I LOVE DRUKQS+

i didn't really get into chosen lords or much of the analord stuff but bwoon dub off analord02 is very nice

I also liked Drukqs a lot more than critics did, but admittedly could've done without the multiple straight-piano songs.

Because it was SOOO hyped before hand (and Aphex phanboys are a whole WORLD of obsessiveness if you've never encountered them) and then the critical reaction was a bit "hrrrmmm" and because it was just such an EVENT that Mr. D.James could put out an album that was viewed as less than stellar. It was also the early days of the Blogosphere and I guess EVENT records that send shockwaves across the Blogosphere are a dime a dozen now and therefore not such an event, but at the time it seemed to take up a lot more space, culturally, than it might otherwise. I guess I just heard so many Aphex phanboys who were outraged that it coloured the experience for me and I approached it on first listen with the expectation that it was going to be both hard going and not very good.

It's odd how the critical reaction of other people can colour your experience of a record, even to make you dislike something you wouldn't normally pay attention to. But also, at the time, I don't think I *liked* Aphex. I was a Spacemen 3 stan who didn't see the point of "modern dance music" - i.e. I liked Selected Ambient Works (but saw it as an outlier that was nothing like the rest of his stuff) and Orbital, but wasn't prepared to go any further out than that at all.

In 2001 I was in a very different place, emotionally and musically, and listening to a lot of glitchy era Radiohead and people were saying to me "you shouldn't be listening to that, you should be listening to Aphex and Squarepusher" and so I tried this album, and my reaction was that it was NOTHING like what I liked about Kid A/Amnesiac - my immediate reaction was "bleurgh, this is a lot of noise and disjointed random rhythms that make no sense."

It's funny, though, *now* having learned a lot more, and broadened my tastes, my reaction to it is very different. I mean, the other record I just bought at the same time was the new FlyLo and if I can pick out order and pattern from that burst of randomness, Drukqs is almost easy listening by comparison. A lot of the stuff that just irritated me at the time (WTF? Why does he have his parents singing happy birthday on one track? And some random chick shouting at him in French on another? What's with the awkward piano solos?) makes a lot more sense in the context of knowing more about him as an artist and as a human being. It seems less like a random assortment of sounds, and more like a carefully crafted collage of a self portrait.

So it's partly about taking a record on its own terms, rather than as a Cultural Event. And partly about how my tastes have completely changed. (It's funny, I thought people's tastes were supposed to get narrower in their 30s. My tastes got narrower in my 20s, then just completely exploded in my late 30s)

There's something very creepy in Richard's mum's Cornish-accented voice isn't there? What about that whooping laughter on one of the Ventolin EPs?

Erm, no. I thought his mum sounds like a right laugh. Especially the impromptu harmony on the "tooo yooouuu" bit. More Welsh than Cornish accent, though.

"Richie" made me laugh, though. The idea of anyone calling him Richie seems inconceivable but clearly his mum does. Adorable.

COME ON YOU C*NTS LETS HAVE SOME APHEX ACID!

Ha, I never could figure out what dude said before acid.

this album always reminds me of living in a dorm, staying up late working on paintings

BASS
BIT

The long Kate post up thread is awesome, ILM all-time.

Alan N - I always heard that as "decent bit"

definitely could be wrong on that one. but cool track.

so, I listened last night and was a little taken back by how abrasive some of this album is. and after all these years, I'm still not sure how I feel about this one.

and admittedly i most often listen to a single-disc redux of favorites i made if i put it on these days...

same here.

a playlist of the ambient/interlude/piano tracks off this makes a pretty good bootleg SAWIII

The *intricacy* of the drum programming on the "drill and bass" bits just blows me away every time.

After living with it for a few weeks, I cannot believe I ever disliked this album. It's just a digital orgasm, from end to end.

I haven't listened to this album in like 5 years. I will revisit it today.

i'd forgotten about this little gem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1ZGIrNf71Q

Can someone please tell me what shoegaze choon it is that Jynweythek Ylow so reminds me? It's driving me nuts. Kept thinking it was a Pale Saints song but it wasn't that.

im listening to some record called "canaxis 5" by Technical Space Composer's Crew from 1969 and theres a bonus track titled "Cruise"

the intro appears to be what Aphex Twin sampled for the intro of "Afx237 v7" AKA the sound used for when Rubber Johnny opens his mouth and makes a weird noise... although it might just sound like it and not be a sample at all...

Can someone please tell me what shoegaze choon it is that Jynweythek Ylow so reminds me? It's driving me nuts. Kept thinking it was a Pale Saints song but it wasn't that.

― Using an Aural Exciter in an Orgone Accumulator (Masonic Boom), Sunday, May 30, 2010 4:41 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have FINALLY worked it out. Not Pale Saints but Boo Radleys.

The melody on Jynnweythek Ilow is a lot like the melody on the verse of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctN2-aHz12A

Ha, I love that Boos track but would never have made the connection. Don't tell Tuomas or he'll start talking litigation! (Actually a pretty good example of how the importance of melody in pop is often overstated, imo.)

