Did the guy who said he'd make the best of Aphex . . .

Completely no.

Aphex is best when he tries to make pop music, then when he tries to make diamond-hard techno, then when he seems like he's fallen asleep on the volume button.

don't have my cds with me, but those should keep you going till i get home and check.

As I said, "Come to Daddy EP" is full of joke tracks, and this is the jokiest of them all. But if you like self-indulgent experimental electro, why the hell not...

By the way, I had a party last saturday and some bloke offered to buy my copy of the aforementioned EP for six euros - I didn't have to hesitate for one second. Next morning, I bought a delicious pizza with the six euros. That's the best thing I've gotten out've Aphex Twin for years.

All the same, here are some more good Aphex Twin tracks:

Milkman
Tidy Turtle
Pancake Lizard
On
Nannou
Ageispolis
Pigeon Street
To Cure A Weakling Child
Fingerbib
Ventolin
Mt Saint Michel + St Micaels Mount
DMX Krew - You Can't Hide Your Love (Aphex Twin Hidden Love Mix)
Next Heap With

UNRELATED: "Come To Daddy" is one frightening fucking song (Aphex thereby spends four minutes accomplishing what Ozzy Osbourne has been trying to do for his entire shitty 30-year career, and that's scare the living crap out of the listener). I was listening to it earlier today, and that scream that he does is just intense, man.

Sam, I disagree - I think Analogue Bubblebath "5" is some of his best work.

Flim I can do without, although I used to quite like it.

Melphace 6 from Drukqs is my personal favourite RDJ tune ever.

Snrub, I agree- "Come to Daddy" is still terrifying! It's genuinely unhinged.

Richard D James isn't someone you can half-arsedly research via ILM recommendation, listening to a few supposedly best tracks (its different for everybody, so its ridiculous to approach it that way), reading his AMG bio and moving on, you have to listen to EVERYTHING. If you want to do it another way then you can fuck off, get me?

The starting point obviously is to listen to all of his LPs: Richard D James Album, ...I Care Because You Do, Selected Ambient Works 85-92, Selected Ambient Works Volume 2, Drukqs, 26 Remixes for Cash (thats the order i did, anyway).
Then after that you listen to his EPs, probably starting with the entire Analogue Bubblebath series, then Come to Daddy, Windowlicker, Q-Chastic, Xylem Tube, Donkey Rhubarb, AFX 1&2, On, On Remixes, Didgeridoo, Classics (containing Xylem Tube, The Aphex Twin EP, two Mescalim United remixes, a live Didgeridoo set and Analogue Bubblebath), and Singles. And I haven't even named all of them!

And of course, somewhere in there you fit his work under Polygon Window (Surfing on Sine Waves, anyone care to make commentary on this one? (Andrew, i'm talking to you)), Caustic Window, AFX, Gak etc etc

note 1: Its impossible, and unneccesary to correctly listen to his works chronologically, so don't try

note 2: http://www.discogs.com/artist/Aphex_Twin - good 'old discogs.com has a pretty good discography, but it doesn't have everything (but good enough unless you want to get REALLY fanatical)

note 3: A stupid, yet entertainingly funny quote from discogs.com : Anonymous - Sep 23, 2001
'The Jimi Hendrix of electronic music...except with a tank & a bank, & a lot of facial hair.'

Yea, so basically, don't treat it like any old dispossable shit you'll research and chuck in at the back of your musical knowledge and collection, for christs sake, you jus' gotta do it right!!

I say, fuck it!

The Windowlicker EP is my top recommendation, then Girl/Boy, then maybe Come To Daddy mini-album/long EP. But as I said, its that weird messed-up-mid-tempo-almost-*pop*-music stuff that I like the most, so that leads me more to his EPs I think.

In terms of a banging, jungly album, I'd try Richrad D James.

P.S. Don't dismiss Drukqs, its one of the best albums of the last few years, it just has a feeling that he's still got all his best songs sitting on his hard drive.

