Old Aphex Twin demotapes

I've been trying to somewhat organise what we know about these.  Did I miss anything?

• Untitled, 4 tracks
• Untitled, 6 tracks
• Untitled, 14 tracks
• Untitled, about 16 tracks

ooooh r these legit legit? never heard of these 

During the soundcloud dump madness there were a few oldschool mates of his who posted photo's of the tapes they got from him back in the day with handscribbled track titles. Not really demo's I'd reckon, just giving out various random tracks to mates? One of them I recall was Manuel Sepulveda, who was the face of Bradley Strider back in the day:

https://www.instagram.com/p/4E7BKIKBGL/?taken-by=manu_sepu

Here are a few:

Serious Tunes For Nice People:

https://www.instagram.com/p/yXOI1TqBK4/?taken-by=manu_sepu

https://www.instagram.com/p/yXN1qNqBKZ/?taken-by=manu_sepu

https://www.instagram.com/p/yXNvEsqBKN/?taken-by=manu_sepu

New Chapter: 

https://www.instagram.com/p/yXNqZ1qBKG/?taken-by=manu_sepu

Bonus features: 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BL339dohcgi/?taken-by=manu_sepu

https://www.instagram.com/p/BL34PIYBXro/?taken-by=manu_sepu

I remember at least one other person posting pics of another tape or two, so. Some of them we got, some of them we didn't, or maybe we did but with different titles. Hard to say, don't get your hopes up anyway.

oh i do actually remember seeing those insta posts, really nice seeing those orig pressings come out of the woodwork.

  On 8/23/2017 at 12:59 AM, Herr Jan said:

Not really demo's I'd reckon, just giving out various random tracks to mates?

True.  I'm not sure what the term is for them.  They're not really promos either.  Or mixtapes.  Just... tapes of your own music, given to your friends.

My ghost will rest easy if I hear Clitorol Stimulai and Confessions of a Mad Twat

  On 8/23/2017 at 1:52 AM, clarktrent said:

 Clitorol Stimulai 

how to eat powsi with richard d james

  On 8/23/2017 at 2:00 AM, Bodhidharma said:

 

  On 8/23/2017 at 1:52 AM, clarktrent said:

 Clitorol Stimulai 

how to eat powsi with richard d james

 

damn, i thought there were downloads.. :p

Can not play them at all.. that musicbrainz site is really weird. 

  On 8/23/2017 at 10:54 AM, cern said:

Can not play them at all.. that musicbrainz site is really weird. 

It's not a site with files, it's musicbrainz– like a big dick metadata database

I'd say these are in the vein of "tapes given to mates", but note that he was aware that his stuff could be nicked, so he kept the quality of the recordings "minimal", and provided contact info (I suppose in the case one of these tapes made it to a label head).

I'd love it if Mike P would provide more info on the 11 C-90s (of which I assume some of these tapes are) of material Richard gave to mates to play in their cars (and some of which would eventually wind up as Selected Ambient Works 85-92)...

There's some cool alternate names for SC tracks on the tapes from Manuel Sepulveda's instagram. Would be awesome to hear some of these as playlists - seems like mostly a mix of stuff that got released, and stuff from thr SC dump

  On 8/23/2017 at 4:40 PM, Joyrex said:

I'd say these are in the vein of "tapes given to mates", but note that he was aware that his stuff could be nicked, so he kept the quality of the recordings "minimal", and provided contact info (I suppose in the case one of these tapes made it to a label head).

Didn't he go lo-fi for the simple pleasure of it anyway though?  From the Syrobonkers interview:

  Quote

...when my recording equip was crap, I used to try and make it even crapper , like use the worst rusty leads, crap cassettes etc etc everything on worst or lo sampling rates...

 

Low fidelity's character building, if you want to go that way.

