it's Aphex Twin, not Radiohead
― the absence of bikes (f. hazel), Monday, 19 June 2023 16:51 (ten months ago) link
ftr i too am deeply underwhelmed
― the late great, Tuesday, 20 June 2023 03:00 (ten months ago) link
Bump this thread when/if the music becomes accessible without an online treasure hunt
― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 20 June 2023 11:01 (ten months ago) link
Yeah I don't want to be a cynic, and I shouldn't slag it off before I've properly checked it out. But these kinds of interactive app-based guerilla marketing campaigns seem to appeal to a particular type of person.
The Biophilia app was a novelty. Much as I heart Boards of Canada, I wasn't going to go scavenger hunting around the world for clues about their new album - just give me the music please.
As for Aphex, a QR code for an app feels more like the work of a marketing agency who think they're smart than RDJ's style of merry pranksterism.
I guess it's much harder to do cool, fun sleight of hand in the internet era. We live in a post-mystique world where any sort of mystery about artists' identities and messages are impossible to obfuscate.
― Do I look like I know what a jpeg is? (dog latin), Tuesday, 20 June 2023 11:15 (ten months ago) link
The plausible sounding summaries of all the shenanigans I've read (on reddit) reckon that most likely there will be a new song tomorrow, 21st June, and an EP next Wednesday, 28th June.
― brain (krakow), Tuesday, 20 June 2023 12:02 (ten months ago) link
on my phone it's not even a full app, it's one of those applets that doesn't require installation
just a little augmented reality bit where it's doing a little animation of the aphex twin logo over the poster while playing a short clip of presumably new music
― mh, Tuesday, 20 June 2023 15:27 (ten months ago) link
I don’t have any information (and I don’t want to ask because, unlike some of you jerks, I enjoy the theatrics) but I’d bet there’s something happening.
― Allen (etaeoe), Tuesday, 20 June 2023 15:45 (ten months ago) link
I enjoy his theatrics because he oscillates between being self-obsessed and entirely detached. If this is a shady marketing stunt, I doubt he’d comment! It’s win-win.
― Allen (etaeoe), Tuesday, 20 June 2023 15:48 (ten months ago) link
The Biophilia app was a novelty.
Yeah. It’s interesting if, and only if, the music is interesting. You can’t champion innovative graphic design without a desirable product.
― Allen (etaeoe), Tuesday, 20 June 2023 15:52 (ten months ago) link
if the app's just a PWA then they can add things as they go
(the google page said '100 downloads' when i looked yesterday)
― koogs, Tuesday, 20 June 2023 16:13 (ten months ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5311M2lqV0
― fpsa, Tuesday, 20 June 2023 22:04 (ten months ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SUhWO_Nfl0
― Do I look like I know what a jpeg is? (dog latin), Wednesday, 21 June 2023 09:11 (ten months ago) link
for those of us with images off...
^ new track taken from official soundcloud and uploaded to youtube
and this is video of the app for the curious, with a sample of the above
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3wPfTXFrvk
(and fpsa's video was 90 minutes of live footage: "Aphex Twin at Best Kept Secret Festival 2023 in Netherlands")
― koogs, Wednesday, 21 June 2023 10:49 (ten months ago) link
dog latin’s video has already been removed. What’s the official SoundCloud?
― Bittern Storm Over My Hammy (morrisp), Wednesday, 21 June 2023 14:03 (ten months ago) link
it's not 'aphextwinofficial', last post 11 years ago
but that track is herehttps://soundcloud.com/richarddjames
― koogs, Wednesday, 21 June 2023 14:16 (ten months ago) link
sounds nice, too bad all this nonsense with QR codes and apps is so alienating
― the absence of bikes (f. hazel), Wednesday, 21 June 2023 14:41 (ten months ago) link
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=justin+strauss+the+lot
― dan selzer, Wednesday, 21 June 2023 14:49 (ten months ago) link
whoops wrong link!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEkZbWYUego
was sharing a link to Justin Strauss's appearances on the Lot when I noticed the official posting of this.
into this track
agree about the qr code fatigue
just release a friggin' record for god's sake
― Paul Ponzi, Wednesday, 21 June 2023 16:07 (ten months ago) link
yea it's pretty good, on par with the Collapse EP stuff, though a bit more toned down in a way that I think is nice
can't believe Syro was nearly a decade ago
― frogbs, Wednesday, 21 June 2023 17:36 (ten months ago) link
It's very nice but it could easily have been on Druqks, is my feeling
― Do I look like I know what a jpeg is? (dog latin), Wednesday, 21 June 2023 17:52 (ten months ago) link
Wow. I was expecting a rave banger!
