Aphex Twin classic or Dud?

Nice write ups!

In new aphex news, he seems to have again been collaborating on some gear with novation

AFX is back, but what are @WeAreNovation up to? https://t.co/MCmgGa00ik

— DJ Mag (@DJmag) October 8, 2020

Haha, every time this thread gets bumped, I'm kinda like... ::bites nails:: OH GOD RICHARD WHAT HAVE YOU SAID NOW. WAHT.

So it's really cool to open it up and read something interesting? It's funny because (thank god the most extreme of my RDJ phanboy days are over!) I agree with many of your assessments, but for me, that's kind of the point, and that's why I love those records, especially 85-92? It's so absolutely basic and nothing-y from a compositional point of view or a gear point of view or a programming/structure point of view, yet it hits such a beautiful place for me. Even with almost nothing in the way of technical gimmickry, the guy still knew how to write a beautiful-haunting-sad-evocative tune.

oh dang a Novation collab now? I'm 100% on board with this. The Peak is currently my favorite synth in the studio and easily the best bang and sonic variety for the buck, what a gorgeous piece of gear.

He already collaborated with them on the last iteration of the Basestation 2 mono - there was an Aphex mode where each step of a sequence would be a totally different sound to the step before. Not sure how useful that would be tbh, but I guess it would add a bit of spice to things

This looks more like a whole new device though

AFX STATION
WITH @WEARENOVATIONhttps://t.co/R07TcQl6h1 pic.twitter.com/xu09wVLyv2

— Aphex Twin (@AphexTwin) October 20, 2020

Let’s get this out of the way: most of the best loved stuff here sounds like Eno pastiche.

I don't think I quite agree here. SAWII is where the alien-ness of Aphex really clicks for me, from the melodies to the sound of the equipment used to how it is recorded. I'm as big of an Eno nerd as you can be, but I've never really noticed much similarity between Eno and SAWII besides the most obvious aspects that it shares with virtually all ambient music. In fact, one thing I think it does even better than Eno is really getting at the darker undercurrents that Eno explored with something like "On Land" but never really delved into much further.

I feel rhubarb so much more than saccharine apollo mush.. don’t like mushy eno

Didn't RDJ once say he had never heard Eno before making that album? Or am I confusing this with something else...

that sounds like something he would say, and also one of his many lies

Ok, a belated follow-up, it's been a busy week:

The Richard D James Album — I admit: I have always struggled to love this album. At the time it was released, it was hailed as sort of RDJ’s arrival, what with a shiny new drill n’ bass sound, attractive MIDI orchestral textures and a big push from Warp. But for a supposedly major work, several tracks here feel like piss takes and/or throwaways — Goon Gumpas is two minutes of pizzicato strings and heroic organ parts that sound like outtakes from Joe Meek’s Telstar, while Logan Rock Witch employs a pipe organ playing over jaw harp and slide whistle. The breakbeat extravaganzae on several of the other tracks tend to feel more showy/“Look ma”-y than invigorating. The most substantial things here are Girl/Boy Song, Yellow Calx and Peek 82454201 — all of which are really good and the latter of which is sneakily outstanding. Where stuff like Carn Marth gives me a bit of a headache, this somehow makes drill n’ bass soft and lush, with a crispness and real depth of production. The arrival of the melody more than a minute in? That's invigorating, an all-time moment. But overall, this feels a bit like Richard's Annie Hall: an important template for what’s to come, but generally less developed, successful and in some ways enjoyable.

Come to Daddy — My favorite release of his and in a lot of ways more RDJA than RDJA was – less "major statement" than definitive expression of who he is (fun fact: this EP is actually a minute longer than RDJA). And who is he? A guy who follows up his most commercially successful release with an goth industrial pastiche that should send people running for the hills but in actuality becomes his best known track (regardless, I still hate it). A guy who does two gonzo remixes of said track featuring little-to-no original components (a feature not a bug as it would turn out). And who revels in being an impish, naughty bastard (Funny Little Man’s X-rated coda trumps Milk Man, which is catchy as hell but also kind of tried too hard). He’s also really fucking good at creating music you probably haven’t heard anywhere else. Bucephalus Bouncing Ball is still his best breakbeat track by some distance, with a snaky structure, elegant SAW2 melodies and a number of clever twists on its now-famous titular modular trick. Elsewhere he remixes RDJA’s To Cure a Weakling Child into something that feels like breakbeat 90s Eno (and that's a good thing). And the two pretty songs are, well, two of the prettiest he ever did. Is it his “best” release? I dunno, but of the non-ambient ones, it’s still his most listenable.

More when I feel like I get my arms around Drukqs ...

The irony of complaining that an aphex twin track sounds like a piss take or throwaway is very rich. That's gotta be 30% of this guys whole catalog.

