APHEX TWIN | Analord

January 1, 2005 3:16 PM

What is he up to this time? Richard D. James, aka Aphex Twin has been the impetus and central figure of the electronic music scene from the 90s onwards. You might remember his deranged music videos, his habit of bullshitting the press, his outrageous stunts (such as the DJ set where he dropped the stylus onto a sandpaper disc before "seguing" it into a food blender, driving around in a tank, owning a submarine, and recording in a bank vault) or his utterly inconsistent discography, that ranges from genius to tripe. After much rumor and speculation, his record label, Rephlex, announced Richard will be releasing "Analord 10", a 2 track 12" vinyl-only EP, 13 mins duration in elaborate packaging and selling for an absurd £39.99 (~$77USD). Mike Paradinas (aka µ-Ziq) heard it and claims (see soundmurderer's post) that it is "some of the best music" he's ever heard, "the aphex everyone's been waiting for", but he might be in on what may well be another costly practical joke. Analord pre-orders have shipped and everyone is eager to find out.
posted by ori (66 comments total)

My money's on an expensive practical joke with good-to-okay music. Then again, James' vinyl HAB 2 was quite rare and better than HAB 1, so who knows? I write about electronic music so I get most of it for free: My days of speculative buying are over, so I'll be waiting for the MP3 transfers...
posted by AlexReynolds at 3:37 PM on January 1, 2005

That explains MeFi; it's just an outrageous stunt by Aphex Twin!
posted by Plutor at 3:38 PM on January 1, 2005

His practical jokes slash stunts are all fine and legendary and part of who he is as a public figure/electronic music rock star, but if he's going to start ripping people off at some $75 USD for a laugh then that's just being an asshole.
posted by xmutex at 3:42 PM on January 1, 2005

This strikes me as similar to the expensive movie memorabilia figurines that socially retarded males buy at comic book and card shops. I'm sure there's money in it but it must be disheartening to have a fanbase that smells like failure.
posted by fleetmouse at 3:45 PM on January 1, 2005

Xmutex: If you've read interviews with him you'd know: he's not that nice of a guy.
posted by Bugbread at 3:50 PM on January 1, 2005

MPAA MPAA mpa di du, unbloat the price or Torrent will do
MPAA MPAA mpa di da , guess soon the RIAA will come after us
posted by elpapacito at 3:54 PM on January 1, 2005

Yes indeed, he's one of the most brilliant assholes in music today. Of course, it's not as if vinyl can't be converted to mp3...
posted by squidlarkin at 3:55 PM on January 1, 2005

Well, it is odd that music seems to be the only form of art with such incredibly inelastic pricing... especially given the file-sharing situation, limited edition vinyl editions like these are more for the object-fetish than the music itself anyway. So if he feels his music+packaging is worth more, why shouldn't he charge more for it? It's strange to me that more artists don't release signed vinyl copies of their work or whatever for a premium, since collectors are so willing to pay for rarity on the vintage market.
posted by Spacelegoman at 3:59 PM on January 1, 2005

Elpapacito: According to the ever useful RIAA Radar, Rephlex Records is not part of the RIAA.
posted by Bugbread at 4:01 PM on January 1, 2005

I saw Aphex Twin play live once. It was the most boring live show I've ever seen. Ugly bloke lying on a dirty couch with a laptop, funky music coming out. They had some attempt at entertainment - idiots in carebare costumes lumbering around. I guess I wasn't high enough.

That said, I love some of the music. Drukqs in particular is great, it reminds me a lot of one of my favourite Cage pieces, Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano.

$75 for a 12 minute EP? Seems like a response to massive theft of music on the Internet.
posted by Nelson at 4:08 PM on January 1, 2005

I saw Aphex Twin dj a "nose-bleed techno" and white noise set from inside a kids play house at a festival a few years back.
Very strange bloke.
posted by bhell13 at 4:09 PM on January 1, 2005

bugbread: according to that search engine some of AT works were released under label which are RIAA represented ; that proves nothing as it just takes any company 2 seconds to ask RIAA to "defend" them (and eventually take the image hit for them).
posted by elpapacito at 4:10 PM on January 1, 2005

Well, it does say that the whole Analord series will be released on CD, probably in the summer. And, as squidlarkin says, we have P2P networks and we're not afraid to use them. Aphex has never been too troubled about ripping off and dicking all over his fans. It's his privilege as a genius-type person, I suppose, and it really does all add to his ineffable charm and mystique and stuff. Or, you know, something.

