New Aphex Twin!

♥

Which would be an excellent thing right? Downloading it now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/news/20090313_aphex_twin.shtml

Last proper Aphex Twin release on Warp was Drukqs, yeah?

chosen lords?

“Then I’ll go onto my knees and thank him and then we’ll put it out.”

lol

"here i just played scorpion's virgin killers through a distortion waddle vst. hope it sells"

chosen lords was afx / rephlex.

I saw about an hour of his set w/ Hecker at the weekend and it was pretty badass - no idea what if any of it is earmarked for release but I can only imagine the more beat-powered side of it being received well

Hooray!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnVRp6SXSk4&feature=player_embedded

Probably not as exciting for others, but TERRIBLY exciting and almost as importantly for me...

his HAIR is back...

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1366/4610995474_4f88269dbc_b.jpg

Um. Yes. I listened to it about a dozen times in a row and I love it already.

I will shut up now because otherwise I will explode with glee.

Yeah this is really, REALLY good.

Yes it is fantastic. But the number of times there have been spottings of "ooh, new Aphex material!!!" according to someone at a gig, and then he fucks off back to his bank and files it away in the big FILE OF SECRET APHEX RECORDINGS NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO LISTEN TO EXCEPT RICHARD MWAH HAH HAH HAH and we never hear it again.

At least the sound quality on this is really high. (if it ever actually gets released, I'm going to be disappointed not to have snippets of French people talking about going and getting lunch, like the recorded voices on SAW85-92 tracks.)

Dudes, that was so sick. New Aphex Twin record please.

like this a bunch. but...

Yes it is fantastic. But the number of times there have been spottings of "ooh, new Aphex material!!!" according to someone at a gig, and then he fucks off back to his bank and files it away in the big FILE OF SECRET APHEX RECORDINGS NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO LISTEN TO EXCEPT RICHARD MWAH HAH HAH HAH and we never hear it again.

otm. :-(

i still <3 this guy. maybe drukqs was kind of a letdown at the time, but maybe it was good for him to drop out of the spotlight for a while too. between the above youtube and analord, these days he just sounds like a dude in total control of his instruments making awesome music. such a talent. hope he does it forever.

"My most favorite music is my own"

Such an amazing drum programmer, damn.

'IDM'

~*+INTELLIGENT+*~ dance music.

who the fuck came up with such an awful moniker?

1993 Melody Maker is the obvious culprit...or maybe The Wire.

I thought it was the IDM list; hadn't thought about that in years, neat that it is still going.

http://music.hyperreal.org/lists/idm/

The world "intelligent" was tagged to many genres back in the day, to indicate that this is not "stupid rave music". I remember reading about "intelligent jungle" back in 1994. I'm not sure when "IDM" became the term of choice (there were other names for the stuff on Warp back then), but I don't think it preceded this general usage of "intelligent".

John Peel was always baffled by that term.

IDM? FTN. It's Braindance as Mr D.James would have it, innit?

hello everyone

yes, this track got me excited. i wonder if we're finally seeing this happen: http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/news/20090313_aphex_twin.shtml

yeah this track is good, nice watery bassline

this is excellent, like a refined version of some of the more melodic analords. sounds like he's been paying attention to stuff like luciano and cadenza records as well

crazy visuals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ivfcn_Zz8lU

v. into this now. keep replaying it.

do people recognize any other tracks in this? my ears perked up when he start playing in sync - storm in (3.1) above. also blue calx in (4).

this youtuber seems to have the whole thing, but sound quality is awful: hxxp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_00Kvi-wJk0

clicking around in second part of that one i caught pwsteal from analord.

my brane puts the last aphex release a Druqks (in 2001!!!!), analord was an experiment that just didn't do much for me. This sounds quite good though - perhaps not amazing, but then I'd be surprised if he managed to baffle and impress me once again in 2010.

that's just great. james is a giant peach of our time.

i wish he was still blowing minds too, but he did that for a solid i dunno... 8 years or so? that's an incredible run by pretty much any measure i bet. and besides, who has been pushing that same envelope lately? would love to know - really! will it take another technological leap?

i think he's carrying on successfully with his distinctive sense of melody and rhythm. analord was probly more a marketing experiment than anything, and there's loads of filler, but also many great tracks in there.

