I LOVE DRUKQS+

Drukqs is every bit as unlistenable as Metal Machine Music.
― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Friday, February 9, 2007 3:16 AM (fifteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Shut up, asshole.

lmao I guess that was a phase

I tend to keep my negative opinions on music to myself rather than post 'em here, but I did make an early post about how Super AE by Boredoms was one of the worst albums ever and I was so so wrong

this seems like it's THE aphex album for a lot of kids who discovered him in the last decade, which is so wild given that it was considered a disappointment when it first came out. (and still not in my top five.)

i'm
taking
control

of the drum machine

this is the greatest album of all time

this seems like it's THE aphex album for a lot of kids who discovered him in the last decade, which is so wild given that it was considered a disappointment when it first came out. (and still not in my top five.)

― brisk money (lukas), Monday, April 18, 2022 9:38 PM (six months ago)

It's his most accessible by far for contemporary tastes. RDJ is too eccentric, Come to Daddy too short, ICBYD is too "hard", SAW II is too ethereal and specialized, and everything else is a side project or dated in its sound (Classics). Drukqs is well rounded and accessible, under his main moniker and showcases most of his range enough to be a perfect intro. Makes sense.

That's definitely the first time I've seen "DRUKQS" and "accessible" used in the same sentence

It will never be my favorite Aphex album, there's something monochrome about it to me. Still amazing obviously.

I really enjoyed this first-time reaction video by a musician: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO_zMfLpjqI

xp relative to his other stuff yeah. And a ton of the piano bits are super accessible. Drum and bass and some of his more spastic acid tracks aren't nearly as "experimental" as they used to be given some of the normalization of glitchy electronic music since the 2010's.

i think RDJ is his most accessible mainstream release, but that's just me

cool video, thanks for sharing

I think ICBYD is pretty accessible (it’s what first got me into RDJ, when I had very little background electronic music). “Come to Daddy, skip Track 1” is also a classic entry point.

I probably wouldn’t pass along a 2CD as an entry point to any artist…

Yeah accessible is a relative thing with this dude. RDJ Album to Windowlicker is by far my favorite period of his (despite ICBYD being my favorite singular album of his) and what I'd deem the most "accessible", but there's a ton of stuff before or since too that fills this bucket. Those records aren't as diverse and intense and as pretty as Drukqs, even if I think they're more overflowing with originality and personality. He set a pretty high bar. Shit like SAW 85-92 could be construed as accessible, but it's also super minimalist and roughly recorded, sounding quite dated.

Ixi even goes into this at the end of Meltphace 6 (59:15 in) where she herself confesses she is "primed" to enjoy this record more and likely wouldn't have appreciated it back then. For an earlier track she referenced Venetian Snares, implying she got around to listening to Aaron Funk before Richard James (which I found surprising). What was experimental then is now much more accessible and more people are exposed to these genres. Back then, especially in the US, this kind of music was nary to be heard outside of a tiny nerdy pocket communities. The "mainstream" here has come around to this album and is primed for it like Ixi. In terms of how RDJ's records translate to contemporary tastes, I still stand that this record is the most comprehensively accessible while simultaneously variant enough in style to truly give you a glimpse into Richard's oeuvre. The timbre of the beats and percussion feel more contemporary than the textures used in RDJ or Come to Daddy. If anything it truly shows how visionary this record is and how timeless a lot of Aphex's music is, especially in this window between 96-01.

I spotted Aphex on my 12 year olds Spotify

(it's ixi rather than lxi btw, which is odd because ixi-lang is the name of some music live-coding programme)

First time ever listening to this album all the way through this morning -- I'd only ever sampled random tracks because of the mixed reviews. Might be overreacting but thought it was excellent? The whiplash mix of complex programmed beat tracks and gorgeous, contemplative piano tracks enhances both for me. Maybe the Spotify Playlist Era has retrained my brain.

It's a remarkable record. The reviews at the time seemed mostly based on (I assume) the press release: an album full of "Erik Satie-style piano pieces"... Well, it's obviously not that if you've actually listened to it: maybe 10-15 minutes' worth. That said, I love how he kind of managed to control the narrative on its release IN A BAD WAY; telling the press beforehand that it was a rush released bunch of offcuts because someone had nicked a DAT on a plane or something like that. The thing is a meticulously constructed work of genius that he almost deliberately scuppered. I would love to hear what he actually thinks about it, but I guess he just doesn't do interviews like that! I think it's only bettered by Syro in his catalogue.

