Aphex Twin - Collapse EP

[ToneLa]

Nightmail 1 went on to get a mastered proper release on the excellent Orphans EP.

What?? Hooray! And that store is a really neat way of cataloguing his tunes.

[the]

What?? Hooray! And that store is a really neat way of cataloguing his tunes.

There's loads of bonus tracks available with his old releases too. This page lists most of them.

(I attempted to start a thread about the Aphex Twin shop last year.)

The best thing about the site is the little pixel-art galleon that sails across the sea as each track progresses. I get endless amusement out of that.

[ToneLa]

There's loads of bonus tracks available with his old releases too. This page lists most of them.

(I attempted to start a thread about the Aphex Twin shop last year.)

The best thing about the site is the little pixel-art galleon that sails across the sea as each track progresses. I get endless amusement out of that.

Woah yir no kidding! I've got the whole soundcloud dump in my Google Music library but these extra tracks look boss! I've got a new fav website!

And the galleon is cute indeed :)

[Cuntbeaks]

There's loads of bonus tracks available with his old releases too. This page lists most of them.

(I attempted to start a thread about the Aphex Twin shop last year.)

The best thing about the site is the little pixel-art galleon that sails across the sea as each track progresses. I get endless amusement out of that.

Are all the tracks on that page properly remasteres as opposed to the raw, lower fi versions from the Soundcloud dump?

[grassbath]

Although my absolute favourite Aphex period is the SAW albums, I have a big soft spot for Drukqs too. Like you, I sometimes play it without the acoustic tracks but on the other hand, I also have a playlist that's only the piano stuff. They're both brilliant in their own right, I just think it's the messy and confusing combination of the two different styles on the album that puts some people off.

The more I've grown to love Drukqs, the more I see a sort of weird consonance between the IDM and the piano miniatures as two sides of 'modern classical.' The drill and bass stuff is the most complex, textured, high-level compositional music he's ever made - people who think it's just a load of shat-out odds and ends off his hard drive have fallen for the prank, hard. Ever heard the final minute of Ziggomatic arranged for piano? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpMbB3ZE3Rk

[the]

Are all the tracks on that page properly remasteres as opposed to the raw, lower fi versions from the Soundcloud dump?

In the main, yes - where they aren't, they're usually offered as free.

Ziggomatic 17 is one of my favourites too. Such a frenetic, developing, unfolding track.

[buttgammon]

The more I've grown to love Drukqs, the more I see a sort of weird consonance between the IDM and the piano miniatures as two sides of 'modern classical.' The drill and bass stuff is the most complex, textured, high-level compositional music he's ever made - people who think it's just a load of shat-out odds and ends off his hard drive have fallen for the prank, hard. Ever heard the final minute of Ziggomatic arranged for piano? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpMbB3ZE3Rk

Ooh, must listen to that, cheers.

You may well be on to something there. I've always tried to hold the two sides separate but in that whole dissonance-is-consonance way, it could work as textures rubbing against each other. I'm going to play that album in its entirety for the first time in ages now. While marking tonnes of college work; the poor students...

[the]

While we're talking about Drukqs in a kind of deconstructed way -

Most people probably saw this a couple of years ago, but here's RDJ's screen capture of Vordhosbn (minus the drum parts), running in the PlayerPro tracker (which he wrote most of his choppy stuff in around that era).

He also pokes around a few of the functions and throws in some bonus hilarious vision mixing.

(I believe he did this video while he was outputting the stripped-down track for Leila, who was going to do a Vordhosbn remix at one point.)

I've sometimes wondered, in his new less-veiled persona, whether he'd ever do some Youtube videos talking about some of the more arcane details of bits of hardware, in whichever setup he happens to be using at the time. Because there must be a billion interesting little quirks and methodologies you pick up if you work in that way.

[McFlymo]

Curious about that video. It doesn't really give much away. I'm tempted to think that's a wind up. Has anyone confirmed that it's an actual RDJ screen capture?

[the]

It's real. Why the suspicion?

It's not meant to be explanatory, it's just a capture of the tracker playing the track, whilst the drum tracks are muted. The stupid zooms and flips are just him being daft.

As mentioned, he does have a fiddle with some elements of the track while it's playing though, redrawing a waveform at one point, and clicking to trigger a note.

[McFlymo]

It's real. Why the suspicion?

It's not meant to be explanatory, it's just a capture of the tracker playing the track, whilst the drum tracks are muted. The stupid zooms and flips are just him being daft.

As mentioned, he does have a fiddle with some elements of the track while it's playing though, redrawing a waveform at one point, and clicking to trigger a note.

Just curious where it came from I guess.
The zooms and flips feel very RDJ!!

[the]

FYI I think it was uploaded by him to Vimeo originally.

[Hundhoon]

Ive been really getting into Selected Ambient Works 2 in a big way recently, have always liked it, not as much as Ambient works 85-92, its 25 years old but in the last year for some reason I have been immersed in it.

