Is Syro Underrated...

  On 3/1/2018 at 12:26 AM, Lane Visitor said:

I think this one will take quite a while for alot of us, me included, to fully grasp it's brilliance. I agreed on day 1 it was a production masterpiece, with some really transcending grooves and melodies at times, but it still didn't satisfy me in the way some of his more hypnotic atmposheric work does. However, I think as it agea, it will, like druqks did, take some time to settle in :)

 

This is the mark of the brilliance of a lot of his music I reckon.

 

I first listened to SYRO while on a bus trip to Hereford from Birmingham. I made notes as I listened. I didn't like it. The notes said things like "track loses the thread of the composition, too many changes going on, gets boring, doesn't  make sense. Probably the worst Aphex release yet".

 

Back home I listened to it again. Then again. Stuck on the vinyl a few times. It started sounding different... better. It grew on me. After listening for a few weeks I realised that once I got used to the twists and turns in the pieces I really enjoyed them. I remembered the first time I ever heard Aphex' music. I was around 14, at my friend's house, there was a cassette with I Care Because You Do on it, it sounded so fuckin weird I couldn't make head or tail of it. But I was fascinated by it... a few weeks later it sounded normal, and amazing. Same thing happened to a lesser extent with Richard D James album. Druqks was one I liked straight away for some reason... But Syro took a few listens.

 

The fact that he never repeats himself and comes up with something new on every album is pretty astounding. There are very few composers in any genre of music as consistently brilliant.

 

What I wonder is: is that ONLY my subjective opinion or are there some objective things we can measure to tell us whether or not any music is good or bad? Or will there, in the future, be ways we can objectively measure such things?

Ya quite, ya I see where you are with that post. That post makes so much sense to me. Twas my grandfather who always said ''music grows on you over time'' and he was a fan of Bach, Beck and many of those musicians you list in the interests bit on your profile (well, the last half of them at least, you use bebop as a bridge over from the idm depths!). The jazz music you like shows that you have varied interests of different styles. This probably won't give you closure but when someone says to you ''what music are you into, man?'' you can say ''i'm into a bit of everything. musics really subjective and takes me to a deep place, gives me these deep feelings I can't explain''

Syro isnt underated but schlitze sure as hell is

"none of the tracks on syro were multi tracked into the computer , they were all recorded live to 2 track, which is kinda insane but the way i like it.
Its done then , you have to get it right , theres no fixing it afterwards, theres no edits on any of the tracks apart from the Marchrom , which is made from multiple takes with a load of different Eventide 3000 dse fx."

-RDJ

 

Awesome interview

SYROBONKERS! Interview - Part 2

https://web.archive.org/web/20141110222421/http://noyzelab.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/syrobonkers-part2.html

  On 3/2/2018 at 8:42 PM, Schlitze said:

Ya quite, ya I see where you are with that post. That post makes so much sense to me. Twas my grandfather who always said ''music grows on you over time'' and he was a fan of Bach, Beck and many of those musicians you list in the interests bit on your profile (well, the last half of them at least, you use bebop as a bridge over from the idm depths!). The jazz music you like shows that you have varied interests of different styles. This probably won't give you closure but when someone says to you ''what music are you into, man?'' you can say ''i'm into a bit of everything. musics really subjective and takes me to a deep place, gives me these deep feelings I can't explain''

 

you're right, i am into a wide variety of music. but not jazz after 1978 or anything with distorted guitars. Or any "contemporary classical", hate most of that shit. Not into much Romantic or Classical music but Bach is the supreme master.

 

oh yeah I like Irish Traditional music but not much other kinds of traditional music. English and French folk music is shit, sorry English and French people.

 

yes it's pretty subjective what type of music you like. But I want to know if I like the music I like because there is something good about it or just because of chance. I think its the first one.

 

 

  On 3/2/2018 at 9:15 PM, diatoms said:

"none of the tracks on syro were multi tracked into the computer , they were all recorded live to 2 track, which is kinda insane but the way i like it.

Its done then , you have to get it right , theres no fixing it afterwards, theres no edits on any of the tracks apart from the Marchrom , which is made from multiple takes with a load of different Eventide 3000 dse fx."

