when will people start acknowledging that this is his best album?
Hopefully soon
definitely not best, but its pretty solid, I named my cat after it XD
Instead of trying to rehash his past career as Drukqs seemed to do, Aphex Twin looked ahead and focused on just one style on Syro (Warp, 2014): painstakingly sculpted, multilayered, hyperkinetic, scrambled, burbling, glitchy preludes for chopped vocal samples, fibrillating hyper-polyrhythms and looped eccentricities. His main asset here is the skill in manipulating audio devices, as proven also by the crystal-clear machine sound. His second asset is his passion for deviant harmony. The result is a deliberate contradiction, "songs" such as Minipops 67, 180db_ and Syro U473t8+e that attempt to fuse elegant geometry and dadaistic anarchy. Along the way James also stages two music-hall skits, namely Produk 29 (almost a parody of house-music) and the stuttering polka Circlont6a. This oblique strategy unravels masterfully in two pieces that straddle the border with classical music: Circlont14, that sounds like a Bach toccata remixed at 152 beats per minute with windchimes and castanets, and the major-key carillon-sonata Aisatsana. Aphex Twin had not been so inspired in 20 years. The warm, intense, passionate Syro is the opposite of the amateurish, detached, slacker Drukqs.
It's definitely his most consistent album
RDJA and SAWV2 have my favorite tracks but are less consistent.
The general impetus towards "intelligent" dance-music yielded the grotesque phenomenon of electronic musician Richard James. The three EPs credited to AFX, starting with Analogue Bubblebath (1991, 1992 and 1993) contained harsh, abrasive dance-music, sometimes sounding like a disco version of Morton Subotnick's electronic poems (and they remained his most valuable musical statements). In the meantime, the catchy singles credited to Aphex Twin, Quoth (1993) and On (1993), were fusing techno and pop, aiming for the charts, and Polygon Window's Surfing On Sinewaves (1992) was traditional, throbbing techno music, aiming for dancefloor appeal. To further confuse his persona, Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works 1985-92 (1992) and Selected Ambient Works Volume II (1994) were experiments in ambient house and abstract electronic/concrete composition. They were childish and antiquated (and perhaps a joke on music critics), but they increased James' reputation, making him the first star of ambient house. I Care Because You Do (1995) cleaned up his act, offering atmospheric dance-music with occasional hints to his old virulent style.
>>60898617
One of the few modern Scaruffi reviews which is on point.
>>60898617
>>60898634
sound like total snobs who should get a job at pitchfork.
>dat XMAS-EVET10
i had a shitty YouTube to mp3 rip of this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnVRp6SXSk4) for 5 years before that fucking asshole finally released it.
his new soundcloud track is lovely
https://soundcloud.com/user18081971/lost-track-dat-24-icbyd
>>60898653
Looks like a newfag who needs to grow up
>>60898617
>scruffi hating Drukqs
that senile old fuck.
i never understood the hate for Drukqs, sure it has faults but it's 100 minutes of fucking AFX.
>>60898727
There's nothing new or particularly great on there.
Even Avril is cheesy as fuck. The recently released altdelay is much more interesting.
>>60898736
vordhosbn is one of the best things he ever did
>>60898736
>vordhosbn
>cock/ver10
>omgyjya-switch7
>meltphace 6
>ziggomatic 17
>>60899130
oh and i forgot mt. saint michel + mount
>>60899130
>>60899205
>no taking control
>>60899205
>>60899130
yeah, if he made it a single album it would have been much more successful
>>60899246
the problem with Drukqs is that it's too over-saturated with filler 120 second sample bleep shit that you can't enjoy, if he made a cohesive 30-45 min album of it (like RDJ Album, ICBYD or Syro) it would be go down as one of the best electronic albums of the last decade.
Since when has Richard cared at all about universal acknowledgement?
>>60899399
fuck you i came here to discuss music
>>60898736
Get out faggot.
