I LOVE DRUKQS+

Oh interesting! Maybe it was a reverse course, then. The drums on Analord 10 are extremely digitally sampled... but it's conspicuously analog-only on 1-6. iirc around 7 he starts using something that sounds (to my ears, anyway) like a DMX. I think 10 is MPC samples

You made me think that when it came out and was trumpeted as his return to analogue equipment that I didn't bat an eyelid and assumed it was all analogue, but yeah it really does sound quite different to most of the other EPs!

I was listening back to some of the later ones today, and didn't notice so much, but then I wasn't primed. TBH, excluding 10, to my ears, they get a chunk worse at the later end of it, despite there being a few great tracks.

I mean, “define analog” I guess. There’s wavetable stuff in there, and the MC-4 (pictured on the cover of Analords 1-3) spits out analog CV but is a digital sequencer

So do you all say Analord as in "analog" or as in "anal"

the former

maybe people assume because he can write 300 acid house tracks that he could do 300 Avril 14ths if he really wanted to. idk part of me thinks RDJ is embarrassed to admit how hard he works on some of this stuff.

I like this a lot. Something like Flim too, I love the original but the Bad Plus version really made me appreciate the writing, you can't just toss something like that off (or maybe you can once in a great while, but it's an inspired moment).

xp Well, it was the former until you just mentioned it.

Does 'Kladfvgbung Mischk', one of the percussive ambient tracks on Druqks, sound like Sonic Youth's 'Bull In The Heather' to anyone else?

there's maybe something to be said about the IDM crew being careful to write tracks that were *too* pretty, lest they start coming off like Jean-Michel Jarre or something. so the pretty stuff they do release has to be absolutely perfect.

xp haha, I don’t know it by title but I know exactly the track you mean from that description.

I just listened to my "Druqks: Chillers" playlist (all the ambient and piano non-dance tracks) and I maintain it is much easier to listen to like this. A nice highlight was Kesson Dalek, this great little Gothic piano mini-symphony

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5T1VrMYGtIzkbGswl4KZFA?si=e511f8b4d2904280

One of the things about Druqks that I'm not keen on is hearing all the ravey dance tracks broken up by these ambient pieces. Some might hear these wild changes in mood as pallet-cleansing. To me it's an unnecessary momentum killer. I'm rarely in the mood for listening to full-throttle drill'n'bass mayhem AND Satie-esque piano moods at the same time

Similarly, lumping all the bangers together makes for a really coherent and thrilling dance album https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5ottxyuqVttiufuAQvygva?si=f240593f2a9e4b47

DJ Food vs Soundcloud dump :

https://archive.org/details/DJFoodMixAphexSoundcloud15021301

A nice highlight was Kesson Dalek, this great little Gothic piano mini-symphony

It's nice that the one named after a killer robot doesn't sound at all like that.

For me, I weirdly like the juxtaposition of the multiple, incongruous styles on Drukqs—I mean I can fully understand separating it out, and I suspect the reason I like it is partly to do with suggestion on the part of the artist, i.e. I wound up liking it simply because he 'says' it's good (simply by virtue of me rating him as an artist to begin with), and so it becomes part of the weird world you wind up stepping into with this record.

One thing that's nice is that the Cornish song titles do have translations, although it's unclear what's correct. Gwely Mernans translates to "Death Bed" and Kesson Dalek to "Harmonious Beginning". "Hy a Scullyas Lyf Adhagrow" I've read as translating to the rather poetic "She Shed a Flood of Tears", which is kind of in tune with Aphex on the whole, i.e this beautiful stuff that's hidden in some form or fashion (in this case, language). That said, I've also seen it translated as "She spilled my drink", so who knows? I expect Cornish isn't all that far removed from Welsh, so perhaps if there are any Welsh language speakers on ILX they can help.

The one thing he did in the last 10 years or so that really impressed me is "Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments pt2". Nobody really talks about it much but I really wish he did more stuff like this, he's really good at it.

I listened to this again today, for only the second time since the day it came out, as it didn't do it for me, or perhaps more to the point, I really wasn't in the mood for something sounding like that, but yeah it's a lot better than I thought it was—I will definitely listen to it some more.

yes I love the sprawl as well, I understand the urge to sort it into similar sounding buckets but the sprawl is part of the fun

No one has mentioned Cheetah either, and there are a couple tracks on there that are closer to my heart than anything on Syro.

This'll explain what happened to the Analord electronic releases:

In 2009 Rephlex Records released digital versions (in the FLAC file format) of the 11 Analord EPs. Each of them (except for Analord 10) had bonus tracks, totalling 81 minutes of new music between them all. Richard later disbanded Rephlex Records, removing the website entirely.

One of the things about Druqks that I'm not keen on is hearing all the ravey dance tracks broken up by these ambient pieces. Some might hear these wild changes in mood as pallet-cleansing. To me it's an unnecessary momentum killer. I'm rarely in the mood for listening to full-throttle drill'n'bass mayhem AND Satie-esque piano moods at the same time

I think this is why I haven't gone back to Druqks much, despite liking most of its songs

Yeah the current rephlex.com is kinda weird

Haha, right enough. It is "Big on the web"!

Vinnie, check out the two playlists I posted above. If anything it's an interesting new way to experience rhe album

Yeah as I mentioned up thread, if he'd dropped an album of just the prepared piano pieces alone that'd probably be up there with some of his best work. I feel the music is somewhat diluted in how its sequenced on Drukqs, but the magic of digital libraries and streaming can easily rectify this concern.

FWIW, despite my critiques above and focus on the downsides of Drukqs and Syro to fit things into the context of his career, I find both to be good albums and each feature multiple career highlight tracks. I prefer Drukqs way more than Syro, too. I just don't find them to be his career peak or zenith by a long shot.