(Also, Rephlex are a great label, but it's Aphex Twin who's their main cashcow - I don't begrudge them a bit of milking. I'll not be buying it myself, of course...)
posted by flashboy at 4:11 PM on January 1, 2005

The "Come to Daddy" video & track are completely horrifying. And by horrifying, I mean great. The Aphex Twin flavor of electronic music is not really my cup of tea, but at least he's smart enough to create a beguiling persona that people are just as attracted to as the music itself. I find myself looking forward to the videos, pranks, interviews, packaging and so forth more than the next releases.
posted by dhoyt at 4:11 PM on January 1, 2005

Not quite as indulgent as the Mezbow album packaged in a car, or the (albeit awsome) Merzbox.

It's strange to me that more artists don't release signed vinyl copies of their work or whatever for a premium, since collectors are so willing to pay for rarity on the vintage market.

I vaguely remember something about how an ultra rare early vinyl Superchunk single would pop onto the market whenever this one member really needed rent money.

I saw Aphex Twin play live once. It was the most boring live show I've ever seen. Ugly bloke lying on a dirty couch with a laptop, funky music coming out. They had some attempt at entertainment - idiots in carebare costumes lumbering around.

Sounds a lot like the same show I saw, I thought it was a pretty good show but different tastes I guess.
posted by bobo123 at 4:14 PM on January 1, 2005

stunt or no stunt. I've been an rdj fan for years. He's one of the few people in music whos music is totally original. If you're electronica music enthusiast, then you know how absolutely incredible and crazy his compositions are. hey i waste 77$ on cable tv a month, i'm picking up this limited edition as quick as i can.
posted by meowchow at 5:08 PM on January 1, 2005

Self-conscious irony in music is not only a one-dimensional gimmick, it's also painfully not clever. RDJ hasn't been relevant for a long time (and I'm sure he knows this and couldn't give a shit).
posted by basicchannel at 5:20 PM on January 1, 2005

Slightly off topic I recently saw Squarepusher live in Montreal. Though he didn't do much more than dance a bit (behind the console) and raise his hands at some moments it was really awesome. I think part of it was that he was playing Tundra 4 and whatnot before it was released (or at least before I heard it) so it was completely alien to me and I've loved that song ever since.

I downloaded a live Aphex track once, it started with Digeridoo and I lost interest almost immediately.
posted by Napierzaza at 6:13 PM on January 1, 2005

AFAIR Aphex Twin released a sandpaper 7". The one I saw was some seriously heavy grit. Yeah, we played it with a worn out needle, but we'd use that needle for lots of weird stuff anyway. Yeah, it sounds about like you'd expect. Pretty terrible.
posted by loquacious at 6:19 PM on January 1, 2005

It's too bad the man can't focus better, his earlier stuff was fantastic, yeah Drukqs and Selected Ambient Works 85-92. Someone said once the best music of any sort is a balance between the predictable and unpredictable. I hope our man is able to maintain but I dunno, not looking good at this point. I mean really, this seems gimmicky and besides the point, kind of like Prince changing his name to a non-name, not that I'm comparing their work. I will be looking forward to hearing that 13 minutes though...
posted by scheptech at 6:21 PM on January 1, 2005

I appreciate this post. But I left Aphex Twin for Autechre long ago.

Although 'Stone in Focus' is particularly moving, find it on SoulSeek if you havent heard it.
posted by four panels at 6:25 PM on January 1, 2005

Thanks, I just listened a copy of Drukqs a friend sent me a long time ago and I thought was electronic trash. I'm slightly more intrigued now, the minimalist piano composition was very good, I'm somewhat disappointed with by the meth-induced bam-bam-bam chaos. It is a controlled chaos, yes, but I felt it was too discontinuous and trying too hard. I feel as if I'm being made fun of by some pretentious post-grad with titles such as "kesson daslef" and "beskhu3epnm".

Though I now understand that this guy is totally the pmpous intellectual asshole stereotype where the more incomprehensible something becomes the more he likes to pretend he's hiding some gnostic writings. Weird, how that type of asshole-ism is so captivating, I keep listening thinking at some point I'll understand the reason why it's "afx237 v7" or at the least make any sense of the album as a whole, even though I know full well that is entirely impossible.
posted by geoff. at 6:43 PM on January 1, 2005

Selected Ambient Works V.2 is one of maybe five recordings that, in their time, gave me an abrupt awakening to the possibilities of music. That said...

hey i waste 77$ on cable tv a month, i'm picking up this limited edition as quick as i can.

