Anticipating SYRO the new (2014) album by Aphex Twin

this is p funky

very good time to be getting into aphex twin for the first time. this record is great

its up on spotify. 3 tracks in and im loving it so far.

― everyday sheeple (Michael B), Friday, September 19, 2014 5:40 PM (1 hour ago)

Not seeing it. Non-US customers only maybe?

possibly. that would be weird tho

Not released in the US until the 23rd

There's some amazing moments on this album where the tracks transform into pure sonic bliss for a few bars (the title track being one of them). I don't think the solo piano piece is necessarily out of place. The whole album has a certain sense of intimacy -- samples of his family members being one example. The last song with all the environmental noise is really nice.

I'm holding out until my copy shows up.

This bit from the pitchfork interview is reassuring:

But I don't think these Syro tracks are particularly innovative. Maybe in really subtle ways they are, for me, but there's nothing there that I need to explore more, so it's not going to put me off releasing anything. It just totally makes me want to not do anything else in that particular style.
It's an admission that these are just some old tracks and styles he had and wanted to release them before moving on to another kind of sound. Hoping this means we'll have another completely different album coming afterwards that doesn't take 13 years.

I kind of like this idea of releasing an album just to get rid of it

Giving it a second listen right now and I think there's around 3 great Aphex songs and the rest feel like exercises. He is an incredibly talented producer but in a sense this feels like too little too late. Reading that pitchfork interview you get the sense that despite all the hype that the label and the media are throwing on the release, Richard himself doesn't feel like it's a great album. At one point of that interview he talks about how he is making some songs with midi robots atm which he likes more than anything on Syro, he also explains, as I quoted above, he gives the impression that these are leftovers that he needed to get out to move on.

It's hard to get excited over material that the musician himself considers subpar.

If this is an album of throwaways then it's one of the best I've heard. Wonderful melodies and layers of trademark Aphex synth-twisting. I love it.

If he thought it was subpar, he wouldn't release it

Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily take things that RDJ says at face value.

It's hard to get excited over material that the musician himself considers subpar.

actually it's really easy, if for instance you like it

Love this record and I was always lukewarm on his stuff before. Great piano track at the end too.

I'm rather unwhelmed by the whole thing. Not over or under.

feel like this could be one of the great releases of the 4th quarter of 2014. it has a certain "vibe" that really resonates with me. i must admit that my toes were tapping on one or two occasions! this is a definite classic and i'm predicting a solid 8/10 from the pitchfork boys

Don't get me wrong I think this is one of the best albums of the year and definitely one of his best releases, I was just saying that it seems like he doesn't feel as excited as Syro as the press and the label, Position Position is right, though, you shouldn't take anything he says at face value.

But, yes, I do love it. Definitely nothing that sounds 'new' coming from him but I can see it overcompensates in replay value, I'm on the 4th listen and it keeps revealing some exciting ideas and sounds. More interested in what he does next, though.

Gonna dive into this tonight. Ty missingNO for new dn.

i mean, yeah, it doesn't sound "new" in the sense of something actually new, but let's be honest, what really sounds new nowadays? especially with how the internet makes it so fast plus the whole social media thing. this is a great album, a solid eighter, but perhaps one for the music buffs and not the johnny go latelys?

"The Pitchfork boys"

Hmmmmm.

New Shellac got in the way of listening to this tonight, but Aisatsana is absolutely amazing. What a closer.

ah man i was really enjoying the phrase "a solid 8/10 from the pit"

we consulted the pit and it convulsed and bellowed "eight out of ten, pretty good"

Haha

I have enjoyed the "cool music buff" character and especially appreciate that it wasn't registered as a sock account to run on for months

Well done missingNO, solis 8/10

*solid

Japanese bonus track MARCHROMT30A edit 2b 96 [104.98] http://youtu.be/SiVmqDB8I2U

am I the only one who hasn't been able to stream this??

No, I haven't either.

I suppose I should go and buy it in a shop today.

It arrived! A whole workday to go before I can hear it though :-/

8.7 on Pitchfork.

Putting it on now ...

"Royalty to Richard (50%)... £1.0989"

isn't 50% very high?

not for indies, factory pioneered the 50/50 split iirc.

After one listen I think that 'solid' is the best word to describe this album

the music itself aside, the production on the last handful of RDJ releases - drukqs, Chosen Lords, Rushup Edge, and now Syro, is downright incredible

this sounds like aphex twin.

i haven't listened to aphex twin in forever, some SAWII aside, so it kind of just sounds like a techno album to me. which i think is appropriate at this point in time.

Has this got some kind of dumb DRM on the CD so that you can't play it in iTunes or is my copy just fucked?

Ah, no, it's ripping now. Just my laptop being antediluvian/on its last legs. Slightly excited now.

this owns

Nope, my iTunes is just not going to play ball with this disc. :(

Now listening on a shitty boombox with terrible sound quality, which is less than optimal.

more likely a disc drive issue? did u try dragging & dropping the files from the CD icon to yr desktop?

I'll give it a go when I'm done listening to it. (But suspect not, as iTunes will rip the whole thing fine, but then refuses to process it. Which makes me think DRM rather than disc drive issue.)

Christ, but his drum sounds! I thought he was kidding when he said he'd spend 3 months working on a single drum sound, but they just sound so... big. Big, fat drum sounds.

mine ripped fine. windows EAC to flac.

+1 for the cd packaging. i laughed.

This certainly bangs! Best thing production-wise hes ever done. Maybe missing some of the grander gestures of mischief/elements of danger I might have expected from a previous ApheX. In fact it sounds very much how I expected it to: an update on the Druqks/Tuss template, gilded to perfection and carried over the course of a succinct hour long record.
Whether sonic perfection and conceptual succinctness are what I previously enjoyed about Aphex's music, im not sure. In fact it was quite the opposite - I liked the scraggy ends and curveballs best of all. So there's no equivalent of Ventolin or Nannou or Bouncing Bicephalus Ball on this album - it's played as straight as Aphex gets and I'd say that's not really a Bad thing.
That said, with Syro, I was neither expecting nor hoping for goofy antics nor mind altering experiments and I'm actually very happy to treat this as a series of dance tracks over and above a so-called 'intelligent home listening' album. I'd love to hear these tunes out at a club which is more than I can say for a number of his releases.
When I say it 'sounds like Aphex' I mean it, but not in a bad way. It is very Aphexy, and lol of course, what did I want? But my first reaction to this was a bit like my reaction to the last Pearl Jam album after not listening to them for years - it's still Pearl Jam, possibly better Pearl Jam than the Pearl Jam I used to listen to. But what made Pearl Jam for me wasn't (just) the big hoary rock singles, it was also the weird detours into songs like Bugs and WMA and Pry, To and like, the whole of No Code. So it could be seen as his Lightning Bolt or if you prefer Tom Waits, it's his Bad As Me - to paraphrase ASoto 'Richard D James putting on his Richard James hat and being Richard D James really well'. A fair few Warp artists of old have also done this with theit more recent albums - Plaid spring to mind especially. Cut the crap and make some tunes.
This is Aphex at the peak of Aphex. Every track is meticulously detailed and it's going to take me ages to hear every layer in these tunes, but that's only if I don't get a bit bored first, because really it's a very consistent record.
These are only first impressions of course because on a more positive note it definitely rocks harder than anything he's ever done.

50% in the context of indies is profit split after recouping usually. Not royalty.

putting my copy on now.

unexpectedly gorgeous! was not expecting something so accessible. production is incredible. only didn't like the very end.

i liked completely different bits of it at home last night doing the washing up than i did on earphones at my desk at 4 the same afternoon.