Anticipating SYRO the new (2014) album by Aphex Twin

I absolutely failed to connect with that MBV record on any level. (I think because I've heard that sound done, so well, by so many other people, that any lack of progression felt... I dunno, I don't think artists *have* to progress, but it was just a sound I'd grown tired of through overexposure during the intervening 20 years.) I don't feel the same lack of connection with Syro. Possibly my ears aren't tired of those sounds yet; possibly that RDJ's "hook" or musical personality or whatever it is that makes his music sticky and more-ish is less easily duplicable than "guitar swoops with ethereal textures."

Maybe it's a comparable wait / clearing the decks / sense of "OMG, the first new material in so many years" but the end result and its effect doesn't feel comparable to me, in terms of my enjoyment of the records.

I don't think Syro falls off towards the back half, but I do kinda feel it goes on a bit too long. Most of the albums I've been listening too recently have been around the 30-40 minute mark so I don't know that I have the patience any more for an epic. But when I pause Syro in the middle, and go off and do something else, I enjoy the tracks on the second half more than if I listen to it in one sitting.

I haven't listened to it all in one sitting yet either. There's a lot to take in and for now I'm listening to it as 'sides' or a series of 12"s. Production-wise I'd say it's certainly (if not significantly) a step-up from his previous work, and that's probably why it wokrs better than MBV (which could have come out in 1994 for all I care).

i need more music like CIRCLONT6A.

seems like a cool machine. Apparently DBX is really into it as well.

http://www.sequentix.com/cirklon.htm

This album rules, my faves are produk 29, CIRCLONT6A, and PAPAT4.

i need more music like CIRCLONT6A.

― StillAdvance

http://youtu.be/3K61N6cdULU

Hrvatski - Marbles

sure there probably is a lot of chip tune stuff that has more aphex-like complexity, always got a kick out of this tho

Dan, those big Oberheims are wicked of course but the thing with the Korgs is that they literally have a voice for each of the 48 keys. Also crucially they have a section where you can adjust the temperament of the 12-tone scale. Having three of them could be seen as excessive but then if you want to do poly analogue in tunings other than ET there probably isn't anything that comes close. And of course, why not!

the japanese bonus track is one of the better tracks on the lp

Production-wise I'd say it's certainly (if not significantly) a step-up from his previous work, and that's probably why it wokrs better than MBV (which could have come out in 1994 for all I care).

There may be more going on here than I realize but I think all his stuff from druqks on sounds very good. Listening on headphones now and there's a very "layered" sound; it feels like kind of a 3D sound though I don't know exactly how to quantify that

Yeah, to me this sounds very much like Druqks/analord but with more spacious imaging

I don't hear any pre-breakcore afx on this at all.

the milkmans wifes tits

i'm bloopin and bloopin and i'm bleepin
but i damn near got caught
cuz my beeper kept beepin

this album seems pretty good!

third track slightly reminiscent of where i go era lindstrom

i kind of like the first track as it sounds so analogish, so boards of canada like. but after that i found the rest boring, repetitive and going nowhere. btw i never got into aphex twin.

Somebody call Richard http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22247/lot/245/

i listened to syro three more times today. i don't think i liked it as much today as i did last night, but i was listening on a better system last night. i think i generally like the first half of the album much better. agree that it has elements of the dmx krew sound ... i think somebody upthread (dog latin?) might have said it's like a survey of all the phases of his sound, i hear that too, and i was thinking that for something so "aphex-y" it's also kind of like a survey of the warp records sound. i don't just hear windowlicker in it, i hear autechre, etc.

― the late great, Wednesday, 24 September 2014 04:22 (17 hours ago) Permalink

Agree with this 100%, in fact was coming here to make the same observation.

Odd to finally get an album from Aphex Twin of all people that feels so genre-representative.

I suppose you could argue that since he defined the sound of the genre, it's understandable.

bassline/breakdown midway through CIRCLONT14 is goofy/hilarious.. hi-hat fuckery is CALBOTI, on the outside. groove feels a bit rigid/cluttered towards the end, with all of the drums going on

gave this a spin last night and really enjoyed it, then "Digeridoo" came up next on Spotify and it was amazing how similar it was (in a good way, as touched on above re: artists who retain signature sounds)

then "Digeridoo" came up next on Spotify and it was amazing how similar it was

lol this literally just happened to me

180dB sounds a bit tossed-off if you listen to it out of context.

gave this a spin last night and really enjoyed it, then "Digeridoo" came up next on Spotify and it was amazing how similar it was (in a good way, as touched on above re: artists who retain signature sounds)

― sleeve, Thursday, September 25, 2014 4:38 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I had this with the Caustic Window album. Popeye came up on random and without looking at what was playing I immediately assumed it was off the new album.