I had this bootleg of an Aphex Twin gig on 25th April 1993, at Brixton Academy, with Seefeel, a year before it came out, and many of the tracks that ended up on Selected Works 2 are here but sound slightly different, sort of in the early stages, some sound more direct. better. its weird

[McFlymo]

FYI I think it was uploaded by him to Vimeo originally.

Aha! Cheers for that!

I had this bootleg of an Aphex Twin gig on 25th April 1993, at Brixton Academy, with Seefeel, a year before it came out, and many of the tracks that ended up on Selected Works 2 are here but sound slightly different, sort of in the early stages, some sound more direct. better. its weird

I'd love to hear that. Have never given SAW2 much time. I was listening to SAW1 earlier this week, it still sounds very d'lovely and delicious.

[Custard]

He can't handle his drink, mind

https://rateyourmusic.com/board_message?message_id=4968613

[ToneLa]

Windowlicker came oot 20 years ago the day!

[poo]

I like it.

[the]

Windowlicker came oot 20 years ago the day!

When Windowlicker came out, I remember it being one of those spring days where it was surprisingly warm and sunny all of a sudden. Which went well with the deep blue skies on the cover.

Bought both discs from Our Price at lunchtime, went back to the office and watched the CD-ROM video on the Power Mac. How's that for a Nineties sentence.

The video gives away its premise of being a demented take on the chart RnB song, but I've never been sure if that was really detectable from listening to the track alone. That said, what the main riff reminded me of was bugging me for a few days. Then realised that it was making me think of a sped-up G Spot by Wayne Marshall.

To justify the CD-ROM disc, I'm guessing they they had to put some form of audio content on there, so it contained the 'Original Demo' version of Windowlicker, which is basically the main loop sounding a bit flat. I'm guessing this was the genesis of the song idea that got developed into the full track.

The AT shop has the Japanese bonus track 'Antibiotics' (track 5 on this page), which I only heard recently, and is one of the most maddenly catchy loops I've heard in a long time.

[grassbath]

Windowlicker still sounds fresh and out-there as fuck. What an incredible tune.

Agreed that the track itself doesn't really betray the R&B chart parody as much as when paired with the video, but it does mark a turn toward the 'funky' later Aphex that can be heard from the Tuss onward (and bits of Analord).

[Shaky]

Sometimes I think I'm the only person who prefers SAW2 to the first edition. 85 - 92 has just never fully gelled with me. Has it ever been confirmed some of the tracks stretch back as far as the mid-80's? I always assumed it was a bit of a jest on Richie's part.

[purlieu]

I prefer II to 85-92; the latter is incredible, but II is an all-time top five for me.

During his Soundcloud dump he talked about something-or-other being his first ever track, from about '88, so the title is in jest.

[the]

The only thing that links SAW 85-92 and SAW 2 is the title. They're completely different beasts.

Re. 1985, Wikipedia has it that:

According to musician Benjamin Middleton, James began producing music at age 12.^[12] James said he composed ambient music the following year.^[13] In an interview with Q magazine in 2014, James stated that the ambient track 'i' emerged from those early recordings.

However he would've needed a nice reverb and a method of making a decent recording, so perhaps doubtful. (Unless he'd made a recording of some noodling in that era, then washed it with reverb later on to turn it into the ambient track.)

Supposedly his first synth was a Yamaha DX100 bought at the end of 1986, and prior to that he had a Yamaha MK100 home keyboard (which has some synthesiser functionality).

[ToneLa]

Philip Glass worked with Aphex?

https://youtu.be/ubwsMJdj6Tw

[grassbath]

Yes indeed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I13uVL681oo

And later Aphex remixed Glass's version of Bowie's 'Heroes':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igITHmsGKw4

[ToneLa]

I love that Heroes remix. Didn't know it meant they met n all that!

In the interview I posted doesn't Glass say he was only 20 at the time? God he's such a prodigy.

[ToneLa]

Am I being thick?

Swore I could listen to full tracks on that Aphex store

But now it only goes in aboot two minutes

?

[Twed]

I like the (indirect) exchange between him and Karlheinz Stockhausen: http://titleofmagazine.com/2010/06/23/song-of-a-weakling-child-dispute-between-aphex-twin-and-stockhausen-is-over/

[Captain Z]

titleofmagazine.com

Aaahhhhhhhh

[VelourSpirit]

So much Aphex left to discover. Still haven't gone into any AFX. Need to find all of his soundcloud stuff too. I didn't realise he'd been inactive between 2005 and 2014, had anyone lost hope for a return?

[the]

I didn't realise he'd been inactive between 2005 and 2014, had anyone lost hope for a return?

Well he wasn't really, he was still making stuff, playing live, and releasing under other names like The Tuss and (likely) Steinvord.