Anticipating SYRO the new (2014) album by Aphex Twin

exclusive leaked pic from syro listening party http://i.imgur.com/R7ZuO3S.jpg

cant tell if serious.

Anyway bumping because apparently the artwork packaging includes the complete list of all the software/hardware he used for each track which music makers might find interesting. Here's a transcript:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1S3FoD2h2fa7UDU5Q-yVmdTnaLmAA2nNaE1kl6S9GnEU/pubhtml

46 instruments on XMAS_EVET10 (thanaton3 mix) !?

yeah Branwell linked to this infographic upthread http://i.imgur.com/NwlH3Ge.jpg but it's good to see the xls too.

doing a bit of a dog latin classic here, but this idea reminds me ever so slightly of Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense concept in which David Byrne, influenced by Noh theatre among other things, was keen to expose the 'strings' behind the live performance and therefore started the show by stripping the stage down to the backing rigs and treating the stage-hands as performers in themselves. I like this idea of making the creative process the product in itself. Have many other bands/artists done this? Radiohead maybe?

Loads of electronic albums list all the synths/drum machines/computer programs/other instruments used in creating them in the liner notes, this is hardly a new idea. Listing them track-by-track is rarer, but that's been done too by people like Atom Heart (on this album, for example). I'd say it's all part of the deconstruction of the "artistic genius" myth many electronic musicians have been doing since the early 90s; techno artists calling them "producers" (i.e. technical manufacturers) rather than musicians is another example of this.

It's interesting to see this on an Aphex album though, since he hasn't really been in the deconstruction camp, his image has been exactly of that "unanalyzable genius" that stuff like gear lists have tried to debunk. Has he included such lists on any earlier records?

i don't believe he has. being cagey about his methods has always been a part of his mystique, but it's interesting to hear how atom heart et al have done similar things (albeit, this sort of Brechtian exposition has rarely been so blatant as to make gear-lists and expenses summaries a part of the actual cover/marketing campaign)

i'm kinda digging the de-romanticisation rug-pull, even if it was the only route left

A band like Scritti Politti were listing breakdowns of costs, contact numbers of pressing plants, studios and their own address for further information on the sleeves of their records as part of the punk diy spirit in the early 80s.

That said, there's some other much more contemporary and darker aspect to the design and context of Syro that infects the whole Brechtian or Benjaminian Artist as Producer gesture - it seems more about the reduction of culture to analytics and metrics in this case, it's about calculation.

interested to hear this now, though the first 'single' isnt exactly the most exciting thing ive heard from him. sounds like a decent album track (or damp squib if im being less charitable) but its not his 'get lucky' (as far as 90s dance megastar comebacks, and the vocoder on there seems to want that comparison). the previews do make it sound like this could have come out in 2003 or something though. all those references to breakbeats and joke-jungle dont have me that hopeful that this will be anything more than RDJ doing what he usually does, whereas i for some reason was hoping that he might have come back with something to blow the minds of rustie and fly lo, etc. in one of the interviews he talked about wanting someone to go through his tracks and pick the best ones as he cant do it - not sure if he was serious, but maybe thats what he needs. make mike paradinas should do it.

i can't quite work it out myself, but yeah there's something typically sinister about it. is it the stark dot matrix typeface? is it the feeling we're being shown something maybe we'd rather not see (preposterous, as it's not like we're being shown the Come To Daddy demon's genital area like in that video)? all the same it still feels like there's a mischief or playful maliciousness at work here, like I'm half expecting him to pop out from behind all the data and start screaming at me or something...

Just remembered during my driving lesson the other day, a white car pulled up next to me at a stop light playing the intro bars to Windowlicker and I very nearly started freaking out. It was only my second lesson.

that was xpost to MikoMcha

That presentation is very http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/ - the metrics and analytics presented in that circular format.

i love that book.

I'd say it's a bit sinister because what it's capturing is actually the end of diy, especially if you view those graphics alongside the TOR campaign, YouTube analytics and other actuarial spreadsheets and Tufte-esque graphics for Syro.