180dB sounds a bit tossed-off if you listen to it out of context.

― zip it shrimpy (dog latin)

the recording of the drums sounds all shoddy/dulled on headphones, as if it's a deteriorating tape recording.

11 Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works Volume II Mar 1994
24 Aphex Twin Classics Feb 1995
24 Aphex Twin …I Care Because You Do May 1995
22 Aphex Twin Drukqs Nov 2001
Any guesses where this one might go?

― Mark G, Wednesday, September 24, 2014 7:43 AM (Yesterday)

Looks like it's between Aphex and Alt-J for the #1 slot with Alt-J ahead

huh

how many sales does it take to get to #2 these days

Aphex Twin's first album for 13 years is in the running to top this week's UK album charts.

The highly-anticpated and heavily-praised 'Syro' album dropped on September 19 and has been giving the new Alt-J LP a run for its money in the race for the top spot.

Although Richard D. James was behind the bang-average UK band in the midweek stats, we firmly believe that the electronic pioneer can beat the band to become king of the albums.

Let's get Aphex to number one, fire your war-crys, sound the klaxons, it's about time that a genuinely innovative and groundbreaking artist gets the mainstream recognition over a band that have been active for about 2 measly years.

#GetAphexNo1

poop

Richard D. James was behind the bang-average UK band

No way, it was him all along!?

Oh yeah, he's a big wheel in the bang-average music scene..

love those the average white bang records

the

Who the fuck is "Alt-J"?

evidently you're not down with the UK bang average scene

alt+j resets your itunes i think

#8 it is then so his first top 10 album.

That's alright, innit?

Seems to have had a brief burst of interest then gone away..

― Mark G, Sunday, 21 September 2014 22:33 (1 week ago) Permalink

Like ILX, like life.

This is how every album release ever goes on ILX.

Rumour - anticipation - discussion - IT'S LEAKED - everyone's heard it but you - by the time you hear it people have stopped talking - thread death - in 6 months there will be a poll.

It was ever thus.

this album still rules but there's not much one can really say about it is there?

Yeah that cycle seems perfectly natural to me, not sure why discussion of this album needs to run & run

i like that one part where it goes doooo-WIP! svock-deedle-ingra-SVOCK with the calm rising synth behind it

He's got the best doooo-WIP! svock-deedle-ingra-SVOCK n the business - without a doubt.

rip battles

I'm listening to it a lot, really great record

especially into the fine line he walks when it goes full on junglist-AFX in the final third- he could easily have tipped it into more aggro breakcore style (which would have been a redundant retread of Drukqs) and thank god he felt no temptation to make it sound "current" in an EDM manner- it's a really graceful turn in the album.

I think Aphex and Autehcre both suffer a bit from being difficult for people to write about, resistant to being patched into discourse, and the "autistic" tag is a placeholder for that withdrawal from circulation- because once you have tagged the genres that they are glancing at on New Record X or Y, you're left with a mostly formalist/abstract statement of Here's How I'm Programming Now, and so the signifiers of domesiticity or intimacy in the occasional human voices are really useful but also just a bit out of reach. What makes the music so generative and receptive for people as a place in which to abide and dwell and speculate is also what defeats any attempt to attach it to particular ideas and signifiers and context (perhaps why the 33 1/3 book on Aphex focused so much on the uses people made of the music rather than trying to construct some interpretive story re: what the music is "about"- it was a smart move but also one made as a result of this witholding).

do you know of any other worthwhile writing about aphex, or about autechre for that matter

the track of this that i first got into replaying incessantly (other than minipops when it was prereleased) is papat4
it shares some of melancholy verging on saudade that is so distinctive about analord #2
the walsmley review from the wire that someone posted a scan of upthread was good

track 2 is my favorite. love all the hooks it spits out and swallows back up over 10 minutes.

You know what?

I did play "Druqs" and re-enjoyed it

I will get it t some point, but I am still really loving the ILX pre-version and want to stick with it for a while longer.

Maybe next week....