The other day, at a party, I was taken upstairs to “see something really cool.” My friend turned off the lights, started a video on the computer, and told us to watch it. It was an Aphex Twin video - I can’t remember what the song was, but there was a gang of little girls with the face of Richard D. James (the Aphex Twin guy) chasing after an old lady, or something like that. Then he put on another video, this one depicting a bunch of dancing care bears with the face of Richard D. James. (The guy puts his face all over everything.)
I had heard some Aphex Twin in the past, and it was always in the context of “dude, listen to this!” I never got what was so cool about it. After seeing the videos, I could understand the visual gimmick of the deranged, creepy videos featuring the guy’s strikingly grotesque face - but it still just seemed like a gimmick.
My thoughts on techno music like Aphex Twin is that it’s music for people on drugs. But all those pops, whirrs, and clicks that sound so awesome and explode in your head when you’re buzzed on good weed sound really repetitive to me when I’m sober. It’s usually just four measures of one repetitive techno line followed by four measures of the same line with another sound effect added in, followed by four measures of the previous line with yet another sound effect layered on - this is what it sounds like to me. I can’t see any appeal to it at all beyond listening to it when you’re high.
I can see how someone might really get a kick out of making the music. I picture one guy alone on his computer creating one of these techno songs and thinking “wow, this is so cool that I can do this! Maybe I’ll add another effect here!” But I don’t see what’s so amazing or distintive about Aphex Twin. This techno music is everywhere - it’s the stock in trade of every DJ in every club in the country, and every wannabe DJ with a computer program like ACID or Garage Band. Is Aphex Twin really a unique stand-out in the field, or is it just that the guy is weirdly charismatic enough to make cool videos and put his face everywhere?
I’ve never understood why Aphex Twin is regarded as such a god by the electronica community. His music’s decent, but there’s other artists I like quite a bit better. I don’t see how you can call it repetitive, though - most of the time, to me it just seems a little too weird for the sake of being weird. Like he’s so focused on making ultracomplex music that it loses a lot of its musicality.
I’m not a huge Aphex Twin listener, but I think he’s absolutely fantastic. Check out Selected Ambient Works 85-92 in particular. Lovely stuff. Great use of sparse, minimalist percussion–good feel for sound texture. All in all, a very strong work, perhaps one of the best albums to come out in the 90s. The Richard D. James Album is also highly regarded, with that being Aphex Twin’s first foray into those stuttering jungle beats you’re probably used to.
As for the videos, I’m not familiar with the particular one you mentioned, but one of my favorite video directors–Chris Cunningham–works a lot with Aphex Twin. Their styles suit each other to a tee.
All in all, my vote? Aphex Twin is not over-rated.
I really liked his early stuff when someone played it for me, but his newer (late 90’s and beyond) stuff hasn’t really moved me at all. I’m on the “overrated” side, as well.
Most of the Aphex Twin stuff is just too clicky and out there for me. However, I own several albums and there are select tracks that are absolutely amazing. Check out:
Windowlicker (from the Windowlicker CD Single) – probably the best AphT song of all time. Seriously, I DARE you not to like this song. It’s weird, but very catchy. My rap-loving mexican roommate from college would always ask me to play this track over and over.
Alberto Balsalm (from I Care Because You Do) – instrumental. Got this real relaxing steel drum sound. You’re not gonna be bumping and grinding on the dancefloor to this song, but it’s really catchy.
IZ-US and Funny Little Man (from Come To Daddy) – great! Funny little man is weird, perhaps the least catchy of these selections.
There are others, but seriously, find these tracks ($.99 from iTunes? or other less legal means) and then tell me what you think. If you don’t like them, I’ll paypal you a refund.
I’m not only going to entirely disagree with your OP, but I put forth that Richard D. James’ raw talent, ability, and creativity in creating music cannot be over stated - the man is simply beyond compare in not just electronic music, but in any medium - Richard D. James is better at creating music than Stephen Hawking is at physics or James Joyce was at writing, if such comparisons can be made.
The Aphex Twin record The Richard D. James Album and the Come to Daddy and Windowlicker EP’s are simply above and beyond any other electronic music released to date - years later, they still sound about 10 years ahead of what’s going on right now. That level of sound creation, programming, and production simply remains unmatched by anyone else currently living.
But who cares about that- listen to the SONGS! James is an incredible writer of melodies, counterpoint, themes and so on. If he were working with a traditional orchestra, he’d be hailed as the second coming of Stravinski (or Steve Reich at the very least!). The fact that he’s executing these gorgeous melodies and progressions with, say, a strangely tricked-out violin sample or ancient synthesizer just makes it that much more interesting. Listen to something like Flim (track 2 on the “Come to Daddy” EP) or 4, the first track on “The Richard D. James Album” - they’re just absolutely beautiful, and would sound as gorgeous played on a piano or harp.
I also really don’t understand statements like
While this is true of much of electronic music, especially genres meant for the dancefloor like techno, house, or trance, it’s almost entirely untrue of Aphex Twin’s music - if anything, the guy’s songs are often too nonrepetitive and nonlinear, making them unfriendly and challening experiences to casual music listeners - you may get hooked by that pretty melody, but then James goes off into four different bridges, meandering for minutes before returning to it.