*sniff sniff*

Hey, fleetmouse is right!

Abmient fans, check out Shuttle 358
posted by squirrel at 6:49 PM on January 1, 2005

I found 'Come to Daddy' to be highly disturbing to listen to, much less watch the video for said track. Genius - probably, mentally ill - likely, making fun of his audience - definately.
posted by codeofconduct at 6:51 PM on January 1, 2005

dropped the stylus onto a sandpaper disc before "seguing" it into a food blender

see, you kids have never had the faintest clue what music actually is.
posted by quonsar at 6:52 PM on January 1, 2005

If you think Aphex is too crazy for you, stay the fuck away from Venetian Snares.
posted by neckro23 at 6:55 PM on January 1, 2005

Scheptech: Google on it for details, but Prince had a pretty good reason to change to a non-name. Basically, his record company owned the name Prince, and he wanted out of his partnership, but he had always be Prince, and always wanted to keep the name Prince. (Whether entering into that contract was a good idea or not is a separate issue, but...) His solution was to pick something both unwritable and unpronouncable, which resulted in everyone calling him Prince anyway. He didn't break contract, because he didn't refer to himself as Prince, but he got to keep the name de facto, as magazines, press, and fans keep calling him "Prince" to this day (don't know if he has official use of the name now or not).

Geoff: What you should be picking up from this discussion, which I don't gather that you are, is not just that AT is a jerk and pompous, but that his work is really scattershot, and while some of it is shite (Drukqs, in my opinion), some of it is really good.

Rumor has it Drukqs was a contractual obligation album anyway. Judging AT from Drukqs is like judging Pink Floyd from Pulse or judging John Lennon's songwriting skills from Revolution Number 9.
posted by Bugbread at 6:57 PM on January 1, 2005

Venetian Snares is my current idol.

Shuttle358 is my naptime nurse.

So many good artists popping up in this thread. And to think the "lists of this years best albums" thread was making me feel musically alone.
posted by Bugbread at 7:01 PM on January 1, 2005

My fav's of 2004, all electronic (well, Chemical Friends not so much):

Donnacha Costello - Color Series (Minimize)
N. Ln - Astronomy for Children (Highpoint Lowlife)
N. Ln - Chemical Friends (Badman)
Squarepusher - Ultravisitor (Warp)
Various - Double Down (M3rck)
Fripp and Eno - The Equatorial Stars (Opal)
Alexander Rishaug - Possible Landscape (Asphodel)
Various - Kompakt 100 (Kompakt)
Pan Sonic - Kesto (Mute)
Recon - White Label (Highpoint Lowlife)
posted by AlexReynolds at 7:22 PM on January 1, 2005

My hunch says this'll be a dud, but I'd be really glad to be proven utterly wrong. Venetian Snares is awesome, I agree -- took me a while to like it, but Huge Chrome Cylinder Box Unfolding won me over. I'll also plug Xltronic.com/mb, my favorite internet place: bugbread, if mefi's best of 2004 left you cold, check out xltronic's.
posted by ori at 7:52 PM on January 1, 2005

The Fripp & Eno album not so much either, but it's awesome to see them getting respect.
posted by kenko at 8:15 PM on January 1, 2005

This is actually pretty decent. But I didn't pay any money for it. It's definitly more meldodic than some of his earlier stuff, but it's still aphex twin.

It's available now on the filesharing service of your choice.
posted by the theory of revolution at 8:32 PM on January 1, 2005

The best AFX-stylee record of the last decade was the Mike Flowers Pops Freebase Connection. The Aphex and Vibert remixes are legendary.

