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numbs
Jul 20, 2013

by XyloJW
Hi, I've lurked around for some time now and just noticed that there's not an Aphex Twin thread! How could such a musical genius not have an SA thread?!

Aphex Twin is an Irish-born British electronic musician and composer. He founded the record label Rephlex Records in 1991. He has been described by The Guardian as "the most inventive and influential figure in contemporary electronic music". He's has also recorded music under the aliases AFX, Blue Calx, Bradley Strider, Caustic Window, Smojphace, GAK, Martin Tressider, Polygon Window, Power-Pill, Q-Chastic, Tahnaiya Russell, The Diceman, The Tuss, and Soit-P.P.

Let's dive into what his music sounds like for all of you future Aphex fanboys out there. :shepface:

This song name is "4". It's on his Richard D. James album, released in 1996. This song really defines how he likes to play with drums.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iiK4MgIPtI

Enjoy that? Check this out. This song's name is "Flim" and I'd consider it to be one of Twin's most popular songs. It really signifies, like "4", his love for playing with drums. It's an overall very chill song and you'll find yourself jammin' out to it later.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiZEto2j2GQ

Flim is a very chill song, but is nothing compared to this masterpiece, "Alberto Balsalm". This track brings smooth chords left and right, and just flows.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWW68sPxcpM

Aphex Twin goes all over all kinds of musical spectrums throughout his albums, and is a highly influential artist ranging from days back into 1992, when he released his first album, "Selected Ambient Works 85-92". New sounds and new styles were brought into this world with this album and Twin has managed to bring new sounds and styles with every album he's released. If you'd like to start indulging in his music, I'd recommend listening to his album Drukqs to really get a feel for his style. Then, I'd recommend checking out Richard D. James Ablum, then I Care Because You Do. You can choose what to listen to afterwards. :shepface: Also, keep in mind, once you listen to all of his music, you can go check out all of his aliases mentioned earlier in this post! Woo for Aphex Twin!

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This thread brought to you by a tremendous dickhead!

numbs fucked around with this message at 18:34 on Jul 26, 2013

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numbs
Jul 20, 2013

by XyloJW

oiseaux morts 1994 posted:

RDJ album came out in 1996! It's light-years ahead of its time!

Here's a Phillip Glass orchestration of the mighty Icct Hedral.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIuSLczfn6U
According to Spotify it came out in 2005! That's where I got that info.

numbs
Jul 20, 2013

by XyloJW

Stravinsky posted:

Spotify gets its dates wrong constantly. Once it claimed to me Bitches Brew was released in 2013.

Interesting. I'll update the OP. So what do you know about Aphex Twin?

numbs
Jul 20, 2013

by XyloJW

Floodixor posted:

I feel like Aphex Twin/RDJ is a common access point for more boundary-pushing music for a lot of beginning electronic music listeners. He has a high enough profile to where most electronic music fans have heard of him, but when you really explore his total works you find some fascinating (and often challenging) content in the b-sides and rarities (or even just his most well-known albums). Many people I know who were fans of more pedestrian electronic music have been introduced into more unique and experimental styles via Aphex Twin.

He really does do a remarkable thing with his composition. Aside from having the skill of making actual catchy melodies (which isn't to say simple melodies - many of his arrangements are actually quite complex and show a strong depth of music composition knowledge, as evident with the link a few posts above of the string section performing an Aphex Twin song), he can also fold that melody inside a structure of very non-traditional, at times practically schizophrenic beats and sounds. He branches out from the standard 4x4 beat (though doesn't abandon it completely, like with his selected ambient works vol. 1 album and the standout opening track Xtal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nevnq7MvVTI ) and really explores taking risks sonically that not too many other producers were doing at the time. But I know that anyone reading this thread and has even a passing interest in Aphex Twin already knows this very well.

