syro's gonna be great. It's going to have a lot of brilliant ideas, thrills, spills, humour, wonderful melodies and who knows it might well do something utterly perplexing, but I'm not setting myself up to have my worldview changed. Instead I'm looking forward to the day it turns up at my desk, I'm gonna go home and listen to it lying on my bed with a cup of tea and just let the music do the talking.

http://aphex-twin.wikia.com/wiki/Unreleased_Live_Tracks

warning: SPOILERS

wasn't the metz track on confederate trough or whatever?

I'm not looking forward this album being in any way "groundbreaking," but I am hoping it sounds like more than just a compilation of tracks he's had lying around for years. Which, yeah, it probably is, but still, I hope it works as a cohesive whole and not something he just randomly tossed together. Though again, that's sort of his infamous MO, so ...

wasn't the metz track on confederate trough or whatever?

hell no. Fredugolon 6 is though

ye gads am i so old that it all begins to sound the same?
whatever - i like it !

exclusive leaked pic from syro listening party http://i.imgur.com/R7ZuO3S.jpg

Went to the Wellcome place in London, their current exhibition on graphic design, and saw these, prototype designs for plain cigarette packaging from 2011. I wonder if afx saw these?

http://studio.build/archived/icon-magazine-rethink/

Not historically a fan of AFX but I find that I kind of like some of this. The sound design and editing are pretty much peerless.

at the moment this is my go-to afx record

I crack up every time at all of the brilliant misdirection in it. It's like an infinitely more sonically satisfying Perrey and Kingsley record.

Possibly the Afx record I've listened to the most, despite its inexplicably dodgy reputation.

got a copy of this on vinyl now and uhhh it sounds insane. idk why they put it on 3 records when it could've easily fit on two (it doesn't even have the bonus track!) but its so good I guess I can overlook that. this shit reboots your brain

it really is great, a career highlight imho

XMAS_EVE absolutely is

Collapse EP is awesome too. man why'd he have to go away again

the 1st track is like a 3-D version of "Bucephalus Bouncing Ball"

don't forget Cheetah

could do without the electronically controller acoustic instruments one though

A fascinating release in a lot of ways. I’ve been thinking about doing an ILM review of it.

please do!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnF_mMDgZ08

"Collapse EP is awesome too. man why'd he have to go away again"

seems to have cracked totally after his father passed, plus all his statements re covid/quarantine made me worry for his mental health