The programming is, per usual, absurd. The melody is is the most somber since Selected Ambient Works Volume II and the rhythm (and harmony) is nostalgic or even self-referential (it reminded me of ...I Care Because You Do more than Druqks). I do miss some of the mixing tricks he started using in Syro and recent live performances.
― Allen (etaeoe), Wednesday, 21 June 2023 18:04 (ten months ago) link
(The mixing stuff might be present but lost on Spotify.)
― Allen (etaeoe), Wednesday, 21 June 2023 18:05 (ten months ago) link
If there’s an album, I pray he does an interview similar to the interview he did with David Burraston for the release of Syro. There’re so many issues from the past decade that I’d love to hear him talk (or write) about: open source, SoundCloud (and Bandcamp), cryptocurrency, mixed reality, artificial intelligence, etc.
― Allen (etaeoe), Wednesday, 21 June 2023 18:10 (ten months ago) link
I'm not sure I want to know Richard D James's opinion on cryptocurrency, mixed reality, artificial intelligence, etc.
― silverfish, Wednesday, 21 June 2023 18:31 (ten months ago) link
This new track is fine, on first listen seems fairly generic, but that's what I thought about Syro at first too.
― silverfish, Wednesday, 21 June 2023 18:34 (ten months ago) link
LOL, OK?
― Allen (etaeoe), Wednesday, 21 June 2023 18:35 (ten months ago) link
I wouldn't say generic, and for sure his recent stuff has been quality. But I'll be honest, every time I play a new Aphex track part of me is hoping for more "shocking brand-new worlds" (as Disco_Nihilist put it on this board years ago.)
― official representative of Roku's Basketshit in at least one alternate u (lukas), Wednesday, 21 June 2023 22:20 (ten months ago) link
Yeah I just don't know what I expect from Aphex any more, as opposed to "what to expect", that is.
I guess I really want to be blown away in the same way I was when I first heard Bouncing Bucephalus Ball when I was 17, but that's likely asking far too much.
That said, he seems quite happy making "just pretty good tunes with nice melodies and beats" these days, as opposed to doing something as conceptually daring as, say, Ventolin, Windowlicker or SAWII.
― Do I look like I know what a jpeg is? (dog latin), Thursday, 22 June 2023 00:06 (ten months ago) link
I like the beats being sort of 92 breakbeat ardkore. Wasn't his old favourite Trigger's Stratosphere in his sets a few years ago?
― you can see me from westbury white horse, Thursday, 22 June 2023 00:25 (ten months ago) link
"I like the beats being sort of 92 breakbeat ardkore."
this track is very nostalgic but also weird, I really like it
― Dan S, Thursday, 22 June 2023 00:57 (ten months ago) link
I think it’s strange that it’s a single rather than an EP or album. It doesn’t say much as a single.
― Allen (etaeoe), Thursday, 22 June 2023 17:33 (ten months ago) link
it's lovely but definitely generic aphex. if AI was fed in a ton of AFX i could imagine it spitting this out.
― stirmonster, Thursday, 22 June 2023 18:01 (ten months ago) link
would not be surprised if that's how he made it, though I think it sounds too good to be AI right now
― frogbs, Thursday, 22 June 2023 18:02 (ten months ago) link
I mean I wouldn't put it past him. But he's also his own AI generator, I wonder if Warp conducts night raids on his vault every few years to wrest a release from him. I'm sure all the QR code stuff is just marketing department bs too.
xp
― Random Restaurateur (Jordan), Thursday, 22 June 2023 18:04 (ten months ago) link
It's definitely very weird, and a nice return to focusing on synth tones and use of voice. I feel AFX has become increasingly one note since 2001, and this track is one of the more atypical 21st century tracks he's dropped! Hope it's a sign of things to come.