Aphex takes an unusual approach to value-add for original versus p2p tracks. The legit Windowlicker release contained his usual mugshot imagery steganographically encoded in the spectral views of the track audio. This information is fragile and of course degraded to non-existence by lossy compression such as ogg or mp3.


posted by meehawl at 8:38 PM on January 1, 2005

Knifehandchop is another good act with messed up / hardcore electronica tendencies, similar to Venetian Snares. Check his new album How I Left You out on Tigerbeat. Now, time to download Analord.
posted by Onanist at 8:46 PM on January 1, 2005

Onanist, only fakes have surfaced so far. You can compare the BPM of whatever you find to the one Rephlex advertised (124-154).
posted by ori at 9:00 PM on January 1, 2005

Mr James's gimmickery is neither the "impetus" nor the "central figure" of electonic music (please!) and, in fact, I find it difficult to believe that anyone takes him seriously as an artist at all.
posted by kjh at 9:10 PM on January 1, 2005

kjh, I suspect you feel that way because you're almost wholly ignorant of his impact on the genre.

in other news:

Why is it that no one can find room for practical jokes or humor in legit music? Why must it be either/or? Here's an idea... It's BOTH. See, YOU don't get to decide what he can do with his music. YOU don't matter. I suspect, although it's pure speculation, that that's partly the point.

Furthermore, the idea that self-reflexive humor in music is a "one-trick pony" or gimmick is patently absurd. Especially when you're talking about a man who practically has to wash the drool from his doorstep every time he hints at releasing something. I mean, check idm forums. You'll see there are perpetual "What's rdj up to?" threads. That's a lot of hype and speculation to live up to, and often enough the only solution to a situation like that is to flatly refuse to go along. If he makes music for you to hate, it's actually a reasonable reaction to the very nearly palpable expectation of the audience.

Now, no one has to like the result, of course.
posted by shmegegge at 9:39 PM on January 1, 2005

people who label an artist a 'pretentious asshole' when they can't dig their music are pretentious assholes themselves.
posted by luckyclone at 9:45 PM on January 1, 2005

I'm interested in hearing this, not because I think it will be especially good to justify its cost but because I've always enjoyed coming across new things by RDJ. I definitely haven't loved all of them but I do enjoy first listening to them to find out if I will. A friend of mine compared it to mixing those every flavor jellybeans from Harry Potter in with normal jellybeans.

Certainly not going out of my way to buy this though. I'm sure I'll hear it eventually.

On the topic of Venetian Snares...a bit TOO random for me. A friend of mine from Winnipeg knows Aaron and is very into his music. When he came down to visit me he brought a bunch along for me to check out. I think I could get used to some of it, though the sheer randomness to it turned me off. Interesting stuff though.
posted by Stunt at 9:58 PM on January 1, 2005

bugbread, I totally got it. But I didn't know it before this thread. I just find it really funny that my perceptions of this guy based on the track names and uh, general nature of the CD happened to really fufill itself. I guess stereotyping works.
posted by geoff. at 10:36 PM on January 1, 2005

I've been an rdj fan for years. He's one of the few people in music whos music is totally original

While I like some Aphex stuff, there are plenty of other artists on Warp records and other labels doing clicky IDM and giving their tracks pretentious, unpronounceable names. I'm not sure why this "completely original" idea continues to persist after all these years of it simply not being true.
posted by MillMan at 11:39 PM on January 1, 2005

I suspect kjh feels this way because he is wholly NOT ignorant.

Seriously... once past some of your friends' and/or amazon.com's reviews... RDJ is important to music in the same way George Washington is relevant to American governance (read: not much at all).
posted by basicchannel at 12:02 AM on January 2, 2005

kjh, I suspect you feel that way because you're almost wholly ignorant of his impact on the genre.

I don't think so.

I mean, check idm forums.

Oh, okay. When you said "electronic music," I didn't realize what you actually meant was "IDM." I mean, you couldn't have really meant "electronic music," since there are so many other artists that not only preceded but far surpassed Mr James as far as "impetus" in the field is concerned.
posted by kjh at 12:28 AM on January 2, 2005

RDJ is important to music in the same way George Washington is relevant to American governance (read: not much at all).

A lot of people came to electronic music through Aphex Twin remixes back in the mid-90s. Even ignoring RDJ's composition techniques, he has done a lot to make electronic music as popular as it is.
posted by AlexReynolds at 12:31 AM on January 2, 2005

Hmmm Analord eh? Well maybe if i could get my $25 back for Drukqs i'll think about tossing another $52 at Rephlex. RDJ/Aphex Twin has given us some great moments to remember, and surely he's done alot for getting experimental electronic music/idm on the map -- and the TV -- but I wouldn't pay $77 for 12 minutes of the most lavish, beautiful, timeless piece of music by that guy even if it came with a ticket to his next live show. Sorry Richard, try again.