What I mean is that he's an example of someone coming from a niche genre into the public eye via being more accessible but also very much indebted to the roots of that same genre. You could use Trent Reznor as a good example of this - he came from the industrial camp (or synth-pop, etc, whatever you'd like to classify Pretty Hate Machine as) but also was very adept at writing hooks and not alienating the common listener. The Downward Spiral is a terrific album in my opinion and while it definitely owes a lot to the industrial music aesthetic, Reznor also made industrial a bit easier to swallow and subsequently was more or less embraced by pop culture ("pop" music isn't a pejorative, in my opinion - it's just an acknowledgement that it's simply popular, by definition). So you can have a song like the popular "Closer", which has all sorts of dirty synth melodies and mechanical beats (which for the most part wouldn't be the type of thing heard on most radio stations at the time) but also combined with catchy hooks. Obviously the chorus of "I want to gently caress you like an animal" added to the public's reaction to it as even more of an edge-case or spectacle than it already was, but audio-wise it achieved what a lot of NIN's catalogue does and does well - takes the industrial sound and makes it more inviting for listeners who may not have initially explored that genre. And whether or not you appreciate that, it definitely takes finesse and tact to accomplish it.

Anyway, Aphex Twin does the same thing, though I personally think he takes WAY more chances compared to someone like Trent Reznor (though as they've done the sort of accessibility trick, they have by no coincidence also crossed over into each other's work, like the Aphex Twin NIN remixes/original songs that Richard D. James has made for NIN). So when the casual listener finds an accessible track from Aphex Twin, it can really lead to a way more "down the rabbit hole" process for them and I really appreciate that about Aphex Twin.

As another poster has said in this thread, Aphex Twin also pulls off the impressive feat of making a "timeless" album. Upon its release, an album like I Care Because You Do or, even moreso, The Richard D. James Album simply had no peers. Nothing else sounded like it. But it wasn't just unique for the sake of being unique - there are really great melodies on those albums, too. A lot of them are, even with their risks and sometimes-bizarre beat structures, simply very good songs. It's why Aphex Twin is one of those people that is in a league of their own, and why he's respected by many other musicians both included in the same electronic genre but also outside of it, too. It's because of that genre-spanning accessibility. It's because for all of his intellect involved in his song compositions, he also has that "rock star" fodder of things like living in a bank vault, owning a tank, and being a recluse, among other things. But even though all of these things assist in him being a very popular and respected musician, he's never been afraid of the consequences of alienating listeners either - he still makes things like the song "Come To Daddy" (and certainly also the associated music video), and I love that about him. He walks this strange line of becoming popular but not "selling out" and sacrificing his style for the sake of getting famous and moving units. His story is intriguing to me because he got recognized and taken in for the most part by popular culture but was mostly very weird the whole time, which makes his story an enigma.

Sorry for this wall of text - I've had a lot of espresso this morning and didn't plan on it being this long. Thanks if you didn't tl;dr this and please discuss anything you agree with or think I'm barking up the wrong tree or getting it totally wrong. And thanks to the OP for an Aphex Twin thread - it had been a little while since the last one.

And I previously thought I knew a lot about him! Thanks for all of this info man!

numbs
Jul 20, 2013

by XyloJW
Here's the entire Analord series if anyone would like to check it out! I haven't heard it before, so thanks so much for bringing it up!

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

numbs
Jul 20, 2013

by XyloJW
I'd love to see some new Aphex material. :allears:

numbs
Jul 20, 2013

by XyloJW

TRAMAMPOLINE posted:

That's this interview, which is a good read. In this later interview he mentions 10 or 11.

some unreleased stuff:
singapore wobbly chords track
manchester track
metz track
barbican piano pendulum piece

drat thanks dude

numbs
Jul 20, 2013

by XyloJW
I've seemed to have forgotten about this musical genius. Does he ever do tours? What are his concerts like?

numbs
Jul 20, 2013

by XyloJW

Quantum of Phallus posted:

I saw him last year, it was loving amazing, I was front row and he played sicks beats as the sun went down. If you get a chance, see him live.

Do any drukqs beforehand? I can't possibly imagine an Aphex concert while trippin' on the shroomies.

numbs
Jul 20, 2013

by XyloJW
I'd have to say "4" on his RDJ album would be my favorite song of his. It's out there, while not really being out there if that makes any sense. The whole RDJ album is gold in my opinion.

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numbs
Jul 20, 2013

by XyloJW
Druqks is a fantastic album - one of his bests in my opinion.

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