just curious if posters here are aware of the Tuss material that RDJ has put out/participated in since the Analord series. These (there are several) occurrences of new, high-quality, melodic material in his recent live sets are def reminiscent of the Tuss stuff. there's a track that's come to be known as "the manchester track" on youtube, and it's great. the quality isn't quite up to this Metz recording, but the track is fantastic. It's a couple years old. Another notable recording is the Minehead performance from 2007 (2008?) which contains a couple of unreleased tracks in the Tuss-y vein. Can only fantasize on a new album of this sort of material, been playing the Metz track obsessively

tuss is excellent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ0Ldfv4xyc
(manchester track), 7/12/07

have heard "the manchester track" before and it's cool. will seek out the Minehead set, thanks.

but the new one seems pretty special to me. was prompted to revist the tuss material as well yesterday. this new track seems to combine the things I like about the tuss project (super-intricate programming, a steady, seemingly constant introduction of new elements, a propulsive sense of momentum) with the hazy, ambient feel of his earlier stuff. love it.

If you find a copy of the Minehead set reference it here - I can't track one down

will do!

http://www.youtube.com/user/gabrielgabriel2000

The whole Metz show is online now. I'm loving the almost modern classical piece that starts up at the end of Part 1 and continues Part 2.

(Fireworks are a bit distracting, though. I'm finding it very hard not to lick the screen every time his pointy little nose appears beneath his ginger mop, as it is.)

((Yes, you can just copy/paste that directly to the "posts very much in character" thread. Sigh.))

can i just paste it into the "ban masonic boom" thread instead?

^^^ oh my gawrd!

here's a rip of the audio from that same dude http://soundcloud.com/gabrielsliveshit

Saw that yesterday - somehow the random shouting dude really close in the mic is more annoying on the live rip than on the YouTube.

(Just more proof that even though Aphex is one of my favourite artists on earth, his fans have a really irritating tendency towards being utter cockwads.)

Because they all *think* they could do it better?

Hrmm, maybe. Poorly socialised nerds with entitlement issues are such a fun bunch of people.

It makes me really happy how much of the SAW bits and bobs have turned up in the full set. It's a bit "spot that texture" at times but then I suppose the poor Phanboys can't exactly yell out the song titles "YAAAAYYY!!! It's blobby white pipe thing!!! I love this song WOOOOOOOO!!!"

I was a bit brutal, I guess.

Enlarging: People who regard RDJ as ... "'like me' but then get to the point of "Well, he was better when he did THIS, but he's now lost his way but if he knew me personally, I could explain to him where he's going wrong and he would go "thanks for that, you likeminded soul"...

That's any serious fanboy, really. Don't think that's exclusive to Aphex fans.

Hrmm, maybe. Poorly socialised nerds with entitlement issues are such a fun bunch of people.

OK I know I say this on the regular but PUH-LEEEZE make this the new ILM board description.

true, true..(xpost)

Obviously, I find this a really, really intriguing issue and would love to expand on it...

(I mean, not just the whole phenomenon of fanboyism, but also whether or not Aphex fanboys are in particular worse - or if it's just my experience of the kind of cultish fan who is still obsessed enough to, you know, still participate in internet communities dedicated to an artist 5 years after the artist's last "proper" release - though that said, they were just as annoying when he was still fairly active.)

BUT. I try really really hard not to let an artist's fanbase get in the way of the experience of their music.

I keep hoping that this kind of flurry of activity over the past year does mean that some kind of new release is imminent. But perhaps he's just playing/DJ-ing so many gigs because these days it's far more lucrative for him to do a live appearance (even if that means just MP3-J-ing teaser tracks) and get a massive fee each time than to put out an album.

I mean, to me, as much as enjoy Analords, it is essentially just the sound of an artist amusing himself rather than any sense of "this is an important statement body of work." I get the feeling that it's like looking through his sketchbooks rather than viewing a finished painting. (Or maybe just listening to a dude have a wank in semi-public if I can say that without setting off the irate phanboys above.)

But, carrying on from that other thread, after the response to Druqks, he's done with Statement Bodies Of Work and we won't ever get another. Or even if we do - a la The Tuss - we won't ever get an admission that it really is him.

Fucker. I kinda hate him as much as I love him. OH NOES I'M TURNING INTO AN UNSOCIALISED NERD WITH ENTITLEMENT ISSUES ABOUT MY FAVOURITE ARTISTS.

Yeah I've come to really really hate fan-ism but that's probably me being a boring superior middle-aged git and it hardly ever affects my liking for an artist.

Hey, it would be completely hypocritical for me to hate on fan-ism (given that I am actually a member of said kinds of forums and obviously indulge in spots of that kind of thinking.)

But what I *don't* think (which many Phanboys do seem to) is that my Aphex fandom makes me in any way superior to other people.