About Venetian Snares - I don't think his style or musical talent is anywhere near RDJ's recordings as Aphex Twin. While there's no question as to whether Venetian Snares has had some heavy exposure to Aphex Twin, his output sounds amateurish and devoid of any real melodic complexity. Beneath all that noise and skittery percussion in most of RDJ's output, you can feel movement and there's an understanding of melody that Venetian Snares has yet to demonstrate. Breakcore is full of wanky jerks with 1337 sound destroying-plugin connections. It's not hard to sound chaotic or annoying or challenging with the tools available these days.

Then again who knows, in 20 years we might say this was the next Jazz.

MillMan - I don't see why using unpronounceable names to pieces of music relegates it to the black turtleneck-pretentoid-too-much-college pile, maybe the artist in question just doesn't like names. Note that a gigantic block of classical music is only titled by number.
posted by phylum sinter at 12:36 AM on January 2, 2005

It might be arrogant, but not untrue, to say that anyone who fails to appreciate the enormity of Aphex Twin's influence on electronic music is just not getting it. He worked in such a massive range of styles. So many of his ideas have been appropriated on such a large scale that it's virtually impossible for anyone catching up now to realize just how utterly new and unique this sound once was. You could make a convincing case for Eno or Kraftwerk or other earlier still pioneers of electronic music, but none since Aphex have even approached his status.
posted by ori at 12:50 AM on January 2, 2005

phylum,

I don't think his style or musical talent is anywhere near RDJ's recordings as Aphex Twin. While there's no question as to whether Venetian Snares has had some heavy exposure to Aphex Twin, his output sounds amateurish and devoid of any real melodic complexity.

I agree with the first bit, but I can't agree with the latter after hearing Huge Chrome Cylinder Box Unfolding. It marks a big step forward for Snares.
posted by ori at 12:53 AM on January 2, 2005

RDJ elevated electronic music to a new level, the home listening level, and that is why he was so important. besides brian eno, kraftwerk, maybe a few others , electronic music was pretty much house / trance until AFX came along.

having listened to a large selection of his work, i think he values making something original before all else. while some of his works (druqks!?! how can you reccomend this album to anyone? hated it) are trash, other feats such as ambient works and the RDJ album are magical. when i heard tracks like girl/boy, on, outside, i was blown away, and i really think he should get credit for being a genius composer that few living people can touch.

sure there are people out there making "clicky" music also, but that isnt really even relevant, because even now they are poor imitators. that is the thing about AFX, he was never an imitator. he really doesnt have his own style. Richard D. James is, in the end, a mood; not a style. And so if you look at his records you realize that in some vague, flippant way, each one is about someone else's style. Not using that style, of course, but perverting it; tearing it apart, ripping out the soul of the musical methods and styles involved and making it his own, making it wholly a part of the Aphex Twin, with only the vaguest echo of what was originally there. Not copying or paying tribute to others in any way, but destroying; slashing out the heart of a genre, and recording the digital screams as it falls dead to the ground.

that being said, he is a complete asshole and a prankster and really likes to f*ck with people's heads. but that is whats so great about it. sure is can be annoying, sometimes i want to smash the guy in the face. but he knows that. obviously, the man has ingested industrial quantities of psychelics.
posted by sophist at 4:15 AM on January 2, 2005

It's not hard to sound chaotic or annoying or challenging with the tools available these days.

True, but I don't like music based on whether it's hard or easy to make, or I'd listen to Rush all day. I like music based on whether I like it or not. Venetian Snares happens to make music I like, and I'm not remotely concerned about the difficulty levels involved.
posted by Bugbread at 5:37 AM on January 2, 2005

Sophist said: "RDJ elevated electronic music to a new level, the home listening level, and that is why he was so important. besides brian eno, kraftwerk, maybe a few others , electronic music was pretty much house / trance until AFX came along."

I'm sorry, I can't let that stand. Coil. Meat Beat Manifesto. Nurse With Wound. Halfer Trio. Psychic TV. Pete Namlook and FAX. Almost anything on the Irdial Discs label, but especially Neuropolitique. Even the 'godfathers' of techno such as Carl Craig, Derrick May, Stacey Pullen and so many others experimented in the ambient realm you describe RDJ as having a rarified hold on. I'm barely scratching the surface of pre-techno, acidhouse, or specifically pre-RDJ electronic listening music. Yeah, some of what I mention is house or acidhouse, but those that I mention were just experimenters and knob tweakers before the whole acidhouse thing happened. Psychic TV was begat by Throbbing Gristle. Some of it isn't even primarily electronic.