This "best of" I'm compiling ain't easy, I'll say that.

ruin listening to electronic music? bah is say, bah! Sorry for being a bit of a wank, but come on dude, I can go with accepting the life work of a genius as real art, i'm not afraid to admit that. And no, you don't need to know about the fact that he drives a tank or that he lives in a bank, or any other of the wacky stories of his life like the Lemonheads-remix thing, thats just for fun and for blatant fanaticism - listening to a few, perhaps several of his albums is not. All i was saying was that I think his work is so incredible that its probably worth checking it all out, and if not, then some substantial ammount of it. And no, you don't have to listen to all of his stuff to understand his vision, you're extrapolating unneccesarily, my friend.
If you don't want to accept the fact that his life work is real art, then fine, fuck it - listen to a few of his tracks, think 'oh my, that sound quite nice', then leave it and fuck off with your wak shit ;)

and yea, Andrew, i suppose your right,

That's exactly what I've done with Aphex. Also, that was what you could do with every electronic music producer before Aphex. But after him, the rockist star/artist cult has entered the realm of electronic music. Of course it isn't necessarily his fault, but he's the emblem of this process. You may call me an old-fashioned idealist, but I happen to like the pre-IDM idea of "it's all about the music and nothing about the artist". So all I need to know is "that track sounds quite nice", and nothing more.

(Grandpa Simpson voice) Back in 1992, it was the fashion of the times to put this CD on at home and share a spliff after a night of pure mentalism jumping up and down to hoover noises (and, inevitably, Aphex's own 'Digeridoo', which was a bit of a rave classic. I remember a confused squad of police shutting down a party to this track, completely and visibly bemused by the bizarreness of the music). If you didn't have 85-92, we didn't come to your house to chill out, simple as that.

This is probably why he is the biggest selling act on walk because it makes his music more accessible to rock-based fans

walk = warp

heheh - walk records. I was at work and my boss distracted me.

Anyway, I reckon SAW1 is highly overrated - only Heliosphan and Ageispolis manage to truly shine. the rest is okay, but admit it - it's boring and dated to anyone who wasn't into it at the time.

I agree with whoever said I Care Because You Do is his best album.

That says, he really has done it all to death and should really go and try his hand at something else by now, as large swathes of Druckqs would attest to.

tuomas, if you're making enemies of complexity of structure and 'beauty' in electronic music, then we gotta agree to disagree.

Maybe not in Bird, but absolutely in say, the 60s Miles quintet w/Tony Williams.

To compare Bird to Aphex doesn't work in this discussion, because "sound" in jazz means different thing than "sound" in electronic music.

Not to me, it doesn't. I was thinking about this last night, how a large part of jazz is an obsession with sound qua sound (in an acoustic environment of course). Every jazz musicians's personal sound/tone is their distinguishing and most valued trait, and part of the point of the musical environment and instrumention is clarity and space, so that everyone can be heard in their own frequency range. And then there's bending notes, extended techniques, etc. which have always been used for emotional effect.

Basically I was just sitting listening to some Telefon Tel Aviv and then to some jazz, and realizing that both spend comparable amounts of time laboring over their actual tones used, and that it's a big part of the pleasure I get from both.

vahid: agreed.

I think people are more anxious to read into what they think I'm saying rather than read my posts. It's nothing to do with critical acclaim, there is loads of critically acclaimed dance music I like, which I mentioned at several points on this thread.

Also just because my favourite music is pop house, don't assume that that's all I am aware of. Honestly I sometimes feel I'd be better off not being enthusiastic about what I do like because inevitably it leads to assumptions that one is thick.

Anyway the point I'm making is that this isn't a split between pophouse/warp on my part. Robin earlier raised a good point when he pointed out that I do like Derrick May but don't like Aphex and that this was possibly a double standard.

So yes at some point it comes down to me thinking Derrick May's music does not generally exist outside of clubbing as I know it, whereas Aphex's does. I think the large amount of people now arguing with me aren't willing to accept that my argument or opinion if you like is supported by subsequent records made by Rolando, Carl Craig, Laurent Garnier, or Agoria (to name a few). There is a different school of thought as regards deeper or acclaimed or fuck it INTELLIGENT dance music.