>>60898736
>There's nothing new or particularly great on there.
>>60900157
>>60900180
he's right you know
>>60898592
the best afx record is the one i heard first when i was 17 anon
>>60898592
My favorite is Come To Daddy, I never see it posted on here.
>>60898685
I love this man
i can tell i wont like it due to not liking saw II or rdj and due to so many people shitting on 85-92
>>60899399
That's his worst full-length
>>60898736
Drukqs works well because there's a constant cycle of peaceful and more aggressive tracks. It's by far his that's the most exhaustive and epic in scope, if as not perfectly crafted as the ambient albums
>>60900194
meme
>>60900194
only someone who is totally not acquainted with AFX would argue that there's no good material on Drukqs
that or some epic contrarian memer which is more likely.
>>60898592
When a ripple in time makes SAW II not exist.
>>60900370
there's good material on druqks but all the "avant-garde" and most of the piano pieces on it are just bleh
Drukqs should have been narrowed down to:
>Vordhosbn
>Omgyjya-Switch7
>Cock/Ver10
>Mt Saint Michel + Saint Michaels Mount
>Meltphace 6
>Taking Control
>Ziggomatic 17
Anything else?
>>60900417
The piano pieces give the album character and space to breathe
Also 54 cymru beats should stay, taking control can be taken off tb|h
Syro is third best to Drukqs and Rushup Edge for sure, Minipops/XMAS_EVE/Produk29/4bit is a fucking monumental run, the album is strong as fuck and the level of detail is insane. Really warm, comfy analog masterpieces.
>>60898617
>>60898634
I heard the piece Aphex Twin of Richard James carefully: I think it would be very helpful if he listens to my work Song Of The Youth, which is electronic music, and a young boy’s voice singing with himself. Because he would then immediately stop with all these post-African repetitions, and he would look for changing tempi and changing rhythms, and he would not allow to repeat any rhythm if it were varied to some extent and if it did not have a direction in its sequence of variations.
I wish those musicians would not allow themselves any repetitions, and would go faster in developing their ideas or their findings, because I don’t appreciate at all this permanent repetitive language.
It is like someone who is stuttering all the time, and can’t get words out of his mouth. I think musicians should have very concise figures and not rely on this fashionable psychology. I don’t like psychology whatsoever: using music like a drug is stupid.
- Stockhausen
>>60898963
>>60899130
>>60899205
They're decent but weren't anything special for him. There wasn't an artistic evolution.
>>60901550
Mental! I've heard that song before; I like it. I didn't agree with him. I thought he should listen to a couple of tracks of mine: "Didgeridoo", then he'd stop making abstract, random patterns you can't dance to. Do you reckon he can dance? You could dance to Song of the Youth, but it hasn't got a groove in it, there's no bassline. I know it was probably made in the 50s, but I've got plenty of wicked percussion records made in the 50s that are awesome to dance to. And they've got basslines. I could remix it: I don't know about making it better; I wouldn't want to make it into a dance version, but I could probably make it a bit more anally technical. But I'm sure he could these days, because tape is really slow. I used to do things like that with tape, but it does take forever, and I'd never do anything like that again with tape. Once you've got your computer sorted out, it pisses all over stuff like that, you can do stuff so fast. It has a different sound, but a bit more anal.
I haven't heard anything new by him; the last thing was a vocal record, Stimmung, and I didn't really like that. Would I take his comments to heart? The ideal thing would be to meet him in a room and have a wicked discussion. For all I know, he could be taking the piss. It's a bit hard to have a discussion with someone via other people. I don't think I care about what he thinks. It is interesting, but it's disappointing, because you'd imagine he'd say that anyway. It wasn't anything surprising. I don't know anything about the guy, but I expected him to have that sort of attitude. Loops are good to dance to...
He should hang out with me and my mates: that would be a laugh. I'd be quite into having him around.
- Robert Downey Jr.