Electronic music pretty much was only "listening" or experimental music until electrofunk/breakdance culture - and later rave/techno culture - came along and urbanized it and put it to a beat you can dance to. Think back to Switched On Bach by Walter/Wendy Carlos. Though Wendy's work in microtonals and composition is wonderful, much of that older stuff is damn near unlistenable these days, even from a novelty perspective. This is likely less due to composition but to accelerated hardware. Back then Wendy would have to slave for weeks and months over the modular synth's patchbays and knobs to do just what she wanted, and simple humidity or temperature changes could wreck that painstaking work. Digital processing has put such make-work in our past, but hasn't done much for composition and Sturgeon's law.

RDJ has imitated a crapton of artists. Dozens at least, if not hundreds. It happens more often than not in music. He just didn't imitate stuff that would ever get airtime on MTV, so he apparently gets away with it.

I liked Drukqs, but I also love Selected Ambient Works. He's all right, but he's no KLF, amoured tank thingy or no. And honestly, The Orb, the KLF and 808 State probably did more to bring acidhouse/techno culture to the masses, but that may simply be a matter of historical perspective.

There are plenty of artists doing exceptional stuff in the twitchy-clicky beats realm. I really like Pthalocyanine and Lexaunculpt, but I'm a little biased as they're local kids gone gold.

Good job mentioning Brian Eno, though. It's the only thing that kept me from hunting you down and dining on the succulent, deliciously soft meats contained in your brainpan. Spicy.

However, if you say "genius composer that few living people can touch" and "Richard James" in the same sentence ever again I'm going to have to follow through on that brain-slurping thing. I think maybe you don't understand how incredibly (and happily!) accidental creating electronic music usually is, and you're giving RDJ way too much credit, and not enough credit to his many expensive tools and toys and the amount of time he has to play with them.

The thing that's too easy to forget is that music and it's evolution isn't linear. It hops forward, skips sideways and twirls around, pops up in surprising places.

The thing that's too easy to forget is that the beat goes on, and just keeps on going and hasn't stopped since it started, and that it predates fire, language, and tools. It just keeps changing, being bent to the silly whims of fashion or surpressed by religion or politics. It exists outside us, like thought in Teilhard de Chardin's Noosphere, flowing all around us like the vastest river.

We only have to dip our hands in that river and listen and let the music pass through us to also be equal creators.

As such, it does us no service to over-construct our taxonomies when dealing with music. It isn't a race to win or a geography to conquer. The map is always changing, and there's no finish line.
posted by loquacious at 7:42 AM on January 2, 2005 [1 favorite has favorites]

First of all it should be noted that plenty of other well know electronic/normal musicians site Aphex as a influence. Luke Vibert said RDJ was the one who made him think it was possible to release bedroom tracks. Not to mention people like Outkast who say they were influenced too. Sure, maybe it didn't shape the way you think about music, but you probably listen to some other musician who WAS.

I was introduced to IDM through NIN having an Aphex remix. I totally dropped the wholly pretentious Trent Reznor for the less pretentious Aphex and I never went back. Does anyone want to buy an entire Nine Inch Nails discography?

Mike Paradinas (the mu-ziq mentioned in the post) said that Venetian snares is not very random at all. He is merely at 7/4 count which is hard to get into it. After some time listening to VS I believe that many of his songs are not at all random, but they are fast and hardcore. I'd like to know how he got Trevor Brown to do his covers!

Why is no one mentioning Squarepusher? I think he's a terrifically talented music God. He has a whole range of ability and he is just as experimental as Aphex but with less BS.

When you make a song that is created from nothing what do you name it? Some artists have named every track "untitled" (pretentious) or made every track the name of the album (every day I love, every day I love, every day I love...) which is also pretentious. What if you named it after a movie you liked? Naming a track is pretty difficult and I think that if you're going to enjoy IDM you had better ignore the names except for maybe using them to remember that track you like.
posted by Napierzaza at 8:35 AM on January 2, 2005

loquacious: Your favorite band sucks.
posted by rocketman at 9:28 AM on January 2, 2005

Here's a quick Aphex Twin soundalike cluster.