I know you’re just doing major albums, but you should really take a detour for Windowlicker – it’s a key piece of the puzzle.

I agree - Come To Daddy EP does everything I like about him. Fuses prettiness, ribald mischief and bonkers complexity all in the mix and just keeps throwing ideas at you

a lot of kind of aimless atonal noodles here—“Curtains,”

"curtains" is in my top 3 for saw ii. sounds like sci-fi noir.

Goon Gumpas and Logon Rock Witch are two of my favorite tracks on RDJ, and I love how he branches out into crazy instrument combos and unique atmospherics with them (and most of the rest of the record too... it has the widest palette of any RDJ release). While Come to Daddy sounds more polished and cohesive thematically, I felt it lost the playful adventurousness of its predecessor somewhat, and he hasn't recaptured that since.

I shouldn't say "lost" maybe diminished. By Drukqs he'd firmly baked his style into place and lost his adventurousness by then.

Flow Coma remix was the last thing that sounded really fresh to me. there's a lot of good stuff since then, but yeah it lacks the sense of discovery.

Really enjoying this revive.

The SC dump was a lot of fun, maybe the best thing of his I've encountered.

yeah I should wallow in that on shuffle right now, thanks

lol 2.8 GB of MP3s, wow

Is it all still up on SC somewhere?

(I downloaded it years ago but that DL is on a dead laptop.)

idk, I grabbed it all when it was up, message me if you want a Dropbox link or something!

I may take you up on that at some point. For now, though, I've got this YouTube playlist to never quite finish:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgYZ4levvfk&list=PLEsZgo3N97Mh92JGSKpkYaEuO03cKBr8b

lots of pure gold in that dump

(suzanne, 2tone, martin's car, sam's car, the donkey rhubarb remix, with my family, no cares, high hats tune....)

― brimstead, Tuesday, June 9, 2015 11:13 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

― brimstead, Saturday, 25 July 2015 01:18 (five years ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgYZ4levvfk&list=PLEsZgo3N97Mh92JGSKpkYaEuO03cKBr8b

Damn it I can't embed this

i'm a little suspicious of people who underrate saw 1 bc i can't actually think of a record that sounds like it. sure there is adjacent stuff that approaches it but it lacks the nigh-weightless grace

i've been going through the catalog and i am really stuck on how fucking amazing polygon window's "if it really is me" is

Polygon Window is great; SAW I is as well. The early stuff is generally underrated, IMO

I think this was my Aphex Twin introduction, no tunefind and no lyrics = begging online for hints about 'this song with pizzicato strings' in a Scottish movie no one had seen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPKlKwiFrs8

Love Morvern (Ramsay didn't do any better than this and Ratcatcher for me). The Warp-released soundtrack was incredible - my way into Can and Ween.

Bytes by Black Dog Productions sounds like it

I know it’s probably suspect to only be into a single artist in a genre... but back in my days as a RDJ megafan (late ’90s), I checked out plenty of similar stuff — including Rephlex & Warp releases, related artists, other big “IDM” names of the day, etc. — and none of it caught my ear enough to stick. I guess it’s like someone who loves Miles but no other jazz, or whatever.

bytes doesn’t really sound like it.

Reference by CiM sounds like SAW I

I don't believe you! I'll give it a listen though.

I’m checking it out now — it doesn’t.

it especially does compared to all the unlistenable trash RDJ released after SAW II

hearing a lot of new-to-me stuff during the discography run, or at least stuff i must've forgotten about. cuckoo! what a jam

I love that CiM album. Not sure it sounds exactly like SAW but it's worth a listen

Cuckoo has long been one of my favorites. Nothing revolutionary or anything just another great sounding tune.

brad have you checked out the SoundCloud dump at all? A lot of cool saw 1 “outtakes” and stuff (mainly the stuff he uploaded first). “Suzanne” is really cool, kind of like the landscape in “green calx” after the laser battle.

i actually had a download of it but had to delete it to make space on my computer. i did make and often listen to to a small playlist of tracks that sounded a lot like saw 1 and 2

Reference by CiM sounds like SAW I

Before I listened I was pretty sure this wouldn't sound like SAW I, which would be bad. Then I got to Cloud Cover and it did sound like SAW I, and I decided that was bad for different reasons. (It is a good album though.)

Skim Two off that one gets stuck in my head all the time

Cuckoo has interesting almost Chinese-sounding harmonics on that little melody

“foid” by cylob has a kind of “hexagon” vibe. love love love this track but don’t really like anything else he’s done

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PJjgl2UJXc

RDJ’s stuff (back in the day) just had this presence that nothing else seemed to match; even music that used similar elements and was aligned in approach and sensibility.