"A decade of Drukqs" Drowned In Sound article

To be fair to the pitchfork reviewer (and I am one of their biggest haters) my impression of it in the early days was the same. I am not sure how long the reviewer would of had with this album before publishing his opinion but something as dense as Drukqs can't be worked out in a few weeks. I would of gave it roughly the same score.

But like most of my favorite albums my first impressions were off the mark.

Of the pitchfork Go Plastic review, the line 'Has he just not bothered to learn the new software?' is probably my favourite sentence of any album review I've read just for its sheer arrogance. If I was to sum up music journalism, i think I'd only need to quote that and I'd be done.

  On 10/31/2011 at 10:11 PM, ieafs said:

an intriguing mention of saw85-92 in a book and a 1 star review of drukqs in Q magazine that actually got me into aphex hehe

That's awesome! Which book mentioned it?

  On 11/3/2011 at 8:09 PM, Suffocate Peon said:

Of the pitchfork Go Plastic review, the line 'Has he just not bothered to learn the new software?' is probably my favourite sentence of any album review I've read just for its sheer arrogance. If I was to sum up music journalism, i think I'd only need to quote that and I'd be done.

bleh, I wonder if any folk albums were highlighted with questions like "I wonder if they learned any new stringed instruments?"

I honestly didn't warm up to pfork (as a daily reader) until they started hiring good columnists, like Sherburne for techno/house reviews and whoever the hell wrote the Grime/Dubstep column.

Sometimes when some assclown drives up with his car booming WUBWUBWUBWUBWUBWUB, I switch on AFX237, 54 Cymru beats, or Cockver/10 and blast it even louder with my window down. Funny watching their scrunched up sour faces when the treble drowns out their bass. All these kids today are so used to so much bass. This works even better with Death Fuck.

I know it makes me equally if not more of a douche but it's fun.

  On 11/8/2011 at 3:37 AM, ieafs said:

  On 11/5/2011 at 4:33 PM, joshuatxuk said:

  On 10/31/2011 at 10:11 PM, ieafs said:

an intriguing mention of saw85-92 in a book and a 1 star review of drukqs in Q magazine that actually got me into aphex hehe

 

That's awesome! Which book mentioned it?

i think it was something like mojo magazine 'best 1000 albums of the century' or something... i was looking through it at the school library when i was 16 or so and they described saw85-92 as sounding like it was 'recorded under a bridge at night'...

Nice, I remember SAW II being described as "being in a power station on acid"

  On 10/25/2011 at 4:41 AM, joshuatxuk said:

Saw Beardyman post this (amongst some of his likely drunken rants about Coldplay being shit), I usually don't read anything on this site regularly, surprised I found it actually. It goes into a lot of RDJ tidbits we all know good and well and now constantly mention sarcastically, BUT I like that: A. They decided to celebrate the album's anniversary. B. It mentions the fact that's been "mined" for samples and continues to be a source of reliable bumper and soundtrack music. I also realized, with the SNL and Kanye samples, and soundtrack choices in mind, they could of just titled this article "Avril 14th, ten years on" http://drownedinsoun...us-ten-years-on

Nice - a celebration of an album without describing any real details about the content of it. It makes me doubt the guy even listened to the thing and just got hold of a press release back in the day ....

  On 11/8/2011 at 4:04 PM, mcbpete said:

  On 10/25/2011 at 4:41 AM, joshuatxuk said:

Saw Beardyman post this (amongst some of his likely drunken rants about Coldplay being shit), I usually don't read anything on this site regularly, surprised I found it actually. It goes into a lot of RDJ tidbits we all know good and well and now constantly mention sarcastically, BUT I like that: A. They decided to celebrate the album's anniversary. B. It mentions the fact that's been "mined" for samples and continues to be a source of reliable bumper and soundtrack music. I also realized, with the SNL and Kanye samples, and soundtrack choices in mind, they could of just titled this article "Avril 14th, ten years on" http://drownedinsoun...us-ten-years-on

Nice - a celebration of an album without describing any real details about the content of it. It makes me doubt the guy even listened to the thing and just got hold of a press release back in the day ....

agreed... a bland and generic popmag piece not worthy of the album..

  Quote

Released in the fallout of the September 11 attacks, Drukqs touched a cold, steely nerve amid all the constant television noise of the time.

seriously? :|

  Quote

quite simply, a touchstone for daring, intoxicating musical adventuring.

  Quote

Sometimes bleak, sometimes beautiful, always evocative: never mind Kanye West, Drukqs is a true beautiful, dark, twisted fantasy.

*gags*

  On 9/26/2011 at 11:46 AM, LUDD said:

When the huge european ships first approached the early native Americans, it was such an ‘impossible’ vision in their reality that their highly filtered perceptions couldn’t register what was happening, and they literally failed to ‘see’ the ships. Only a handful of natives - the shamans and tribal elders or whatever could see the approaching ships. That's kind of what it was like when drukqs came out. Even an extremely advanced consciousness such as myself could only half hear drukqs in 2001.

haha I was 17 and The Rolling Stone Drukqs review was the first to be totally off base with me. I felt I could no longer trust Rolling Stone reviews. Which was a good thing.

never understood music reviews. Movie reviews sure. Music is too subjective

  On 11/10/2011 at 6:30 AM, marf said:

never understood music reviews. Movie reviews sure. Music is too subjective

and films aren't?