So it's not actually about my own favourite type of music because as much as I love Garnier/Agoria/Rolando, it's clear to anyone from my posts that I am more into Bangalter etc.

It's not about me railing against some pointless press line, it's about pointing out the existence of a whole other idea of IDM, one which, given the arguments against me in the last few posts, people are completely ignorant of, regardless of whether they've heard the artists in question.

Oh wait I have one! Cos you can't differentiate them easily in your head from DANCE MUSIC, ew!

It's not necessarily dance hataz, just people who fail to recognise the intellectual value of simplicity or of music which provokes a physical response. Like The Man With The Red Face maybe. Or Knights Of The Jaguar, or Jam The Box, or Quetzal, or Science Fiction, or Nude Photo.

"OR POPHOUSE" WOULD BE BETTER?

List goes on and on and on, maybe if more of them made albums they would be more intelligent????????????????

another tune for the above list, Aphex Twin-Analogue Bubblebath.

That's it. I AGREE WITH YOU on this point. I also agree with you 100% on the albums thing. I just think that using the snobbery of the press or indeed the fans as a stick to beat the label, the artists or the music itself with is wrong.

This is almost verbatim the same as the CoFlo/Def Jux vs Jigga etc debates except with dance music.

Er, is this aimed at me?

Otherwise, Matt DC is on the money.

A lot of Aphex comes out of acid--look at something like Surfing on Sine Waves, it's really not far from the bleep stuff Warp started with. And things like Didgeridoo were considered part of hardcore at the time.

And then most of the first series of IDM they did, stuff like B12, was slavishly imitating Detroit (the problem here was not that it was different from "proper dance," but that it was cowered by influence--too worshipful of tradition).

And the general critique of Warp for making fun of "proper dance music" is not such a slam-dunk either, as many people have tried to argue on this thread--appropriations of say jungle can as easily be read as simply filtering it through a different sensibility as mocking it (of course, we could argue that that sensibility is juvenile and emotionally stunted, but that's a different critique...) (though even there, isn't childishness something we're supposed to celebrate about hardcore? why not here?)

The thing is, Ronan, that your take on Warp is basically no different from the take of the people you are criticizing--which is ultimately based on marketing. You hate the label for the same reasons they love it.

Old man, you may be right but do any non Warp DJs actually play Warp records?

you'd be hard pressed to argue that the warp records of today has any real engagement w contemporary dance music. or w my record collection. even the lfo record is essentially ardkore nostalgia, innit?

Yeah it is dated but so what! The funny truth is that one of my favourite singles of the year was released on Warp. And I love the LFO record too. Though on the contrary Mitch I'd imagine Freak is getting played everywhere, mind you there's no club here lately so I can't be sure. So maybe Warp now is trying go back to the club scene, didn't they start some new offshoot label for this purpose tho?

Obviously its still 'night' until you go to bed even if you don't do so for two days as we've discussed before.

(btw to sidetrack, are you going to DEAF? I am going to the Winter Party, please I am not a scumbag)

what i mean about different types of music is that there is no opposition between warp and dance music,as far as i can see,in that a lot of people listen to both,and while there are no doubt people who would listen to warp instead of dance music and would dismiss normal dance music i'd say most people who are into warp would also listen to house or techno or drum 'n' bass...
ie electronic music made for dancing and electronic music not specifically intended for dancing are not (or don't have to be) mutually exclusive...

I'm not sure about the Warp thing really, I suppose I'm coming from the point of view of someone who feels there is enough stuff for all moods in house and techno, I've yet to take an interest in downtempo stuff specifically so as I say I don't really understand the idea.

Not that I listen to bangers the whole time, I don't know it's hard to explain, I never thought about it like that but I am fairly sure I just listen to stuff randomly enough.

Same goes for Electronica...

I think it says a lot about the current scene when you understand that Digerdoo was a huge tune on the hardcore scene in the early 90s. In that context you couldn't get away with drill n bass nonsense and crappy experimentation because as Thoumas alludes to dance music hadn't been tainted with the rockist idea of 12"'s and white labels being produced by "artists"

Drukgs sounds a lot better pitched down at -8 or -6

Re: RDJ as media personality.