― octobeard, Thursday, 22 June 2023 18:05 (ten months ago) link
the sound of the opening beat reminds me of "Beat It"
― calstars, Thursday, 22 June 2023 18:08 (ten months ago) link
it is an EP with four tracks, WAP480
― official representative of Roku's Basketshit in at least one alternate u (lukas), Thursday, 22 June 2023 18:30 (ten months ago) link
― silverfish, Wednesday, June 21, 2023 1:31 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink
Maybe on mixed martial arts though
― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 22 June 2023 21:06 (ten months ago) link
did folks cop the ambient version, I didn't do all the QR code nonsense so I would have missed it if not for Phil Sherburne's newsletter
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/19fcYuy4BlUXzZqxkeSDP-zd_7F55wdbC
― official representative of Roku's Basketshit in at least one alternate u (lukas), Thursday, 29 June 2023 17:59 (ten months ago) link
https://aphextwin.bandcamp.com/album/blackbox-life-recorder-21f-in-a-room7-f760
― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 29 June 2023 18:20 (ten months ago) link
Yeah I just don't know what I expect from Aphex any more, as opposed to "what to expect", that is.I guess I really want to be blown away in the same way I was when I first heard Bouncing Bucephalus Ball when I was 17.
I guess I really want to be blown away in the same way I was when I first heard Bouncing Bucephalus Ball when I was 17.
For me RDJ’s career was interesting in how it was getting progressively more avant-garde, from those rather sedate and melodic early works to the drill-n-bass and atonality of the latter ’90s. But then RDJ retired while Autechre kept producing music that surprised from one album to the next. So now Autechre has basically replaced Aphex Twin for me. Anyone else have the same experience?
― Melomane, Thursday, 29 June 2023 19:38 (ten months ago) link
*raises hand*
― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 29 June 2023 19:46 (ten months ago) link
Huh, I feel like it was almost the opposite for me; I dug how he was moving from esoteric early stuff to releases with progressively more "popular" appeal... culminating in "Come to Daddy" on TRL (and winning!), and the elaborate music video for "Windowlicker," etc.
Then he went away and resurfaced with a series of (dull) vinyl-only releases, and it was like... ok, I guess you're done with that trajectory.
― Bittern Storm Over My Hammy (morrisp), Thursday, 29 June 2023 20:06 (ten months ago) link
Though I like Autechre, even at his most glitchy/experimental/esoteric there is an air of melodic, otherworldly melancholy with RDJ that I just don’t quite get with those guys.
― Davey D, Thursday, 29 June 2023 20:12 (ten months ago) link
gotta love people accusing RDJ of using AI to create new music and then hyping up autechre as the more exciting alternative. isn't their whole deal using "algorithms" to automate their music-making?
― na (NA), Thursday, 29 June 2023 20:15 (ten months ago) link
e.g. Their studio set-up or system varies from album to album but is a labyrinth of possibilities relying on self-written mathematical algorithms that induce their sounds and rhythms to behave in specific yet experimental ways after Autechre manipulate a massive range of parameters.
that's AI, baby
― na (NA), Thursday, 29 June 2023 20:17 (ten months ago) link
I wasn't accusing him of it upthread but rather speculating he might be a guy to generate a ton of it and release the best stuff and then have a good laugh about it, which I think is very different from what Autechre do
― frogbs, Thursday, 29 June 2023 20:25 (ten months ago) link
Definitely that feeling, Melomane. It's not dissimilar to Plaid - I like it when a new Plaid album comes out because it's like buying a fresh pair of my favourite brand of underpants. I know what I'm going to get and it feels good nevertheless
I'd argue that even Autechre are starting to sound kinda similar from album to album, or at least you know what an Autechre album sounds like by now, but somehow they manage to keep me on my toes
― Stomp Jomperson (dog latin), Thursday, 29 June 2023 21:51 (ten months ago) link