And what I really REALLY hate is the gendered (and also vaguely homophobic) approach to fandom that privileges one kind of fandom over another. i.e. that there *is* something inherently projection-y and quite romantic about this "OMG, no one understands me like my fave artist, therefore no one understands my fave artist like *I* do, ooh, quasi-romantic entitlement entitlement..." (as Mark G describes above.) But there's this kind of weird kneejerk "NO HOMO!" that kicks in (even though there is something *incredibly* homoerotic about this kind of fandom experience.) And that expresses itself in this utter LOATHING of fangirls when they are free to express *their* quasi-romantic feelings about the fan-object-idol in straightforward sexual terms because that highlights the supressed sexual nature of their identification in a way that makes them really, really uncomfortable.

Perhaps it's more extreme with Aphex phanboys because RDJ makes a habit of constantly rubbing their faces in it. He has quite a history of female-identification (can't remember the exact interview, but he's talked about expressing these aspects of himself in boy-songs and girl-songs - c.f. GirlBoy Song) even going so far as to project his own face onto female bodies, thus objectifying himself as part of the Image process. It's just such an interesting aspect of his work (where's Karen Tregaskin when you need him?) but it so rarely gets discussed in those terms and I've found that the fans get really really upset if you even try. (Even though I'm quite sure they've ALL wanked to the Windowlicker cover.)

in a way the analord series was quite ahead of the game in that the idea of rejecting digital excess in favour of vintage electronics and old fashioned recording techniques is all the rage now in dance music

barring a few exceptions i'm of the opinion that everything after donkey rhubard is some of the most overrated music ever -- all the shitty laptop music he made before the analord stuff seems to me way more overindulgent than a dude digging out his old 303 and just plugging in

Why do you think that r1o?

Wow, I so don't agree.

Donkey Rhubarb as cutoff point? Really? I mean, not least because "Richard D. James" is probably my favourite of the non-SAW albums. It just seems willfully narrow to draw the line there. I can understand how much of the rest of the genre probably went too far, but Aphex's stuff of 95-96-97 is still some of the most playful and inventive music - not just that he's done, but ever. There is a sense of "how far can we push this...?" in some of Drukqs but as far as I'm concerned he never quite loses a) his beautiful quirky sense of melody or b) his fluid rhythmic technique. Like, even at his most cerebral and skittering drill n bass moments there's a really appealing basic sense of musicality to it. It works on a pop level as well as experimental for the hell of it.

I mean, even on something as outright silly as Come To Daddy there'll be a B-side like Bucephalus Bouncing Ball which is both intricate and plainly beautiful.

in a way the analord series was quite ahead of the game in that the idea of rejecting digital excess in favour of vintage electronics and old fashioned recording techniques is all the rage now in dance music

I agree with this up to a point although (a) it seems he was actually behind the game wrt to his lil circle of producer pals ie Cylob/Mike Dred/those other old skool Rephlex dudes and (b) digital excess of the fidget/Frankenstein house type is just as much "all the rage" now even if ILM doesn't fuck with it much

I love Aphex Twin. He writes banging house tunes. I own pretty much everything he's ever done under all psuedonyms but I've been told by many people for the best part of two decades that I don't share their nuanced and cerebral understanding of the true phanboy. Usually by pasty, white spods who have a principled 'reason' for why they don't dance.

Current top three: Ptolemy, Metapharstic, Flow Coma (remix) by AFX

I wish he'd done more songs in his 'pop' period but only because I get a bit fed up of hearing Windowlicker at gigs and clubs, when the DJ could be dropping something that's easier to dance to.

(also 'Come To Daddy' is prob a relevant building block in at least the more obnoxious dayglo end of the fidget house thing, I'd say)

xp

Analogue revival is as much a fad as anything else, really.

It's not like producers en masse are dumping their DAWs or anything.

x-post yeah, I do not understand why DJs insist on playing only Windowlicker. Yeah, tis' a great tune, and instantly recognisable but it's not exactly danceable.

it's plenty danceable imo. there's a more straight-ahead remix of it by trentemoller which sort of sucks iirc.

It's way slow, though.

The "Original Demo" version is fairly straightforward/uncomplex, rhythmiacally.

I remember playing the Video on the PC, with Amber (14 months) on my knee. She thought it very funny.

It's way slow, though.

um, no?

i'm coming from a perspective where anything between 100 and 130bpm is optimum dancing tempo.

and nothing higher than 140bpm or so unless it's happy hardcore.

which is really more a music to stab to than to dance to.

I don't actually know what the BPM of Windowlicker is, but the past few times I've heard it out, it just seemed to drag.