You probably don't remember this, but there was a time when RDJ was GOD! I mean RDJ was the most important man in the fucking universe, you thought it, your dad thought it, and every last music journalist made it a point to make sure you did not forget it. I don’t care how big of a Detroit fascist you are (and I was the biggest one this board has ever witnessed!) you knew RDJ was the dope shit, you knew, your dad knew, and every last person who knew anything about electronic music knew it. That is cool and the gang, because if you don't like Aphex you are an idiot. RDJ is definitely one of the top 5 most important producers of the last decade and Blue Calyx alone is better than your entire record collection. But what do you do if you are just some kid from Cornwall who happened to make the best records and everybody and their brother could not stop talking about what a GENIUS you are??????? Could you imagine what it would be like for people to earnestly call you the new Mozart (I totally stole this very astute observation from Bruce Gilbert's invisible jukebox interview from wire!)???? God, that is a head fuck if I have ever seen one! Of course he acted like an ass and drove a tank, how could you possible take it seriously and not be completely creatively paralyzed?

Re IDM is not dance music

This whole Warp artist on one side and floortrax on the other is a complete load of cobblers. Everybody I knew in the 90's that had even marginal interest in dance music liked Aphex. And this is not like 99, this is like 94. Like Colin so rightly said, if you didn't have the SAW records we were not coming over after the party. The only reason you have such polarization right now is because of the indie invasion of the late 90's(which was a case of people who would have made boring guitar records coming in to flood the market with boring computer records which made the whole idea seem lame, stupid, and played out) and the declining fortunes of both genres of music. Back in the day that delineation did not exist, Kenny Larkin put out records on Warp. You could totally bang floortrax in your car or at the gig or while cleaning the house, and chill to Polygon Window or Beaumont Hannett at night.

Re artists in electronic music:

Don't you ever get bored? The division is recent and artificial. In the 90's we needed Autechre as much as we needed Cristian Vogel and Jesper Dhalbeck. We needed dudes to get artistical because there were so many boundaries to cross at the time. For all you cats who have the nuts of the progeny of Wolfgang Voight on your chin you need to remember that when that cat's records broke he was seen as being every bit as artistical as any Warp backed auteur. There was a time when RDJ records were like shocking brand new worlds, that was before there were a thousand IDM producers making entire microgenres out of just one of RDJ's hyperprism gimmicks.

So yeah anyway, RDJ is a genius, and yeah that guy upthread was right you should get as much as you can of his because it is QUALITY AND SO SO CHOICE, and you are fucking up if you sleep on it. And you asshats can call me a rockist all you like, cuz I am going to fly to that backwater you call home and smack your mother with my copy of Songs For My Father by Anthony Shakir on your front porch! Because I was raving when you still thought June of 44 was the shit! HAHAHAHAHAHAH

This is my second pot of tea tonight and I OWN EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU!

WAAAARRRRGGGHHHHHQ!!!!!

Though a bit of your rhetoric does sound like the ramblings of yon exemplary elitist (see upthread). This bit I could not agree with more.
Before catchphrases like Microhouse, Electroclash and Glitchcore became household names, Aphex had been making them. But the cool thing about it is he never held himself down to one style. The day the bottom dropped out of IDM was the day these little subgenres started getting invented. Artists started popping up out of nowhere making records out their bedrooms that all sounded the same. The only difference between them and Aphex was that RDJ has never been a one-trick-poney and for me, that is half the appeal. With every release up to Druqks it would be a case of "what the fuck is he going to hit me with this time?" and that's why sometimes it could sound, yes, a little pretentious. But I'd rather hear the Come To Daddy EP than someone who specialises in Techglitch Microdrill exclusively - what's the fucking point??!

IDM, Electronica, whatever you call it, died it's real death for me when Druqks came out and ruined an illusion of what Aphex Twin was all about. It's not a bad album, but like so many others, I am still disappointed by the long wait and the way the album opposes no new musical ideas, giving free reign to the geekazoids who claim to make decent electronica.