As somebody who lives 'over the pond', I always heard of Rolling Stone and heard about it with mythical status, like it was a monthly music bible to be worshipped. I then remember as a youngster WH Smiths started stocking it about 20 years ago and picking it up for the first time. Jesus it was just awful, so middle-of-the-road and boring (and predictable) and this was a time when rock/guitar music was pretty fucking awesome. Still this magazine seemed so coporate and dull.

I can imagine one of their journo's picking up Drukqs and not being on the same planet let alone wavelength.

  On 10/28/2011 at 10:13 PM, phudoshin said:

Does anyone not think the the percussion is a bit on the "tinny" side...? The beat structure is great across drukQs but the hihats, snares etc sound a little bit flat/cheap...

 

Compared to analrod/tuss tracks which are much more warm and vibrant in the drums department...

 

Hey i like the album a lot but prefer hearing the tracks at his DJ sets than off the album.

 

alos Go Plastic that year blew me a away much more than drukqs.

 

jusayin

Sometimes when I overplay drukqs I start to think it feels tinny too but after a while without listening that wears off

I mean it obviously objectively is a bit more tinny, it just sounds that way, but that doesn't matter - it's fucking top notch

Best album of all time ever by anyone.

Listened to it hundreds of times and it never get old

Oops dug up an old thread. Just on a massive drukqs binge jesus FUCK. Nothing else even remotely gives me full-body shivers/goosebumps as much as drukqs does

same here

total classic album

Like someone else said in another thread, it's a mood thing. Sometimes I am just not in the mood for it, but when I am there is nothing better.

So yeah, definitely a classic, which took me a few years to figure out as well.

I bought <em>DrukQs</em> when it came out and didn't care for it, and listening to it sporadically over the years it hasn't grown on me. What's weird though is how little impression it leaves - every time I revisit it most of the tracks just sound completely unfamiliar, like I'm hearing them for the first time. I'll recognise the more famous ones like <em>Avril</em>, <em>Mount</em> and <em>Vordhosbn</em>, but the rest could have been replaced with entirely new tracks and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. I don't mean this as a criticism (on the contrary, it suggests that my comprehension is at fault rather than the album), it's just odd. No other album has this effect on me as far as I've noticed.

e: I see that the forum software has replaced the BBCode tags in my post with HTML tags, which it has then displayed verbatim instead of parsing. Thanks, IPB!

Best album i ever heard

  On 8/19/2015 at 3:36 PM, Ivan Ooze said:

Best album i ever heard

  On 10/31/2011 at 8:01 PM, Claudius t Ansuulim said:

I will never forgive Rolling Stone for giving both Drukqs and Go Plastic 1 star while the same reviewer in the same issue gave Wilson Pickett glowing reviews. I've never trusted their music "journalism" since then.

Wow that was my exact experience. Same issue!. I was 16-17years old and it was the first time i began thinking Rolling Stone may be full of shit

They want to appeal to 40 year olds who think "What is with this computer crap, I want real music with guitar drums and talking about girls"

  On 10/31/2011 at 8:57 PM, beerwolf said:

To be fair to the pitchfork reviewer (and I am one of their biggest haters) my impression of it in the early days was the same. I am not sure how long the reviewer would of had with this album before publishing his opinion but something as dense as Drukqs can't be worked out in a few weeks. I would of gave it roughly the same score.

 

But like most of my favorite albums my first impressions were off the mark.

It's fair when you think of it as guys whose job it is to review albums but they should be more competent

  On 8/19/2015 at 6:37 PM, Zeffolia said:

 

  On 10/31/2011 at 8:57 PM, beerwolf said:

To be fair to the pitchfork reviewer (and I am one of their biggest haters) my impression of it in the early days was the same. I am not sure how long the reviewer would of had with this album before publishing his opinion but something as dense as Drukqs can't be worked out in a few weeks. I would of gave it roughly the same score.

 

But like most of my favorite albums my first impressions were off the mark.

 

It's fair when you think of it as guys whose job it is to review albums but they should be more competent

 

I can agree with that sentiment. I don't think I'd be a very good reviewer lol, the best electronic music and my most favorite albums always seem to take some time to sink in, but with guitar based music I'm on the ball straight away (that's probaby why I find electronic music so fascinating).

Today, I listened to Drukqs in its entirety. Twice.

Timeless album.

  On 8/19/2015 at 8:29 PM, beerwolf said:

 

  On 8/19/2015 at 6:37 PM, Zeffolia said:

 

  On 10/31/2011 at 8:57 PM, beerwolf said:

To be fair to the pitchfork reviewer (and I am one of their biggest haters) my impression of it in the early days was the same. I am not sure how long the reviewer would of had with this album before publishing his opinion but something as dense as Drukqs can't be worked out in a few weeks. I would of gave it roughly the same score.

 

But like most of my favorite albums my first impressions were off the mark.

 

It's fair when you think of it as guys whose job it is to review albums but they should be more competent

 

 

I can agree with that sentiment. I don't think I'd be a very good reviewer lol, the best electronic music and my most favorite albums always seem to take some time to sink in, but with guitar based music I'm on the ball straight away (that's probaby why I find electronic music so fascinating).

 

I felt the same way until I started listening to certain types of prog, esp. zeuhl and similar genres. some of my favorite albums in the genre took me a while to actually enjoy listening to and understand