Aphex Twin classic or Dud?

see also upthread when you said it was simultaneously hurried and unhurried!

see also when p sherburne said in his pfork review that it was both random like a demolition derby and precise like a laser guided missile

i mean this is part of what i'm reacting to - the praise i'm hearing seems ... incoherent

describing music.. generalizing descriptions, so as to try to relate it coherently... you're bound to fail, fuck up, miss the mark, etc.

This is the bewildering line for me in Sherburne's review:

There have been times in James’ career when his knowing smirk threatened to eclipse the music.

Ok, so we are overrating current Aphex Twin music. I find these tunes stimulating and enjoyable in unique ways.. it scratches a particular itch. I honestly wasn't expecting much after Cheetah.

granny listen to cheetah! it's my favorite new Aphex stuff since a while. and it's slow.

finally listening to this ... wow clear Jlin vibes, on 1st 44 at least

it's easier for me to enjoy this when I forget his "stature" and imagine I'm with a bunch of high people putting out cigarettes in soda bottles in a room with dirty couches

boy howdy everyone sometimes it's good to be a casual fan

ok I listened to Cheetah. It's...ok. Def more in the vein that I enjoy, but I can't see myself returning to it much. Kinda bedroom techno by numbers. All the tracks sound similar and lack intrigue. Whereas ICBYD and his other stuff I liked, each track had its own personality. Variety of moods, emotions textures, melodies/harmonies, diff sounds on the drums/rhythms. Maybe I'm just older and JADED but I just hear "here's some shit I made on vintage equipment, I'm gonna go poop out another 200 of these tracks tomorrow". Sorry I hate to hate on stuff, I really do.
I'll give it another shot in a few days or so tho.

^^this nails it better I than I did/could

guys this EP is great

I get all that stuff upthread as it applies to Syro or Cheetah or that collection of orphaned AFX tracks but the stuff on here is so much bouncier and fun

CHEETAH IS A GROWER *runs out of room sobbing*

The only Aphex Twin which ever did anything zo me was Didgeridoo. I guess the reason is that it sounds organic and is hypnotic at the same time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAkFBQ6sIcc

lol

i like cheetah, it has some nice bit-crushed esque thin synths that sound really crystalline

but yeah i see what dainger is saying about the vintage equipment angle which kind of is the whole deal if you like it or not, the record is very understated and the beats are super rudimentary - i like that, but mostly as a reaction to the overly cerebral stuff he does like music for machines or whatever that one was called.

Is there any indication or claim that this stuff is new, as in, even recorded recently?

track 2 has an obvious jlin influence

Yeah and he’s been playing jlin in dj sets

alex in manhattan, what abt this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQXMvX1HRA8

not sure about the rest but "MT1 t29r2" rules

I love that, Steve. Especially before the computer beats arrive ;-) To be honest, I find this kind of thing, spinning an acoustic theme further with electronic sounds quite interesting and in this case even successful.

He might not be breaking new ground but unlike this more than a lot of his other stuff since his reemergence.

track 2 has an obvious jlin influence

I don't know about Jlin (not enough triplets), but the half-time breakdown w/claps is a giveaway that he's heard some music in the last decade.

I could definitely see him loving Jlin as as contemporary template for super dense/busy beats though.

yeah people are guessing that cuz, like Ross said, he plays her stuff out

eg he played 4 Jlin tracks in his set in Houston

not sure about the rest but "MT1 t29r2" rules

― reggae mike love (polyphonic)

attaboy

What you mean I don't know good music, I have Disco Duck on 45

a disco duck 45? sounds like you are a connoisseur of novelty / comedy music, therefore an ideal listener for late-period aphex

I listened to this and it sounds great. I can get why some people think he's going through the motions of they only listened to the title track.

I really like this ep

Abundance is dope

*if not of

Dunno that first track bangs. Those distorted low snares that come in near the end remind me why I started producing to begin with - pure frequency, texture - bangs hard

Late great I would totally take you for a beer man. But those drums around 2 40 on the 2nd track start to mirror the melody and this is definitely the most overt aphex has been in sometime. Aphex encourages new ways of listening
I think

tbh I understand the criticism in this thread and for the most part this is exactly what the good people of ILM made one thousand posts about when Syro was released. 90s Aphex was cool in that his tunes were more conceptual and memorable and you could write about them in a way that was intriguing and fun. it had the prankster and outsider element to it. whereas his new music is knotty and technical and quite frankly a lot of it sounds the same as itself. it's no fun to write about. hence why so many Syro reviews made an entire paragraph describing the last track.

this EP definitely feels distinct though - it has that aural rollercoaster feel to it that a lot of the good Aphex stuff does. sounds awesome too. suddenly I'm interested in this guy again.

Abundance feels like tornado Wallace on speed.

One thing I can get behind with this ep is the merger of frenetic percussion with ambient synths or vocal melodies. Abundance borders on r n b with those vocal loops but does not deploy them enough to make that concrete

Often the drums are pitched to the music which is fucking solid

Also frog otm

One thing I can get behind with this ep is the merger of frenetic percussion with ambient synths or vocal melodies.

Put that way it *does* sound like completely new territory for Aphex Twin ;-)

Lol :)

Syro was more melodic than this. He has been branching out, even though timbrally it feels like all's said and done at this point in his 'late' period.

What you mean I don't know good music, I have Disco Duck on 45

― reggae mike love (polyphonic), Wednesday, September 19, 2018 5:48 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have the album!

90s Aphex was cool in that his tunes were more conceptual and memorable and you could write about them in a way that was intriguing and fun. it had the prankster and outsider element to it. whereas his new music is knotty and technical and quite frankly a lot of it sounds the same as itself. it's no fun to write about.

Just FTR, my personal reception of new Aphex has nothing at all to do with what it's like to "write about it"...

So far I'm really enjoying this. It has a lot more personality than the other stuff he's put out this decade. Yes, it sounds like an Aphex recording, but it also sounds very much of the moment in terms of production quality and complexity.

I like the middle section on the first track where the drums sound like they are speeding out if control. And I agree that the second track is taking its cues from Jlin.

xp I mean, you can substitute whatever...talk about, think about, be inspired by, etc. etc. for me my entryway into Aphex was the cover to the Richard D. James album + some article talking about how he was making rhythm tracks out of Coke cans + that thing where he hid his face in the spectrogram of a track. having no clue what IDM was I had to know what this kind of music sounded like. of course it wasn't just the gimmicks that made this stuff so classic, using more tangible melodies had something to do with it. like a lot of "outsider" stuff that becomes famous it's some combo of weirdness and accessibility.

again, from a casual fan's perspective, there's a lot more to chew on here compared to Cheetah, Syro, or the Acoustic Computer whatever EP (which I really liked). it's 28 minutes but I feel like I'll get the most mileage out of this record than any other I've heard so far in 2018.

Aphex is good and talented and we should be glad he still does his things. We’re all armchair critics, what’s your contribution to society? Posts on Ilx?

Syro was really, really great. That second track!

Is that Xmas ??

Oh that’s great !

We’re all armchair critics, what’s your contribution to society? Posts on Ilx?

I deliver babies in war zones, and post in ILX in my spare moments.

Hahaha good poster

this thread has accumulated roughly as many new answers since yesterday as the jlin thread has accumulated in three years

i think that is bad, not good

i guess tbf half of those posts are me complaining about how overrated aphex twin is