His Soundcloud song dump was a cornucopia of awesome though, further cementing how fruitful RDJ's 90's era cutting room floor tracks were (us fanbois at the time fantasized there was this archive of stuff just as good as his releases, as was hinted by Mike Paradinas and James himself, and for the most part this came true). His "deleted" or "unreleased" albums at the time hinted at this. See the Melodies From Mars album and Caustic Window LP (btw 101 Rainbows off the latter is like a top 5 career RDJ track imho; listen to it immediately if you haven't yet)

I feel I could compile two separate LP length records from the Soundcloud dump that would be better overall, more satisfying and memorable LPs than Syro (or anything else he's dropped since Drukqs), but that's my tastes I guess. I totally suggest comparing the Caustic Window LP with Chosen Lords sometime. Play them back to back for science!

I feel I could compile two separate LP length records from the Soundcloud dump that would be better overall

you should do that then! I'm not a big enough Aphex Twin fan to wade through all this myself. I'm sure it's been done dozens of times but I trust ilxors more

No one has mentioned Cheetah either, and there are a couple tracks on there that are closer to my heart than anything on Syro.

Yeah that's another one I haven't really got into... I mean I like it, but it doesn't jump out at me—I'll need to have another listen.

Isn't Cheetah like "Hey I made an album thar sounds like my other stuff except on a redundant piece of hardware that's really difficult to use"?

I've heard similar concept albums by VSnares and Si Begg and my reaction with all of these is "That must have taken you fucking ages, I shall waste no time in listening to it"

To be more charitable, I think of it as creating an artificial constraint to see what he could possibly make with those constraints, as someone mentions in some form upthread. I also like Tarzan's monkey, Cheetah.

xps to frogbs - I shared some thematic playlists I made for the soundcloud dump in the regular C/D thread

would also love to hear octobeard's choices

I am being a bit facetious about Cheetah, obviously. It sounds like an Aphex album with a more limited sound pallette, and hey that's not necessarily a bad thing. I coold see myself putting it on when im in a particular mood. It's fairly groovy too

(btw 101 Rainbows off the latter is like a top 5 career RDJ track imho; listen to it immediately if you haven't yet)

good shout although I might quibble with top 5

if only we had a way to collectively decide what the top aphex tracks are

alas

he continually challenges himself [...] 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.

Bizarrely enough, the designer of the synthesizer in question subsequently sold a software company to Hewlett-Packard for $11.1 billion and is now on trial in San Francisco, charged with multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy.

xxxp ha - I'm happy to go through and do that! I'll put something together and share in the next few days

okay I can't stop myself, linking my favorite ILM post again: Did the guy who said he'd make the best of Aphex . . .

I can't believe this was written over twenty years ago: There was a time when RDJ records were like shocking brand new worlds, that was before there were a thousand IDM producers making entire microgenres out of just one of RDJ's hyperprism gimmicks.

Going back to the Analord stuff and I totally forgot about this gem that samples the same drums the Chemical Brothers use on It Doesn't Matter and is an absolute dance banger:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msJUNl-lrgg

Might need to revisit this series and see if there's some other gems I overlooked too. Might need to make my own "Chosen Lords" as well.

And I might be hyperbolic with "top 5" too - but it's just soaring with beauty in ways very few of his songs do. But yeah if only there was a ballot poll to try and sort that out. Honestly though, organizing an RDJ one would be quite an undertaking. I'd be open to volunteering but I've never run one before and I'd need a LOT of help with it. If I'm unemployed this summer I'd take it on.

I am being a bit facetious about Cheetah, obviously. It sounds like an Aphex album with a more limited sound pallette, and hey that's not necessarily a bad thing. I coold see myself putting it on when im in a particular mood. It's fairly groovy too

Ha yeah I probably sounded overly pious in the response, when I agree with your point too. I remember seeing some complicated acrobatic act on with work people at the Edinburgh Festival—it was rubbish really, and a work guy turned to me stoney faced and said the kindest thing he could think of: "That must've taken a lot of practise". Haha!

xp yeah that is a gem.. also “pissed up in se1”’or whatever

I just got the Cheetah EP recently, not terribly impressed by it. but you can still lose yourself in it if you're a real analog synth head. amusingly it's those 2 short tracks that capture my attention the best.

His "deleted" or "unreleased" albums at the time hinted at this. See the Melodies From Mars album and Caustic Window LP (btw 101 Rainbows off the latter is like a top 5 career RDJ track imho; listen to it immediately if you haven't yet)

I’ll have to revisit that track… I remember purchasing the Caustic Window download, and then being disappointed, after the years of hype. I had Melodies on Mars on CD-R, and didn’t think that was too great either. I guess I don’t subscribe to the “unreleased tracks” theory of his catalog, lol

The SoundCloud dump is great if you just start listening in the order the tracks were uploaded, which is how most torrents etc organize them anyway. The first 100 or so tracks are just loaded with gems, if you’re nuts for the early stuff that is

Cheetah is dope dark low riding funk

I've been pissed up in SE1 many times and I do feel for the guy if that's what it sounds like for him. I thought it was rather joyous.

Scanning over the soundcloud dump and a couple of the cheetah tracks are in there as early edits/mixes.

280 tracks are you for real

hmmm looks like it's up to 298

xp and most of it is good-to-great, it's insane

Yeah holy shit I was unaware of the last 18 tracks, all uploaded in the last 7 years. A few at least exceed a good majority of his released tracks during the same period, honestly, like Love 7. Why wasn't this on Collapse? blargh.

Many of the classics were cleaned up and mastered to be tacked on as bonus tracks for a number of his albums too.