One limitation many USians seem have with dealing with electronic music is that a primary source seems to be always via the UK, which while influential also has to compete with Japan and definitely the global superpower of electronic music: Germany. The UK language/cultural bottleneck acts as both a filter and a constraint.

Only one person checked Merzbow/Masami Akita, and nobody mentioned Laibach, or Rammstein, or even Harald Bluechel or Ralf Hildenbeutel.

There's a lot more to cool Euro emusic than the Warp/Rephlex/Planet Mu axis.

And as regards early pioneers, GTO were light years ahead of the curve. But they lost a lot of respect for the "I Wanna Be A Hippy" track!
posted by meehawl at 10:04 AM on January 2, 2005

I don't want to knock RDJ too hard, but I feel much the same way about him as I do about the newer Radiohead stuff. It's pretty cool, and very creative and unique as far as pop music goes. But, the fact remains that John Cage was putting objects into turntable stylus cartridges in 1960, and Iannis Xenakis and Pierre Schaeffer were doing amazing things with timbre before RDJ was even born. I hear Aphex and it's nothing I haven't heard before, it just has a beat to it.

He is quite good at what he does, but to call him a "central figure"...? I don't agree. If you want good, artistic, well-thought out electronic music, check out the work of Jonty Harrison or Larry Austin or really anyone who has a CD out on the Emprientes Digitales label.
posted by teletype1 at 10:41 AM on January 2, 2005

sure there are people out there making "clicky" music also, but that isnt really even relevant, because even now they are poor imitators.

Squarepusher and autechre have as much talent IMO as Aphex, and that's just the IDM sub-genre. As far as influence on the music world , I'd rate acts like FSOL and Orbital as higher up on the totem pole. Aphex is up there too, but it's very, very crowded up there in the sky.
posted by MillMan at 11:44 AM on January 2, 2005

Discussions about electronic music sure bring out insanely prententious poetry.

ROUND 1

Sophist:
"Richard D. James is, in the end, a mood; not a style. And so if you look at his records you realize that in some vague, flippant way, each one is about someone else's style. Not using that style, of course, but perverting it; tearing it apart, ripping out the soul of the musical methods and styles involved and making it his own, making it wholly a part of the Aphex Twin, with only the vaguest echo of what was originally there."

VS.

Loquacious:
"The thing that's too easy to forget is that the beat goes on, and just keeps on going and hasn't stopped since it started, and that it predates fire, language, and tools. It just keeps changing, being bent to the silly whims of fashion or surpressed by religion or politics. It exists outside us, like thought in Teilhard de Chardin's Noosphere, flowing all around us like the vastest river. We only have to dip our hands in that river and listen and let the music pass through us to also be equal creators."


Loquacious wins!
posted by painquale at 12:09 PM on January 2, 2005

re: insanely pretentious poetry

making it his own: A phrase that should be outlawed after any edition of any country's idol

vs.

the beat goes on diedle diedle diedle do, the beat goes orrrn.

nope, sorry painquale. They are both disqualified both for not being insanely pretentious enough through trite cliche in music writing and for making my eyes bleed and my ears water.

In a nice sort of way.
posted by Sparx at 1:04 PM on January 2, 2005

the beat goes on diedle diedle diedle do, the beat goes orrrn

Strong Bad on Techno.
posted by meehawl at 1:44 PM on January 2, 2005

About Venetian Snares: I've alluded to this in a previous post, but he is much better live. Most people just hide behind their laptop, but he uses two CD turntables throughout the entire show -- this is much more closer to, oh, Rush, than most IDM'ers. Also, the stuff he puts out on CD hasn't yet caught up with live show, possibly due to licensing issues or clearances for the samples (?).

Another thing is that the live shows here in Winnipeg are VERY interesting: the audience consists of a smattering of about 10 scensters of the local music scene, a few who are not part of the scene but enjoy the music, and about 7 people who wandered into their local haunt (The Albert) looking for a few bottles of Club beer or feeding loonies into VLTs. That last group of wayfarers heckles the starting bands for not using guitars, but are suitably moved for his set -- they sit and listen.

