Worst Aphex track

I probably haven't listened to the KTPA tracks in 20 years, I don't hate them but find I have to be in a certain state of mind to appreciate noise music, and when I do want some noise I don't find myself reaching for Aphex, especially when he only really has a tiny handful of noise trax. I remember the Smojphace EP received an absolute fan mauling at the time, lots of 'it's over' type comments, people looking for secret spectrogram codes etc. I think maybe Richard was probably influenced by friends like Russell Haswell & Florian Hecker and just wanted to make something in that vein. Its quite perverse to release something that inaccessible at the height of your fame/hype and he probably got a laugh out of it.

One of my most disappointing Aphex trax has to be Digitone Test Track or whatever its called from the recent batch of scrag ends, purely cause Ive got a Digitone and was hoping to be taken to school with some next level wizardry - but its just ok, autopilot cycling thru a couple of Analordy style grooves. I suppose thats the curse of being talented, high expectations, high demand.

  On 11/2/2024 at 7:42 AM, cern said:

perunamuusi arched maid via rdj? Are u nuts? So epic track. I love to play it at a little bit slower speed. What is it that u don't like about it?

I honestly never got the worship that it gets. 

Maybe it's more popular among fans who got into afx via come to daddy video or NIN remixes maybe?

It actually annoys me. That distorted wah wah synth lead is horrible and corny af.

It seems like a thrown together afterthought when compared to the rest of the eps.

Stylistically closest to Laughable Butane Bob, out of the others,  I guess, which is a pro level banger.

Children Talking is absolute top tier. Just ridiculously good. One of his most futuristic tracks ever. Total opposite end of the rdj spectrum to Arched Maid.

(Also the missing 's' in the title distresses me. Why not Arched Maids ffs?)

Avril 14th or Rhubarb.

  On 11/8/2024 at 9:08 PM, geosmina said:

Avril 14th

I agree. Sounds like it was written by a child (ok all the drukqs piano tracks sound like they were written by a child) and the amount of worship this track gets, endless cover versions etc, have totally worn out its limited appeal/charm imo

I wouldn't say it's the "worst" aphex track tho (too hard to pick one lol)

  On 11/9/2024 at 10:39 PM, toaoaoad said:

I agree. Sounds like it was written by a child (ok all the drukqs piano tracks sound like they were written by a child) and the amount of worship this track gets, endless cover versions etc, have totally worn out its limited appeal/charm imo

I wouldn't say it's the "worst" aphex track tho (too hard to pick one lol)

I think Geo was trolling 

  On 11/9/2024 at 11:15 PM, YEK said:

I think Geo was trolling 

Hmm, well I wasn't 

  On 11/9/2024 at 11:19 PM, toaoaoad said:

Hmm, well I wasn't 

I think Arched Maid was him experimenting with guitars, so its sortof experimental. I think a the Clink gig in 1996 he actually played it with a guitar.

Ventolin was really hard to listen to but its artistically interesting, to release something that was so hard to listen to at that point in his career. And most of the remixes are fascinating.

I always thought the beck remix was solid, because its like barely controlled chaos and somehow has a few awesome moments.

There are lots of tracks on SAW II that I can't bear to listen to, but again, artistically interesting so it sortof gets a pass.

His early stuff is very repetitive so I think worst track would have to be something from the 'Classics' collection, maybe We Have Arrived (Aphex Twin QQT Mix)

Its just a load of horrible noises repeated a lot. Some might say it has a sortof 'holy shit' factor but I listen to it and think 'this can't have been that hard to make'. But then he was probably like 20 or something when he made this so fair enough I guess.
 

Stoned in focus

  On 11/10/2024 at 12:46 AM, xox said:

Stoned in focus

  Reveal hidden contents

 

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The monkey track

  On 11/10/2024 at 12:23 AM, zazen said:

I think Arched Maid was him experimenting with guitars, so its sortof experimental. I think a the Clink gig in 1996 he actually played it with a guitar.

Ventolin was really hard to listen to but its artistically interesting, to release something that was so hard to listen to at that point in his career. And most of the remixes are fascinating.

I always thought the beck remix was solid, because its like barely controlled chaos and somehow has a few awesome moments.

There are lots of tracks on SAW II that I can't bear to listen to, but again, artistically interesting so it sortof gets a pass.

His early stuff is very repetitive so I think worst track would have to be something from the 'Classics' collection, maybe We Have Arrived (Aphex Twin QQT Mix)

Its just a load of horrible noises repeated a lot. Some might say it has a sortof 'holy shit' factor but I listen to it and think 'this can't have been that hard to make'. But then he was probably like 20 or something when he made this so fair enough I guess.
 

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i think electronic music was generally kind of hard to make back then. i like that track well enough, the other mix is better though.

to address the topic i guess ventolin, disregarding possible/obvious piss take tracks like the noise stuff. but the eps own, even the track that's actually a ventolin remix

  On 11/10/2024 at 12:23 AM, zazen said:

I think Arched Maid was him experimenting with guitars, so its sortof experimental. I think a the Clink gig in 1996 he actually played it with a guitar.

Ventolin was really hard to listen to but its artistically interesting, to release something that was so hard to listen to at that point in his career. And most of the remixes are fascinating.

I always thought the beck remix was solid, because its like barely controlled chaos and somehow has a few awesome moments.