Richard D. James has not made a “techno” song for years. True, some of his earliest material - songs like Donkey Rhubarb or Digeridoo from the very early nineties - were meant for the dancefloor, but none of his proper album releases have had anything remotely approaching techno.
In addition, criticizing techno (if you mean actual techno music, as in the genre “techno”) for being repetitive shows a fundamental misunderstaning of the genre; it makes about as much sense as criticizing metal for being too hard or criticizing a symphony for using too many instruments.
When dealing with Richard’s approach to his music, phrases like “complete standout” and “atypical” are colossal understatements. Again, to the casual listener, a musician’s approach or method should not matter - the only thing that matters is that the music moves you. But to those people that are moved by the music, understanding James’ approach opens up an entire new level of appreciation and awe.
To begin with, the man’s approach is about as far removed from your image of the guy dicking around on readily-available commercial software toys like Garageband as humanly possible; James builds his own equipment and writes his own software from scratch before using it to create sounds and songs. He also uses a lot of very old and very rare synthesizer equipment from the sixties and seventies - but again choosing to heavily modify and rebuild everything rather than using it “out of the box,” so to speak. The one piece of pre-existing music software that James uses is C-sound, an arcane text-based audio mangling program that works a bit like DOS or a word processor, but for mangling sounds.
To put this in context, if James were Eddie Van Halen, he would not only play that good but would build his guitars and amplifiers from scratch using pieces of old household appliances (and they’d still sound and work better than anything you could buy in the store). If James were your favorite website designer, it would be like finding out that the best webpage you’ve ever seen was made with three TI-82 calculators and a Speak-n-Spell wired together and programmed in an original programming language that the designer invented.
Well, that’s my .02 - you’re free to not like James, but do try to be a bit more informed in your criticisms. “Me no understand” would be more apropos.
Argent Towers - the video was that of Come to Daddy. It achieved minor noteriety in the UK by being one of (possibly the) first music videos to recieve an 18 certificate. Yeah, I know. Moving on…
This does suggests that you were hearing the music on a normal TV. The problem is that the music is heavily bass-oriented, and you were literally only hearing half of it. The crucial and important elements are simply not audible on a small crappy audio system, such as that in most TVs.
Aphex Twin was one of the innovators of genuine live dance music. That meant actually figuring out a way of standing on stage with all the boxes and gizmos, and playing them as a single instrument, responding to the athmosphere of the crowd, and so on. All the things that ‘real musicians’ do.
Regarding the actual music: Aphex Twin, Orbital and Squarepusher are the three that I would consider truly outstanding, in a very mediocre genre. They have the ability to create soundscapes, to project musical compositions over ten, twenty, thirty, sixty minutes and hold a coherent thread throughout. VCO3 misses the point when he/she says that they would be hailed as geniuses if they were working in traditional mediums. Actually, there’s plenty of people working in traditional mediums who are doing quite similar things in many ways, and who will readily acknowledge Aphex Twin as a great modern musician - writing for orchestras isn’t helping them one bit!
Dang. Now I have to get me some Aphex Twin.
I’ve been listening to old innovators of this stuff for years.
Kraftwerk, Yello, Art of Noise.
More recently I’ve been into Big Beat; Prodigy, Chemical Bros, FatboySlim, Propellerheads.
So If one was to buy an Aphex Twin cd, what would be the recommend album of choice. Does Windowlicker only come on a single?
I watched it on a computer hooked to a very good sound system.
I definitely have more respect for this guy after reading about the way he makes the music. I still don’t really like it - different people have different musical tastes.
It’s all good though.
I’m in two minds about this. I don’t actually think it’s the best music on the whole, but it’s also a good demonstration that these electro-geeks do have a sense of humour, even if it is rather strange. “I would like to drink some milk…”
I’d suggest Drukqs. And also the Come to Daddy EP, because the OP could put it onto a decent system, at full volume, and understand what he missed the first time around
I’d suggest buying CDs, not downloading. As I said earlier, the bass is crucial, and that’s what seems to get lost more than anything else in any compression of this music.
I love some Aphex Twin. Some of it gets to be a bit irritating.
I love Windowlicker, Funny Little Man, Pulsewidth, Milkman, and my BIL played a lot of stuff for me that I liked.
It’s something to pick through, and sometimes you find some bloody brilliant stuff among the crap. Sometimes, though, it feels like it’s just a lot of crap. But when you find something you do like, it’s worth it.
I can confirm that it is on iTunes, since I have bought a few of their tracks there.
I don’t feel the quality is effected too much, but then I’m no sound engineer.
I’m usually pretty oblivious to hype and I have no history of drug use. I stumbled onto Aphex Twin by myself (if memory serves correctly it was because one of their songs was on the Pi soundtrack). I do think it’s some of the most innovative stuff out there, although very difficult to get into. Some of the songs are far more accessable than others, and those helped me get a feel for what it was I liked about the music and see it in many of the other tracks.
Consider all the suggestions so far for first tracks seconded!