I love this album. Full disclosure, though: I didn't at the time

Yeah me neither at release. Took some years.

feel like it's not stated enough how the Analord series birthed an entire subgenre of techno/electro

I didn't like it much at the time, either (as a massive fan up until then) – it hit in v underwhelming fashion, from the first single onward (*except for* the Satie-style piano pieces, which I thought were wonderful)

(I've liked it much more upon revisiting recently)

I on the other hand, a man of culture, loved it straight away

Vordhosbn is the first track that spins in my head when I'm reminded of aphex twin. The one-two punch of the first two tracks are a perfect set up for all the joy that is to follow

The prepared piano sounds on this album are soooooo gorgeous

feel like it's not stated enough how the Analord series birthed an entire subgenre of techno/electro

― clouds, Friday, March 15, 2024 6:34 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

absolutely true. It might have helped if they had remained available, or at least to people who could afford them

You mean stuff like Brainwalzera or stuff on Further Electronix?

Considering how intensely iconic, creative and diverse the sound pallets were for RDJ, Come to Daddy and Windowlicker, Drukqs def felt like a bit of a let down. It's held up quite well, but the uptempo glitchy jungle tracks still sound quite a bit "samey" to me by the end of it. Felt like the beginning of the end at the time, an artist who found his sonic "niche" and would no longer stray from it. And that has largely held true to this day.

I kinda wish he'd actually dropped a full length of just the prepared piano stuff.

xxp CPU Records comes to mind as a label that sprouted from this influence

http://cpurecords.net/

Octobeard so close to otm with that post, you're just forgetting the reason he found that niche and settled into it is because it's so damn good

xp ah yes that label too!! So much cool stuff

Octobeard totally OTM

would no longer stray from it. And that has largely held true to this day.

i don't think that's otm!!! analord and syro are both wildly different projects and soundworlds from drukqs imo

in general i think the drill n' bass stuff is pushed to its limits on this record, its outer regions, and the prior records are a little too pretty and structured to ever get there. which it's fine if people prefer that!!! but this album is insanely creative and never stops

also the dark ambient tracks are more fucked up than the majority of SAW2... idk when i listen to this album i feel like i'm at the edge of the RDJ universe looking at the sharp cliffs and gnarled trash below, and that rules

Couldn't agree more with Ivy.

Syro sounds like a permutation of the Druqks sound. I wookdnt call it worlds away

Bored during lockdown, I wrote some stuff about Aphex Twin for Facebook pals, this is the Drukqs entry, which came in at number 2 in my top 10:

2001’s Drukqs is Aphex Twin’s masterpiece. Why number two then, I hear you say? Well that’s easy, it’s because whatever is at number one is his masterpiece as well.

I say this, despite the fact that an album more deeply misunderstood on its release (and to a lesser degree, to this day) you would be hard pushed to find. Around the time of release, there were a couple of rumours: it was just a load of half-finished demos that were rush-released because he lost a tape on a plane, and that it was an album of “Erik Satie-style piano pieces”. The latter, I suspect came from some reviewers who hadn’t listened beyond the very first track; where the former came from is less clear—I have a half-memory of it actually coming from James himself. It’s a fun story if it did—how to spike the guns of your reviewers to your own detriment.

It’s a thirty track double album coming in at more than an hour and a half of music, so it isn’t easy to digest; in fact, it can seem quite impenetrable. Alex Needham, as one of the few people to properly pay attention at the time, helped me to understand it in his review of the album in the NME at the time. He says: “And after a few listens, a pattern seems to emerge. Abstract piano pieces always seemed to be followed by some strange Japanese-style ritual music. Stompers arrive at regular intervals. And there are even patterns within the patterns”. He also says that it is “beautiful”, which in a simple act of reframing, helped me to recognise it for what it is—it’s quite easy to view it as a mess, but you’re just not looking closely enough.

There’s lots of attention given to the structure of the album and its pacing; however, given its length, it likely does help to listen to a chunk at a time, stopping and starting where your attention wanders. And it does require your attention as I’ve said before—it has so many ideas compressed into its hundred minutes. Little details come and go, for example at the end of lengthy [insert uninvented genre] classic “Ziggomatic 17”, hints of “Alberto Balsam” from 1995’s “I Care Because You Do” shift in and out of view.

The album projects an image of being created using arcane technologies and incomprehensible techniques to make this deeply mysterious music of the future. The piano tracks sound as though they are being automated, which they likely are, in a similar fashion the “Nannou” track discussed as part of the post on the Windowlicker EP. The image on the album cover appears to be the insides of some kind of piano or perhaps synthesiser, again creating an image in the mind of him painstakingly automating the machinery in order to make the music.