But, you know, at least Aphex Twin and the Designers Republic have the decency to foreground some realities about cultural production today.

A band like Scritti Politti were listing breakdowns of costs, contact numbers of pressing plants, studios and their own address for further information on the sleeves of their records as part of the punk diy spirit in the early 80s.

They got that idea from The Desperate Bicycles. http://swingsetmagazine.com/2012/06/xerox_music_is_here_to_stay/

but its not his 'get lucky' (as far as 90s dance megastar comebacks, and the vocoder on there seems to want that comparison).

does it though?

No it doesn't

re: 46 instruments on XMAS_EVET10 (thanaton3 mix) !?

it's a long track and goes through a lot of permutations! so that doesn't surprise me.
I went to the NYC listening on Saturday btw and SPOILER It's all a lot of uptempo, beat-driven, heavily sequenced and edited stuff.

I plan to listen to this for this first time in a dark bedroom at night, perhaps with a glass of wine.

the conception of AFX as "dance" is to me and perhaps me alone totally baffling.

i'm ready for subtleties in some understated plangent hinraeth laced eno gamelan with fusiony burbling basslines.

sadly i don't think it'll be anything as gloriously sketchy as ventolin b-sides (my fave)

Most of those aren't instruments but fx, direct boxes, mic pres, ad converters etc.

re: 46 instruments on XMAS_EVET10 (thanaton3 mix) !?

it's a long track and goes through a lot of permutations! so that doesn't surprise me.

the only instrument for that track is the disclavier; all the other gear is mixing/effects

gah xp

I think yr reading it wrong. That track has tons of synths.

there are good number of instruments listed there, if I'm reading correctly, right? korg PS3300s, arp 2500, some drum machines, midimoogs, some roland gear, prophet stuff, oberheim stuff... it's the black, filled in squares, right?

oh xpost

plus a zither

oh sorry you're right - wrong track

so i listened to the whole thing yesterday at the listening party and it's very good. not a whole lot of new tricks but the few that i took notice of were vocal manipulations. lots of acid. one of the ch00ns sounded like a direct allusion to SAW1 and was awesome. as mentioned before in this thread (or the other) the final track is the piano one and i was slightly disappointed that there was no panning effects on it in reference to the pendulum stuff

i was holding out for third-wave ska for this album. shame.

also it doesn't sound like analord at all

one of the most fun tracks I thought was the fifth (?) one, which was sort of a hooverish ravey track. layers of detuned synths.

What were the listening parties like? Lots of attendees?

the one in chicago was pretty well attended (i'm really bad at estimating crowd size but maybe a couple hundred?), the line wrapped around the block. basically they just shut off the lights and then played the album with a laser AFX symbol projected on the wall the whole time, a few puffs of fog here or there

crowd was a bit awkward, not a lot of dancing, lots of nodding and staring at the laser

exactly the same in new york. it took an hour or so before the album played, so everyone had a chance to drink a beer or two and talk about music they were recording.

haha, i've never attended a listening party before. i could imagine it being quite a strange ascetic experience.

then... gentle swaying, some foot tapping, light head nodding. one guy in the corner really dancing.

probably the best and loudest system I'll ever get to hear this on at least!

in a way, a night where they just play my favourite album at brilliantly loud volumes on a really good sound system + beer, would be close to ideal for me.

of course in reality it would probably be a bit lacklustre.

in my naive youth I went to listening parties for Kid A and a Sigur Ros album, I think the brackets title one. just awkward tbh. are you supposed to applaud at the end?

it sounds good on paper, but you feel a little silly standing in a room full of respectfully silent strangers listening to something you don't know if you'll like, sort of conscious of everyone feeling like they need to develop an opinion by the time the lights come on. I ran into a few friends though which made it go down easier.

people applauded after each track, there was one guy who'd shout out a wisecrack once or twice

lol imagine heckling a CD

listening party sounds awful!

Sounds a bit surreal and awkward, but at least more social than staring into a monitor.

wish i couldof brought my phone in so i could take a picture of the dude with the homemade yellow aphex twin suit vest