There are lots of tracks on SAW II that I can't bear to listen to, but again, artistically interesting so it sortof gets a pass.

His early stuff is very repetitive so I think worst track would have to be something from the 'Classics' collection, maybe We Have Arrived (Aphex Twin QQT Mix)

Its just a load of horrible noises repeated a lot. Some might say it has a sortof 'holy shit' factor but I listen to it and think 'this can't have been that hard to make'. But then he was probably like 20 or something when he made this so fair enough I guess.
 

 

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Sorry if that facepalm was a bit harsh but it was these kind of tracks that endeared me to Richard’s stuff in the first place. In a sea of moby and moby-lites, this kind of sound cut through like lightning, back in the day. Nothing was harder on the dance floor. Without tracks like this there is no aphex twin, imo. 

Elephant Song

  On 11/10/2024 at 2:27 AM, pqdopq said:

Elephant Song

the first time i heard elephant song it was in a video of him doing some show and it had like a small part of that flex video looping in time with it and it was kind of disturbing so i like it

  On 11/10/2024 at 2:27 AM, pqdopq said:

Elephant Song

this thread is great, none of us can agree on anything.

OK here's something we can all get behind:

Milkman: Its trying to show that he can write a regular song, and also trying to be funny, and also trying to be edgey, and its unconvincing in all three of those dimensions. End result is a bit cringe.

Computer controlled instruments is a giant miss. He had access to this fascinating technology and made the most boring, uninspired, forgettable tracks with it.

Dodeccaheedron: nasty slamming thrashing track, badly mixed and failing to match the awesome thrashyness of Didgeridoo EP and Caustic Window. the Classics comp is often rated badly by journalists and i think this track (along with the Mescalinum mixes) are dragging it down. Flap Head or Phloam are solid tracks that show rdj can get it right.

Joyrex J4 the track, and Joyrex J5 the track: borrrrrrring. you could make a pretty good EP out of just the good tracks on the J4 and J5 EPs.

D-Scape: fairly simplistic, droney, the atmosphere tries but fails to carry through the whole track. the rest of this EP, as well as similar tracks like the mindstream remix, are absolutely solid and do a much better job of what this track is trying to do. also for some reason the track On (D-Scape Mix) is crazy fantastic, it's been a favourite of mine for over 15 years, i could never fault it

Vaz Deferenz: this track is gross!! wtf. embarassing outtake from the AB3/Donkey Rhubarb era of sound design which was usually pretty good

Children Talking. in fact the whole of the HAB volume 1 EP (first six tracks on the CD) besides Laughable Butane Bob and the second half of Wabby Legs. somehow the volume 2 tracks at the end of the CD are massively good.

Heroes remix: dear god whyyy. this is on the same par as the Beck remix (Richard's Hairpiece) but it still landed on 26 Mixes.

taking Control: hate to say it but this is the one track on the IDM/breakcore side of Drukqs which never hit home for me ever after all this time. cringey, noodly, venetian snares parody style not even with good beats. just look at how Vordhosbn and 54 Cymru Beats completely revolutionise the way samples in a tracker can be precisely structured and syncopated compared to taking Control.

Batine Acid: not gonna go through all the analords but this is the worst track on Chosen Lords, the are so many better tracks to choose from.

barn dance slo: i know there's probably not much of this material overall and CCAIpt2 EP may have been very short otherwise, but i nearly always skip this track. very flat and uninteresting.

T69 Collapse: yeah i'm fucking telling it like it is, this track sucks. the opening melody doesn't do anything, it settles on a reasonably smooth and funky groove but then turns into an aggressive panicky track for no reason. i sort of pressured myself to like this track because of new Aphex, but now that i've heard Blackbox i know he can do much, much better.

thank you @perunamuusi i love these fanboi opinion threads ^^

Too bad ppl seem to hate the beck hairpiece remix so much lol. I think it's great! But then I'm not "really" an aphex fan so what do I know

Some wild takes here

Might aswell just rename this thread to Aphex Take Battlezone 

but I've got to agree with thumbass on this Ventolin and It's Wheeze Mix can both go to hell , most of the ep is great but the main star of the show makes me want to jam pencils into my ears at full mast.

i like the heroes remix

also the ventolin wheeze mix doesn't bug me nearly as much as the original for some reason. its a pretty cool track. i think the high freq sound is duller

Ventolin has always got a lot of hate over the years, maybe cause it was a single which kind of elevates its status above other tracks, on top of which it is very abraisive and confrontational. I always quite liked it - it's following in the footsteps of his earlier more industrial stuff, but with a bit more of a conceptual thing going on with the hi freq noise, and the clean, jazzy chords in the background provide a nice counterweight to the screech. Its probably in my lower half of ICBYD tho, I never really liked the aggro side of Aphex as much as the chill side. 

A lot of the tracks getting slated, (Elephant Song, Classics, Taking Control etc) are clearly going to work better in a club than in some speccy nerds bedroom laptop speakers, I think we have to remember the context here, some of this stuff was meant for a different purpose. He seems to play Elephant Song at nearly all of his gigs.

I feel like we need to distinguish 'difficult to listen to' vs 'crappy'

Ventolin is difficult to listen to but its very carefully crafted and a solid bit of art.

Milkman is just crappy