Can Richard still make good music?

i like Syro. it's quite beautiful. the more i listen to it the more i like it.. but it's not mind blowing like some of the DSP breaks on Drukqs.. but i think it's just whatever he was into at the time.. "an album he had in him" so he made it.

i don't get questions like this at all.

Pitchfork News : After nearly 30 years of genius music Aphex Twin lost his talent, he´s barely able to make a 4/4 drumbeat in Ableton, his friends are still in a state of shock but some watmm members knew this day would come, Richard lives now alone in an old house somewhere in cornwall staring at his synthesizers while waiting for the new magix music maker 4 beginners to arrive;

cum

ps. wet

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pps. sarcasm

We must first define what is "new". Richard blew everyone's ass in the old days, but today I hear a lot of mind bending music by a lot of different artists. I still think the style that defines for most of the people the music of Aphex is Drukqs. A lot of people expect something as complex, because they think that's what Aphex Twin is all about.

I wouldn't say he isn't capable of doing "good" music, I think he's just keeping his style, while we are surrounded by a lot of new "good" music these days.

  On 6/10/2016 at 1:21 AM, Kavinsky said:

Pitchfork News : After nearly 30 years of genius music Aphex Twin lost his talent, he´s barely able to make a 4/4 drumbeat in Ableton, his friends are still in a state of shock but some watmm members knew this day would come, Richard lives now alone in an old house somewhere in cornwall staring at his synthesizers while waiting for the new magix music maker 4 beginners to arrive;

FOK LOL

good point

Cottage4 Af 1. nuff' said.

syro u473t8+e,the circlont are mindblowing and innovative and they feel pretty fresh to me.Not from 2007 at least.

Its not because its doesnt have crazy beatmaking its not has good has the Drukqs.These are as good as you can get.

Just different,less extreme approach.

Also Drukqs drills were computer made and he seems to be more into gear and live recording now.

And i dont thinks its possible to do Drukqsy drums live or with gear only.

I think he just grew out of it.

That artistic period,the heavy drillnbass tracks,dark moods is probably over for ever for him.

He moved into other realms of exploration.Remember he said that when something become to easy to do,change your approach and do something different.

And more simply put,i think it would just bore him to do stuff exactly the same as Drukqs,because he did it already.

But that being said boy! what i would give to hear some more drill from him!!!

PAPAT4 is just so incredible. It's one of the only tracks that can give me chills for 4 and a half minutes straight. It's so beautiful and lush while at the same time being a total banger. I can't get over how incredible it is when the pads kick in at 1:12

EDIT: I also don't understand all the hate for produk. It's the very definition of lush funk. Well... 4bit and syro u47... whatever they're called... they're just total funk

EDIT 2: fz pseudotimestretch also deserves way more attention than it gets. The microtonal timbres of the synth make me feel such a way that I can't describe. It's obviously multiple tracks of the same synth being put on top of each other to achieve that sound. I don't know how else he could do it with it sounding like it does.

Syro

Interesting discussion here, and actually makes me think of a lot different things- from our expectations as spoiled electronic music listeners to eras and generations to the "instant" internet age to the evolution of an artist, their purpose & personal fulfillment, connection to fans and how all of that ties into one another to create a bigger picture.

I think we're all on this collective journey as afx superfans to capture the element about aphex or particular sound/release he had that we heard whenever we first discovered him (or a defining moment thereafter). There was a mystique, charm, shock, mindblowing feeling, hypnosis--something, whatever it was--it was meaningful to us, and helped us connect to the artist and the music. It also created a sort of standard--whether real or not--of what we expect. This is totally natural, and I think its a good thing to hold on to that personal ideal/nostalgia as it helps us sort the things we like and dont like, helps us inspire and create, etc. At the same time, it holds us back from seeing the full uniqueness, wonder and quality of the current things--because we're all drunk on personal ideals and longings. Example... SAW I and II are DAMN good. REALLY good. Fucking incredible. But we've held onto those as standard releases of his, and have made them untouchable, magical beyond comprehension, pure, ideal, perfect. By doing so, we've kind of set ourselves up for failure, because there will never be another SAW I or II--not because he's not capable of making anything as great as those--but because we've put a wall around those releases and mentally locked all doors for their beauty and perfection to be accessed by any other media or artform outside of the releases themselves.

So if you guys are perceiving that Aphex Twin is lacking in some department, it might be more because of us, than him haha. And I'm guilty of this idealism myself. I have the same dreams of a SAW III or SOSW II. But even if and when those releases came out, you all know we'd say they're mindblowing at first- but just nowhere compared to the originals. It's like the movie sequel phenomenon- pt. 2 and 3 etc just can't quite live up to pt. 1 for those superfans.