To add to the enigma, most of the tracks are named in Cornish, e.g. “Bbydhyondchord”; “Hy A Scullyas Lyf A Dhagrow” etc. The album’s most well-known track is “Avril 14th”, though I do sometimes wonder why this is so much more famous than the album’s opener: “Jynweythek Ylow” other than the fact that no-one (outside of Cornwall and perhaps Wales) knows how to say the name of the latter.

As I alluded to earlier with “Ziggomatic 17”, there’s no real word to describe these tracks—I have heard them referred to as “acid bangers”, but they don’t really sound anything like acid house, other than perhaps using a synthesiser bass line; they aren’t “bangers” either. Each of them sounds almost as if an entire album’s worth of ideas has been compressed on to a single track.

If the “Who Sampled?” website is to be believed, bizarrely it turns out this album is a trip-hop masterpiece—it appears to have quite a large number of 1970s samples on it, e.g. Augustus Pablo; Led Zeppelin; Kool and the Gang; Weather Report etc. I can confidently say I have never noticed a single one of these samples in amongst this record. I have listened again to the tracks in question and I still can’t hear them, but they’re apparently in there somewhere.

Drukqs is Aphex Twin’s most difficult listen. Roy Castle once said that “dedication is what you need”, and if you are prepared to dedicate yourself, Drukqs is very rewarding—it’s highly innovative, packed with ideas and carefully constructed. Keep in mind that it is beautiful; that there is method to the madness and that it will slowly reveal some of its mysteries.

I’ll go with Meltphace 6 for a track, it illustrates the frenetic yet spacious “acid” tracks, with a melody that explores detuned scales, ghostly voices that echo over the percussion track that occasionally starts to sound like Klunk from Dastardly and Muttley.

What was number one?

The lost-on-a-plane thing very much did come from James himself… that was the backstory he was presenting.

Syro was number 1.

Love to hear your take on that one. It's not that I don't like it, I've just always wanted to like it more

Might whack it on this morning actually

I’ll stick it up when I get back home.

yeah great write-up keith. making me check out syro again now (just never gave it any time, dunno why)

Great write-up, Keith

Thank you, I may as well post the whole top ten:

APHEX TWIN TOP TEN: number 10 — Chosen Lords

It’s often written as though the Aphex Twin disappeared for over a decade after 2001’s Drukqs double album; however, it’s not actually true, he actually released a stupid amount of music in this period, just as AFX and The Tuss rather than Aphex Twin. Around 2005, he put out eleven 12” records, the Analord series that contain probably something around four hours’ music (or even more, if you include the fact that a few years ago on his website, he released all his stuff, most of which had a few extra tracks added here and there).

I often think that Kraftwerk pretty much invented what electronic music is “supposed” to sound like, in the same way that Stanley Kubrick invented what space is supposed to look like in 2001: a Space Odyssey. It’s such a strong template that I find you tend to look for this in other electronic artists and home in on the pieces that fit the template. Aphex Twin doesn’t fit the model (hehe), he is very much his own thing, and despite his music made with every piece of technology under the sun, the vibe is far less about technology, space and stuff and much more folk horror: think Welsh witches; The Wicker Man; Straw Dogs etc. There’s an awful lot of his native Cornwall that comes through in his stuff.

Analord on the face of it appears to be his return to using analogue technology, as compared with the digital technology he had been mostly using between 1995’s Hangable Autobulb EP and 2001’s Drukqs. Chosen Lords is a compilation of the best stuff from these twelve inches and indeed for the most part, it is a pretty good summary of the period—it is mostly the best stuff.

Most people’s introduction to Aphex Twin would likely be Selected Ambient Works 85-92 and I do know a lot of people kind of want him to go back and do more of this type of stuff, but in a lot of ways, he is still doing it and has been all along, if you listen closely enough to it—a lot of his stuff has weird melodies going on almost subconsciously. In essence, if ambient music is deliberately designed to live in the background, with his music, lots of the interesting parts live in the background and you need to pay attention to hear them, it’s just that there are lots of interesting things going on in the foreground too.

Much as I’ve said Chosen Lords probably is the best stuff off of these 12” records, I do hesitate in writing that, as his stuff is so multi-layered that I slowly come round to all of it. There are loads of other great things on these, e.g. Laricheard, his tribute to Larry Heard, or Mr. Fingers, and Analord 9, where all the tracks are named after computer viruses.