-RDJ

 

Awesome interview

SYROBONKERS! Interview - Part 2

https://web.archive.org/web/20141110222421/http://noyzelab.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/syrobonkers-part2.html

Great! read the whole thing before, I remember it took ages to read but was totally mindblowing. couldn't understand a lot of it. so much gear.

 

forgot that bit about SYRO being recording live to 2-track. really interesting now because I just read an interview with Mark Fell where he was talking about the visual timeline being detrimental to making electronic music for him - he prefers just to use drum machines and not have a visual timeline - and it does make you think differently and make different music if you do it all with hardware. He said:

 

"My feeling was that [the timeline's] greatest strength was also its greatest weakness: namely that it encourages the producer to visually organise material over a linear time logic"

 

here's the link to the full interview (most of its a bit boring though): https://www.xlr8r.com/features/2018/01/real-talk-mark-fell/ 

 

totally makes sense that SYRO was done without any timeline. Even Druqks probably wasn't done with a traditional horizontal timeline (see the pp vimeo video

) and also I've been making music with only a drum machine as a sequencer lately and it's 10.6 times more fun than on a computer.

i remember when syro came out (fuck, almost 4 years ago??) i was going to school an hour and a half away from home, where my headphones, amp, dac etc. were. so i was listening to the album w/ sennheiser 280s and a old thinkpad which weren't up to snuff. as soon as i could i drove home for the weekend, ignored my homework and listened to syro on repeat w/ my planar magnetic headphones. i remember i had just picked up some bud too, haha. i was so immersed in the album, on the late night sunday drive home i was having these vivid audio hallucinations, more than having a song stuck in your head, where the songs from syro were automatically playing in my head in a beautiful cacophony, overlapping and blurring into each other. i've never experienced an obsession like that with an album before. in conclusion: i rate syro

cruising to some syrobonkers

 

 

I think 26 mixes for cash is underrated!

  On 3/23/2018 at 1:42 PM, Time Tourist said:

I think 26 mixes for cash is underrated!

been ages since i checked in on the old watmm and yeah 26 mixes for cash is underrated, Remix by AFX wow only goes to show that is why richard david james is richard david james, Oh to keep it on the threads trend then yeah Syro is underrated... I mean that by all you and loads of other wanted a lot of the tunes that is on syro but still complain... Get a grip...

  On 3/23/2018 at 1:42 PM, Time Tourist said:

I think 26 mixes for cash is underrated!

 

now we dance

 

  On 3/23/2018 at 1:42 PM, Time Tourist said:

I think 26 mixes for cash is underrated!

yes

 

I listen to it way more often than any track off syro..

Following random YouTube vids after the ones in the SyroBonkers interview, found this tune, pretty cool vibe:

 

  On 3/23/2018 at 1:42 PM, Time Tourist said:

I think 26 mixes for cash is underrated!

damn right it is!

  On 3/23/2018 at 9:24 PM, cloud capture said:

 

  On 3/23/2018 at 1:42 PM, Time Tourist said:

I think 26 mixes for cash is underrated!

 

now we dance

 

 

aye 26 mixes is easily in my top 3 aphex releases

 

also, i would love a dmx and afx album full of detailed pop

aisatsana is kind of genius. trippy as fuck and amazing how good it sounds given how simple it is

  On 3/25/2018 at 4:34 PM, very honest said:

aisatsana is kind of genius. trippy as fuck and amazing how good it sounds given how simple it is

Agree, I wake up to it every morning :) 

I wish xmas_eve's funky intro bassline was a whole song by itself

Is Mark Zuckerberg underrated?

  On 3/25/2018 at 4:34 PM, very honest said:

aisatsana is kind of genius. trippy as fuck and amazing how good it sounds given how simple it is

Very true, such a lovely song. Still don’t think it really fits in on Syro, but the album is still great no matter. Need to give it a listen today I think.

  On 3/23/2018 at 1:42 PM, Time Tourist said:

I think 26 mixes for cash is underratedsampled!

Fixed that for ya

  On 3/23/2018 at 1:42 PM, Time Tourist said:

I think 26 mixes for cash is underrated!

Yeah, has to be at least 30!