The incredibleness of Syro might be proof as to why we're too blind to be able to judge whether Aphex has "run dry" or whatever from making beautiful or next level shit. We still haven't fully absorbed Syro, as its pretty early and I think time will tell that Syro is and will be just as groundbreaking and absolutely magical as Drukqs, for example, was- possibly even moreso. Music critics already agree for the most part. But for us hardcore fans, it might be harder to see...

Just some random brainstorming here, but yeah this opens up so many interesting elements about music, society, psychology etc.

The 90s were also quite a unique time in music. I mean you had dark dirty counterculture music from artists like NIN, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, RATM, Chemical Brothers, Rammstein on MAINSTREAM top 40 radio. So it was a time where everyone could connect these revolutionary feelings on a centralized level. Now, mainstream is pure fluff, but we get these counterculture feelings and revolutionary vibes (if that's even a thing anymore) from our own customized channels in our me-generation hooked into our pods. So its just our minds floating around with nothing really tangible to connect these exciting discoveries to that we find in our "channels". It's all a bunch of solo discoveries, and so we rely on nothing but our own subjective wormholes and virtual portals to get excited about art. What kind of condition is that for creating new ideals, standards of life-changing game changing art? It's really not. I think these conditions we are in require soooo much more than just an "album" or EP to really get us off anymore. We need it to be so much more visceral, something that hits us because of a unique scenario or situation.

Case in point: I guarantee you if Joyrex announced that Warp told him that SAW III was coming next month, we'd shit our pants for a whole month and then when it came out we'd love it to death, but it would be kiiiiind of juuust missing that "it" factor that Saw I and II had--whether we admitted it to each other or not (i mean i could be wrong, but most likely).

Now if one of us discovered Aphex- SAW III on an unlabeled cassette tape in a remote location near a palm tree and oasis in the middle of the desert, I guarantee you it would instantly become the most transcending piece of art and music that has ever been created- halfway because its amazing and its Saw III by Aphex, but the other half because of the scenario/condition/moment of discovery.

I'm mostly just talking out of my ass here but i think some of this makes sense. lol

with all that said, im going to make sure i dont listen to any samples of cheetah before release, and im going to wait for the most ideal listening condition and environment. if i could, id find some cool lounge in the city i live, and find a friend who djs there and go there one off night by myself, and slip the the Cheetah CD to him/her, and pay them to play it, and order some drinks and and kick back in a haze of tiredness and tipsyness with neon lights illuminating my face, while the first track comes on and i hear it in full acid bass glory. This is how we should be discovered new releases people, not via iphone earbuds on our mobile streaming lo res versions of samples from bleep's site or japanese amazon portals, while we're in between tasks and multiple texts and forum posts etc etc

Although its title is no doubt partially untrue, SAW85-92 was partially old/archived material when it came out. ICBYD has material from 1990 on it! I also doubt Drukqs was recorded in the first three months of 2001. He's pieced albums together from several years of recordings in the past, why not now?

I'd love to hear what he's up to now but I'd also love to hear what he was up to three years ago that I've not heard. As long as the quality's good, I don't mind.

One of the most amazing thing about AFX is that almost every records is completely different.He changes style all the time.

You never know what he has under his sleeve.

Im sure he has still a lot of discoveries in front of him.He his the gold digger of the soul after all.

Always looking for these beautiful masterpieces in his brain and mind.

Im not worrying about AFX losing his touch at all.

The guy is a total music lover.

  On 6/11/2016 at 1:19 AM, fxbip said:

One of the most amazing thing about AFX is that almost every records is completely different.He changes style all the time.

You never know what he has under his sleeve.

 

Im sure he has still a lot of discoveries in front of him.He his the gold digger of the soul after all.

 

Always looking for these beautiful masterpieces in his brain and mind.

 

Im not worrying about AFX losing his touch at all.

 

The guy is a total music lover.

I personally discovered RDJ through At the Heart of it all on NIN's Further Down The Spiral. I loved that track for YEARS but for some reason I never bothered to look up that "Aphex Twin" guy. The very day that Syro came out, I looked him up not knowing that he just came out with a new record.