This one (Bwoon Dub) isn’t even on Chosen Lords—I guess I feel compelled to put one of the great tracks that’s on the Analord 12” records as you can listen easily to Chosen Lords yourself, if you like. Plus it illustrates quite well what I was going on about earlier about ambient melodies existing in the background.

APHEX TWIN TOP TEN: number 9 — Windowlicker EP

Part one of a two part “why isn’t this one at number 1?” series.

I’m not just going to write about albums per se here, since a lot of his EPs come in at the half hour mark; plus bizarrely, they are often disguised to look like singles when they are often so much more—for example, the Come To Daddy EP on the face of it looks like it has a bunch of remixes of existing tracks on it; however, these “remixes” are so little like the originals as to really be entirely original tracks. As such, the Come To Daddy EP, along with many of his EPs are really short albums.

In addition to their length, the EPs often represent “pivot points” in his work, where he changes direction. This EP is not like what he did before this and only one track is really followed up after.

The title track is a unique moment in his catalogue: it was a hit single, reaching number 16 in the UK singles chart, and it’s quite unlike anything else he has done. The track was likely sent up the charts because of the video, rather than the track itself, and it’s usually the video that’s the subject for discussion. The video is fun, but I do think this is to overlook the most important part, that the track itself is like a lot of the great moments in pop music, as if it’s been beamed in from space. What passes for singing on it is a bizarre, warped, saturated but nonetheless amazing sounding thing that there aren’t words to describe, possibly constructed out of vocal samples from many different people and layered on top of one another. At the time, I thought it would be an exciting new direction to move in, although I was somewhat disappointed that this didn’t appear to be the case. However (and this is a theme that develops), I’ve since realised that he did indeed move in this direction and lots of subsequent (and some previous) tracks do indeed have heavily manipulated voices on them—it turns out I just hadn’t noticed.

The second track on the EP is called ΔMi−1 = −αΣn=1NDi[n] [Σj∈C[i]Fji[n − 1] +Fexti[n−1]]. He has a lot of fun with track names from vaguely latin sounding names, to no names at all (pictures), to anagrams of Aphex Twin, to the aforementioned computer viruses. Lots of tracks are named after the equipment they were recorded on as well as others where it’s completely unclear where the track name came from at all, e.g. one of my favourite tracks is called: 4 bit 9d api+e+6.

ΔMi−1 = −αΣn=1NDi[n] [Σj∈C[i]Fji[n − 1] +Fexti[n−1]] features a Spectrogram, which (in this case) is a sound, such that when visualised with the right software, displays a spiral pattern. This probably sounds like a gimmick, and in a way it is, but you don’t need to dismiss the whole track as a gimmick; indeed, you could view the spectrogram as simply a novel way of producing an unusual sound. In many ways, it’s the track most representative here of what was to come next.

You can’t treat tracks like this, and the rest of the music he produced at the turn of the millennium as background music—you most likely won’t like it—you need to pay close attention to it, and if you do, they tend to reveal all manner of remarkable detail. Indeed, it can often be overwhelming just listening to the amount of detail he crams into not just every track, but every bar of every track. It really is the opposite of the type of stuff you hear if you go and get your hair cut: stuff that sounds like someone has made a single four second passage of music and just looped it for fifteen minutes.

The third and final track on this short EP is called Nannou—you may have heard it before from the soundtrack of the film of Morvern Callar. There is a track on the subsequent LP called “Nanou 2” and I’ve read that they are versions of the same track; however, if they are, they don’t sound at all alike, so I’m not sure I buy that. Nannou sounds like a collection of robotic musical boxes. You can almost imagine it being played by the robot toys that inhabit J.F. Sebastian’s house in Blade Runner. He has talked about rigging up acoustic instruments to computer control them (indeed, he produced an EP a few years ago called “Computer Controller Acoustic Instruments). Whether this is actually the case or not, who knows (you would think it would be relatively straightforward to simulate the sound of), but it is something of a Turing test—you can’t tell, so it doesn’t matter: he might as well have done. What is clear, is that he continually challenges himself to “reset” his equipment and makes music in loads of different ways with different types of equipment, going as far as making an EP (the “Cheetah EP”) almost exclusively using the Cheetah, a synthesiser from the early 1990s, which was apparently notoriously difficult to use.

This experimentation becomes part of the Aphex Twin myth: there’s not just an other-worldly feeling to lots of the music he makes, this feeling is compounded by the apparent arcane nature of the creation process itself and all of this feeds through to what you feel when you’re listening to it.