(I've been looking at some of his tracks' spectrograms lately, and it's funny to see how many are obviously either Compact Cassette, DAT longplay, or Compact Cassette format shifted to DAT longplay, with no reconstruction filter to speak of when playing it back so you get all these reflections above 16kHz... and then people talk about how great it sounds, how it must be at least really high quality chrome tapes, and how they're itching to get 24-bit or vinyl versions for the supposed boost in quality...)

I think the music's more important than the recording process, or at least making the recordings technically worse makes them more cosy...

  On 8/23/2017 at 6:02 PM, ZoeB said:

I think the music's more important than the recording process, or at least making the recordings technically worse makes them more cosy...

Yep. It took me a few years working in studios and then another five or six working for a label to finally give up worrying about the process, the release format, sample rates, compression rates and a thousand other technicalities and just worry about whether the music was shit or great and whether the way it's released is interesting or deathly dull. So give me the Soundcloud dump over twelve tracks on a plastic disc every few years every tme.

I certainly agree about how lo-fi gives a charm to some music - and as Zoe mentioned, the music itself is the point.

One thing I could never understand about Richard's music (and electronic music in general) is it sounds very "flat" - most pop music has great stereo separation, panning, etc. whereas most electronic music lacks that and has a barely perceivable stereo mix on a lot of tracks. Is it just me, or does anyone else notice that?

Or is it because pop music is overproduced? Either way, I think setting the source material aside, pop music sounds better to my ears sonically than a lot of electronic music, which in my mind should be the opposite.

  On 8/25/2017 at 6:06 PM, Joyrex said:

One thing I could never understand about Richard's music (...) is it sounds very "flat" - most pop music has great stereo separation, panning, etc.

I completely disagree, most of his stuff post Drukqs is 3D as fuck!

  On 8/25/2017 at 6:45 PM, psn said:

 

  On 8/25/2017 at 6:06 PM, Joyrex said:

One thing I could never understand about Richard's music (...) is it sounds very "flat" - most pop music has great stereo separation, panning, etc.

I completely disagree, most of his stuff post Drukqs is 3D as fuck!

 

Yup.  Syro and Cheetah are perfect examples of this.  Though maybe that has to do with newer mastering techniques?

The further outside of dance music you get, the more the stereo field is used, I've found. Artists like Holly Herndon, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, and Koen Holtkamp etc. Although I've always found AFX's post-SAW85-92 output to be pretty expansive and rich (pun intended).

Seems to me that POP music, given its wide reach, was treated more as an institution where you have a team of people working with the "artist" to create something that will appeal to the widest audience possible. And therefore, it needed to be mastered professionally so that sonic integrity is preserved across a wide range of consumer listening equipment. Electronic music (and artists featured on this forum) came from the underground / DIY type mentality, where the music / feel / (and in the case of dance music) ability to ramp people up came first-- not so much the "consumer" based "product" end-goal of pop music. 

Plus it's generally made for da club

  On 8/25/2017 at 7:53 PM, Lada Laika said:

The further outside of dance music you get, the more the stereo field is used, I've found.

It's used loads in psytrance too.

  On 8/27/2017 at 7:27 AM, Rotwang said:

 

  On 8/25/2017 at 7:53 PM, Lada Laika said:

The further outside of dance music you get, the more the stereo field is used, I've found.

It's used loads in psytrance too.

 

What psytrance could you recommend me Rotwang? I don't see it discussed much besides rubbish genre bashing on the net (especially around braindance forums ahem) and would love some out there recommendations :) 

  On 9/17/2017 at 12:01 PM, chronical said:

What psytrance could you recommend me Rotwang? I don't see it discussed much besides rubbish genre bashing on the net (especially around braindance forums ahem) and would love some out there recommendations :)

Don't want to derail the thread, I'll write you a PM.

  On 9/17/2017 at 1:55 PM, Rotwang said:

  On 9/17/2017 at 12:01 PM, chronical said:

Don't want to derail the thread, I'll write you a PM.

Thanks :) 

Also sorta on topic, I wonder if this is on one of the tapes: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpWwtYo9V5s

there's also this, which I'd love to have an ID of if it's not AFX.. sorta psytrancey too!