The first track that I heard was Cow Cud Is a Twin and I recognized it immediately from http://www.theninhotline.net/meatpers/html/cartoon032.htm and I always wanted to know that track. Now that I heard it in full, I was already amazed. I then saw Drukqs, I turned it on and was so mind blown that I sat through the entire thing without listening to anything else before hand. I had never heard something so incredible and mind bending. After listening to that, I turned on SAW 1 as I saw it was the earliest record on there. The album again put me in a trance of utter amazement. I listened to every single record that he had on spotify in one night and as soon as I was done I saw Syro pop up. The next day I bought Syro on Bleep without listening to any tracks from it before hand. I then bought all the rest of his tracks on Bleep.

No other artist hit me as hard as AFX and thanks to that night, his tracks inspired me to make my own tracks. He also opened up my pallet to other artists as well.

His music has always been incredible and always will be. He's a really motivated guy and it's not like he's lost anything. He just does different things.

  On 6/11/2016 at 1:56 AM, clarktrent said:

I personally discovered RDJ through At the Heart of it all on NIN's Further Down The Spiral. I loved that track for YEARS but for some reason I never bothered to look up that "Aphex Twin" guy. The very day that Syro came out, I looked him up not knowing that he just came out with a new record.

 

The first track that I heard was Cow Cud Is a Twin and I recognized it immediately from http://www.theninhotline.net/meatpers/html/cartoon032.htm and I always wanted to know that track. Now that I heard it in full, I was already amazed. I then saw Drukqs, I turned it on and was so mind blown that I sat through the entire thing without listening to anything else before hand. I had never heard something so incredible and mind bending. After listening to that, I turned on SAW 1 as I saw it was the earliest record on there. The album again put me in a trance of utter amazement. I listened to every single record that he had on spotify in one night and as soon as I was done I saw Syro pop up. The next day I bought Syro on Bleep without listening to any tracks from it before hand. I then bought all the rest of his tracks on Bleep.

 

No other artist hit me as hard as AFX and thanks to that night, his tracks inspired me to make my own tracks. He also opened up my pallet to other artists as well.

 

His music has always been incredible and always will be. He's a really motivated guy and it's not like he's lost anything. He just does different things.

cool post

About the original post, What does it matter when he made something if it's good? It's a pretty pointless idea. He probably has hundreds of hours of stuff in various forms of completion, in various styles. What he chooses to put out is what he's into at the moment and I don't think you'd be able to tell if he made it now or 10 years ago so I really don't get that concept.

The one thing I will say that I miss is that he used to make much more serious minded music as Aphex Twin and now it seems he's been on a steady direction of more funky, kind of lighthearted music. Hard to describe, not sure that "serious" quite describes what I mean....just music that cut right through all nonsense with a very distinct mood or vibe. Now that mood seems a bit more randomized or indifferent.

  On 6/11/2016 at 8:28 AM, killabyte11 said:

About the original post, What does it matter when he made something if it's good? It's a pretty pointless idea. He probably has hundreds of hours of stuff in various forms of completion, in various styles. What he chooses to put out is what he's into at the moment and I don't think you'd be able to tell if he made it now or 10 years ago so I really don't get that concept. The one thing I will say that I miss is that he used to make much more serious minded music as Aphex Twin and now it seems he's been on a steady direction of more funky, kind of lighthearted music. Hard to describe, not sure that "serious" quite describes what I mean....just music that cut right through all nonsense with a very distinct mood or vibe. Now that mood seems a bit more randomized or indifferent.

Wow, well said. I know exactly what you're talking about. His recent material has seemed less intentional--more intuitive. While there are incredible experiments , atmospheres and textures, there are less "songs" and melodys it seems. I would love to hear something along the lines of or inspired by ab3 track 1 or alberto basalm in terms of those explorative melodic cadences and euphoric chord structures with that aphex darkness and intensity injected in. I will say i miss that aspect. But his recent output more than makes up for that, as his tracks are always pleasing no matter what kind of aphex it is.

Yes, I guess i would describe it as music that cuts right to the bone in a very direct and deliberate way. Whether it was the lighthearted, childlike material or heavy, abrasive stuff there was a certain sincerity there while still being fun. Not that the newer stuff doesn't have any of that, it just seems more like playing around with random surface ideas and moods....doesn't delve into the depths.

I think he's still very good. Well i dont think Syro tops The Tuss, RDJ album or SAW85-92, but still its a very strong record. What i do miss is the innocence/candid (bits of easy listening influence or cheesy stuff at times) mood of his earlier records but i guess its pretty complicated to remain innoncent/candid after 35 !

Jesus christ

XMAS_EVET10 and 4bit

Close thread

i would have thought so, yes

He's gonna mellow out due to age and family stuff, so perhaps the mental, trippy tunes may not happen anymore.