I think it's just that both AFX and the Boos had a thing for those kind of jaunty, wistful ("Celtic"?) melodies. Melody is pretty much the least important thing in terms of music, it's much more about arrangement, atmosphere, everything else. Because my brain has for years been making the jump between those two songs whenever I hear one, it goes to the other, but the actual tracks really are nothing alike.

the first dozen or so posts on this thread are something

Haha, I never heard that boos/Aphex connection and they're two of my favourite acts in the history of music!

For what it's worth, I'm always tempted to do a 'Richard's Mum' harmony whenever anyone gets sung
'Happy Birthday'.

this album rules

meltphace 6

http://www.blackmailmag.com/images/MUSICA/drukqs-longvinyl.jpg

Absolute masterpiece. His finest work.

Vordhosbn is great. The beats scurry and dovetail frantically from the melody in a wonderful way.

It seems less like a random assortment of sounds, and more like a carefully crafted collage of a self portrait.

― The Curve Of Blinding Energy (Masonic Boom)

Rushup Edge sounds excellent on a nice system, or in the car. I played that thing on repeat 2-3 times over, while driving aimlessly around coastal North Carolina. I live in the desert and don't have a car, but that album surely bangs. There's an unusual pliancy (or playfulness) to it, for a typically rigid and computerized style of music. Not to mention all of the juicy sounds.

"Wilco. Jeff Tweedy's songwriting is so good that I want him to make it work in every conceivable genre."

hahahaha

definitely a gunner, some might say a "tryhard".. that Tweedy

I guess people get different things out of Aphex Twin. Some are more interested in the gimmicks, and that's fine - and for people who are interested in gimmicks above musical content, then I can see why one would be attracted to Aphex Twin's stuff from 1995-1996. This is not to say that that stuff lacks musical content, but for those that are interested in the important stuff: sound design, production, musical content, the compositions themselves and the way the layered parts interact with each other, then Drukqs is his pinnacle, IMO.

Lowell, always enjoy your posts

the thing is, turrican, i like afx for his melodies and for the sound/texture of his early-mid 90s stuff. i don't care about gimmicks and don't see how gimmicks play into his strongest work.

i love acid

Turrican's post only makes sense in bizarro world

xx-post:

Well, you're definitely correct that gimmicks don't play into his strongest work.

wtf is musical content?

Drukqs is also my favorite Aphex album. Such a good headphone album.

wtf is musical content?

― Lennon, Elvis, Hendrix etc (dog latin), Sunday, April 9, 2017 12:14 PM (nine hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You're fucking kidding me, right? It's actually legitimately blown my mind that someone on these forums (of all forums) has felt the need to actually ask this question.

Moka OTM re:Drukqs being a great headphones album, particularly the more frantic beat-driven stuff on the record. I love putting this album on headphones and just paying attention to the way all the parts interact and play off of each other, each part sounding utterly gorgeous in terms of sound design. The acoustic stuff is very well recorded, too.

agree w dog latin, "musical content" is a meaningless term

https://www.zsoltbatori.com/the-ineffability-of-musical-content

RDJ album is really vibrant/immediate-sounding, compared to Drukqs.. don't know it inside/out yet, but tracks like Peek (track 3) have a hot signal quality, percussion elements nearly distorted, that liquid synth is gorgeous.. it's HOT. a lot of it pops off with super vibrancy, blatant, snappy elasticity, no doubt. Carn Marth is another beaut.. obv. can't speak on it well, I just can't acknowledge the argument that Drukqs is retreading territory, cuz it's undoubtedly more developed and refined.

https://mikeparadinas.bandcamp.com/album/aberystwyth-marine -- this was released last year, but written/recorded in the late 90s. it def bears similarities to the RDJ album

RDJ Album is so clean-sounding, it nearly borders on clinical but somehow it works. I remember reading a thing years ago where he said something like 'I don't like music where you can't hear all the sounds', and that's stuck with me a lot. To this day when I'm listening to (and making) music, I tend to favour stuff that has a great level of detail but nevertheless sounds uncluttered and non-muddy. That sounds kind of obvious but it's one of the reasons I got fed up with so much US indie stuff by the late-00's - stuff like Grizzly Bear and Deerhunter. Everything was just smooshed in all this reverb with all the sounds blurring into each other. There's a fair bit of bass-driven dance music from the d'n'b and dubstep camps that bothers me in this way too.

Yeah, but then again I one-time did a mix of our band's latest works-in-progress, and our rhythm guitarist gave me grief because he couldn't hear his guitaring, specifically. I did say "hey, you would definitely notice it if it wasn't there" but that's the thing. I remember Martin Hannett of all people remarking that a demo has all the instruments separated out in the stereo picture, and a 'production' has the sounds combined.

(he wasn't there in person, I read what he said in an article)