(But I'm kind of influenced by pop & bubblegum to think of anything under about 120 as being "slow")

come on you slags, let's have your top threes.

Wrong thread. Is there an Aphex POX or POV?

or POIII

windowlicker i'm guessing is about 117bpm, which is quite a weird tempo for dance music - not slow or fast.

Aphex Twin - POIII (Pick Only Three)

DO YR WORST

Survey says.... 122 (but the tempo actually shifts during the course of the song.

has there been any other discussion/writing about the gender stuff? i didn't really get that aspect of his music until revisiting it more recently, though i think i've always had a sense that there's more noticeable "feminine" character to a lot of his tracks. scare quotes bc i don't really know how to explain that further. something there that stands out in the hetero-nerd world of IDM anyway. and then there's the donkey rhubarb video...

it was hard, but i gave up on expecting him to keep building his Important Body of Work. obv hope he surprises us again someday, but it was getting in the way of really digging his post-drukqs output, much of which is still great for the sense of melody and rhythm masonic boom talked about. would LOVE him to try something dancier again. i was suprised how well digeridoo worked in shed's fact mix a few months ago.

As far as I know, only by me, and I pick up about 6 SB's every time I mention gender on ILM. :-/

I, too, would love to read critical discussion of "gender" (don't know why I'm putting that word in scare quotes given that gender is a construct to start with) in the work of Aphex Twin but I have been searching for years and never found it, except danced around in the vaguest of terms in that interview I referenced above and in that case, I think that he brought it up.

footage from recent london gig, complete with face mapping video thing

http://gizmodo.com/5627209/confused-ravers-terrorised-by-aphex-twins-face-mapping-demonstration

wait wait wait i thought he was doing a rap collab with...who?

That Aphex Twin face mapping software turns up again in 'new tune' by RDJ.

A new 75 second trailer appears to be for promoting the Bloc Weekender in Minehead next year but adds more jigsaw evidence to the theory that he'll be releasing an album next year.

Just ONE? Not this 6 he's supposedly been keeping from us for years?

Well, apparently it's not even by Aphex Twin but by dgoHn and was recorded in 2005.

http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/7721/afxanothermanoct10pg01.jpg
http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/3040/afxanothermanoct10pg02.jpg

Mr. Richard D. James doesn't like Foetus, The Jesus & Mary Chain, most radioplay (and on that, Radiohead according to his wiki page), and only likes The Smiths because of nostalgia. Has anyone ever heard what exactly this guy likes besides himself?

He plays a lot of different stuff when he DJs.

curious - examples?

A lot of techno stuff. Only thing I can think of off the top of my head is Ryuichi Sakamoto's "Participation Mystique".

I think he likes Tangerine Dream, 808 State, can't remember what else... he likes his own music a lot apparently, that's his favorite music (if he isn't joking)

I think he also likes a lot of dubstep. I've heard he played Burial once when he dj'd, and another dubstep producer as well

I have very fond memories of Aphex incongruously dropping the Grandstand Theme in the middle of a predominantly drum'n'bass set at ATP a while back.

He has to like Squarepusher. He basically stole the whole guy's jig for the RJD Album.

I'm impressed with the wide range of subjects that you're abjectly rong about.

Drill & bass. He adopted it. There's not a lot of arguing to be done here.

Looking forward to this "RJD Album" - maybe that's one of the 6 unreleased albums, on which he finally buries the musical hatchet with Tom?

It's a new album where he travels back in time and nicks the idea for Drill and Bass off of Tom Jenkinson and then travels further back in time and makes an EP called Hangable Auto Bulb which magically uses Drill and Bass tracks 6 months before Squarepusher's released anything. Dead clever.

Also in this magical alternate universe Mike Paradinas doesn't exist and internet message board poster "kelpolaris" has 1 (one) fucking clue.

that interview is nice btw....he's a strnge mixture of new age serenity and mischievous humour

~strange~

Interview's a couple of months old isn't it? At least it's been floating around watmm & that othe afx board. One of those rare interviews you read and just think "what a lovely man." Unusually rare for him. Usually I get the impression that he got bored halfway through & just decided to fuX0r with the idiot interviewing him.

Doesn't seem strange at all to me. And I absolutely loved his definition of "weird."

I have evidence to support my argument. Just give me a couple hours while I change the wikipedia page.

No.

I think I've read what kelpolaris is talking about, that Aphex was influenced by Squarepusher's particular method of chopping up of drum beats. Squarepusher had bought this awful drum machine that had some really weird granular synthesis function, and I think Richard James ended up combining this effect with his own stuff. I seem to remember reading this. Obviously Aphex totally created Squarepusher's whole style and Tom has said this, but I think I know what you're saying.