About the actual topic: I adore the song '4' from the RDJ album. I consider one of those songs that are a Geiger test of the soul: If you're unmoved by it, you've been wandering this earth with only a corporeal husk. I look forward to the $20 CD this summer. Screw the collect-whoring.
posted by sleslie at 3:21 PM on January 2, 2005

just downloaded something that claims to be it.
could be real, not my cup of aphex though if it is.
very 303 acid sounding stuff, not much dsp.
posted by juv3nal at 3:32 PM on January 2, 2005

Simon Begg is also much better live, in general, but the pre-canned released stuff is not bad at all.
posted by meehawl at 3:33 PM on January 2, 2005

µ-Ziq != soundmurderer
posted by timb at 5:21 PM on January 2, 2005

sorry if i got carried away and dipped a bit overboard on the whole pretension scale. you are definitely correct there were others exploring the listening genre of electronic before he came along, although i think some of those people would be a lot more obscure today if not for him. it is easy to get sucked in and label him as some kind of god because the myth and legend that surrounds him, and he doesnt really deserve that title because a large portion of his stuff is really trash.

before you dismiss him into oblivion though AMG claims "Richard D. James' recordings as Aphex Twin brought him more critical praise than any other electronic artist during the 1990s". its the very few incredible tracks he lets slip through (i can think of 5 or 6 in his entire discography) that really awe me. other producers such as fsol, underworld, orb are much more listenable and more consistant, but genius has never been consistant. btw, while he may play off a laptop now, he started building his own electronic equipment at the age of 14, and that is where early releases such as ambient works, analogue bubblebath and caustic window stuff came from, not sitting in front of a computer or synth he bought at a store.
posted by sophist at 11:19 PM on January 2, 2005

orb are much more listenable

One of the problems with saying "The Orb" is that for much of its life it has been more of a fluid collective than a discrete, fixed entity. So if you want to talk about "genius" within The Orb, are you talking about Paterson (also in Kumba Mela and Space with Cauty), Cauty himself (also in Space and KLF), Fehlmann (late of Palais Schaumburg and also in 3MB with von Oswald), Phillips (also in Prayer Box), Falconer, Roome (AKA Witchman, Unknown Ghosts, etc), Weston (AKA Thrash), or Hughes (also in Nostalgia)? I think The Orb's uneven output is a direct consequence of its group dynamics.

I think that the APhex consistency you speak of is part of the clever branding by Richard James - he has resisted the easy and promiscuous grouping that prevails within much of emusic and generally limits himself to lone performances or singular remixes. He has rarely joined any collectives or studio initiatives. The only two I can think of is Mike & Rich (a once-ff with Paradinas) and Universal Indicator (a limited production series with Mike Dred AKA Kosmik Kommando). It's easier to stand out in a crowd of one.

Many if not most of the seriously talented bleepy music gang are content to submerse themselves within the dynamic anonymity of shifting identities. But James has always carefully tended his cult of personality. Select any of the individuals from the Orb and examine their individual albums - you will find a much greater sense of individual cohesion.
posted by meehawl at 9:00 AM on January 3, 2005

kjh, if the distinction you were making was between idm and electronic music, then I can see your point.

everyone else: Now, the fpp's body text may have been exaggerated, (throbbing gristle?) but blaming the music he makes on expensive equipment or claiming he steals his style from others is ridiculous.

1. There is no music that isn't inspired by and to some extent takes its musical cues from a predecessor. This includes rdj. His predecessors were well named by loquacious.

2. This isn't the same as stealing. For more info on art and breaking new ground therein, see Harry Bloom's Anxiety of Influence (even though I hate the man) because his ideas apply to all art.

3. While the claim has been disputed, it is believed by some that rdj had built a lot of his early equipment himself from cheap parts. This isn't the same, obviously, as just using expensive equipment to make weird music.

4. He was only able to afford expensive anything after he got rich and famous, not before.

5. I remember when I first heard A Richard D James Album hearing what sounded like a metal bead being bouncing in diminishing intervals on a glass plate. It is the earliest time I can find of that synthesized sound existing on record. Now, it's EVERYWHERE. Seriously, I hear it in tv commercials, for chrissakes. This happens to me all the time. I'll hear a song or soundtrack and be like, "Damn! That's an rdj sound!" I may be wrong, but I suspect that rdj makes the sounds and then some company mimics it on expensive hardware later. Wouldn't be the first time that happened. (See throbbing gristle again.)
posted by shmegegge at 11:31 AM on January 3, 2005

I might have to give him a second chance, apparently my ears hadn't acquired the taste yet.
posted by codeofconduct at 1:18 PM on January 3, 2005