Also, as someone mentioned above, RDJ doesn't like Radiohead. He said he wouldn't tour with them "because i don't like them" and he said that Kid A was "cheesy." Such a strange person.

I think I've read what kelpolaris is talking about, that Aphex was influenced by Squarepusher's particular method of chopping up of drum beats. Squarepusher had bought this awful drum machine that had some really weird granular synthesis function, and I think Richard James ended up combining this effect with his own stuff. I seem to remember reading this. Obviously Aphex totally created Squarepusher's whole style and Tom has said this, but I think I know what you're saying.

I've been scouring the web for the past couple hours b/c I can't find where I read it either and am afraid to admit that it might've possibly been via the official iTunes review for the RDJ Album, of which I currently can't pull up because I'm on a public computer w/out itoonz. But I don't bullshit for the sake of bullshit.

i'm on teh internet! i'll help. itunes review:

Perhaps inspired by the experimental drum'n'bass being created by Squarepusher (a recent signee to his Rephlex label), Richard D. James' third major-label album as Aphex Twin was his first to work with jungle — though, to his credit, he had released the breakbeat EP Hangable Auto Bulb almost a year earlier. Contemporaries Orbital and Underworld were beginning to incorporate moderate use of drum'n'bass in their work as well, but this album was more extreme than virtually all jungle being made at the time. The beats are jackhammer quick and even more jarring considering what is — for the most part — laid over the top: the same fragile, slow-moving melodies that characterized Aphex Twin's earlier ambient works. Most overtly disturbing is "Milkman," the first straight-ahead vocal track from Aphex Twin; the song is a child-like ode that gradually deteriorates into a bizarre fantasy concerning the milkman's wife. With all the Aphex Twin's curious idiosyncracies, though, Richard D. James Album is a very listenable record and a worthy follow-up to I Care Because You Do.

"Milkman" was a track off the Girl/Boy EP and post-dates RDJ, altho maybe not in the States.

My whole objection is only to the "RDJ copped these moves direct from Squarepusher" idea, I certainly wouldn't say guys weren't influencing one another, but Luke Vibert belongs in the picture somewhere too afaik

That first sentence contradicts itself so bad I'm not even sure why it was written

curse u steve jobs

But OK, I'm in the wrong, excuse me for getting my historical facts off an employee of Apple

My dates were a smidgeon off anyway, Squarepusher might've released his first Spymania EP around the same time as Hangable Auto Bulb, but the latter definitely has drill'n'bass stuff going on a good year before RDJ, so the crappy review is right about that bit.

well, I think we can all agree that I did a very good job in quickly finding and posting that iTunes review

that's an allmusic review being used by itunes there, i'm pretty certain

RDJ was on Mixing It (cult UK radio show, long since cancelled) in like 1994, I can't remember if he picked any tracks or just commented on the presenters' picks, but I do remember him saying nice things about Xenakis

(and not getting angry when they played an Oval track - maybe this predated the alleged Oval/RDJ beef)

IIRC both of Squarepusher's Spymania releases as well as Vibert's Plug EPs predate Hangable Auto Bulb. But all these guys knew each other so I'm sure the actual conversation and exchange of notes was happening outside of what exists on vinyl.

HAB moved things a lot further away from 'actual' Dn'B though, in terms of timbre, melody and general spasticness, so that's something.

No I think there was an interview somewhere with Richard James where he said it. I definitely have never read the iTunes description before. A couple years ago I got obsessed with reading Aphex Twin interviews and he was pretty specific, I think it was the result of this one particular drum machine that Jenkinson was using to produce those "clipping" drum beats, where every beat is suddenly played many times faster. I think he describes it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knnLsJ37PLI&feature=related

That being said I could be totally wrong though...

xp to aps: what Oval/RDJ beef?

yeah, curious about that myself...

Turf war, innit? AFX was Elephant & Castle.

huh, I was sure there was a later interview where RDJ was mad at Oval for sampling him but I am failing to google this, beginning to think I imagined it

sorry all if I did! ps I like Oval and Aphex

oh hai
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yQRp4j2RQM

That's a pretty cool looking stream.

so many aphex twin threads...

anyway, the long awaited r d james / w h auden collaboration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0A0mMp48Rg

(there was apparently a 12" available at the above gig, that's from it)

Was at Aphex curates at WHP in Manchester Depot and that was some bloody show. Oh my lord, Polynomial C.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OXRME6UWSs&t=882s
fuck, this is good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OXRME6UWSs

14:42 is what Lowell was talking about