I Care Because You Do 25th Anniversary.....

  On 4/27/2020 at 1:45 AM, aencre said:

What’s missing from this discussion is the indisputable fact that this is also his best album cover.

I did mention the cover earlier tbf

Goes to my top 5 releases. Top 3 from aphex, only Drukqs and SOSW go ahead. So much love for each track, especially Acrid Avid Jam Shred, Come On You Slags, Start As You Meant To Go On, Mookid.....

Really loved the story on Sekonda

"'94 ish

there was this track, icct hedral and another tht i wrote after coming down off microdots, i was off my face walking around london and i just wanted to hear these tracks so bad and had the cassette in my pocket,the player i had just died and i just walked into a shop and bought this walkman with the last money I had, was really tweaking , they were fuckin expensive but it was sooooo worth it.. no decent food for a few weeks but sony pro walkman in the bag!'"

Good call on the similarities between SAW II and ICBYD, I've thought the same thing. As for tracks with ICBYD feel in them, need to add these to the ones mentioned earlier:

  On 4/27/2020 at 5:47 PM, apriorion said:

My 10th grade psych teacher asked me what I was listening to, and I'll never forget how shocked she was when I showed her the CD: "Oh, my goodness! That is a horrible, ugly man!" I asked her why she thought that, but she just laughed. Sweet old lady. 

My niece who is 7 years old, and is usually impeccably behaved (so I don't have to put locks on doors for the fear of her smashing, and tearing things up, unlike me at that age, so I'm told) had obviously been lurking through my vinyl records and walked into the living room and said rather sweetly but with a mild tone of terror asked: "Steven?...Who is this really nasty guy?!"

She had in her hands ICBYD 

Listened to this last night with a date who had never heard it, in separate rooms.  She really liked it!  I thought for sure she's need a time out on Ventolin, but instead she was commenting on how the background sounds reminded her of being a swimming pool.  The album gets stronger as it progresses for me.  First two tracks kind of set the tone, and then goes some pretty interesting places from there.  I like how raw everything sounds, and the highlighting of abrasive high frequency sounds.  Sounds like nothing else out there, and is extremely bold in its sonic pallet.  

Also, funny side note, after listening my date said "are these the guys that do Come to Daddy?"  Fuck yeah they are.  The sampling of horns and strings seemed to resonate with her too, took her back to her orchestra days.

Thanks Rich!

  On 4/27/2020 at 9:32 PM, Zephyr_Nova said:

Listened to this last night with a date who had never heard it, in separate rooms.  She really liked it!  I thought for sure she's need a time out on Ventolin, but instead she was commenting on how the background sounds reminded her of being a swimming pool.  The album gets stronger as it progresses for me.  First two tracks kind of set the tone, and then goes some pretty interesting places from there.  I like how raw everything sounds, and the highlighting of abrasive high frequency sounds.  Sounds like nothing else out there, and is extremely bold in its sonic pallet.  

Also, funny side note, after listening my date said "are these the guys that do Come to Daddy?"  Fuck yeah they are.  The sampling of horns and strings seemed to resonate with her too, took her back to her orchestra days.

Thanks Rich!

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You had a date in separate rooms? Kinky!

Very.  We had a date mostly in her backyard.  I was drunk, it was pouring with rain, and the prospect of walking an hour and a half back to my place looked grim.  So she offered me a bed in her guest room.  I mentioned listening to the 25th anniversary of this album that had really influenced me, and she wanted to "virtually join in".  So she did.

  On 4/27/2020 at 12:25 AM, killabyte11 said:

As a producer, I've always been super intrigued by the equipment that he might have used to make this album.  Anyone who might have any info on that, feel free to chime in.  I've read somewhere that one of the things he used was a Sequential Circuits Studio 440... which is a sampler/sequencer similar to the Akai MPC-60, but it's 12 bit so a little grittier sounding.  It can be seen in the video below.  I'm guessing the other gear seen there might have been used as well, Korg MS-20, Alesis Quadraverb....as well as stuff that was used on Selected Ambient Works II such as the Yamaha CS-5.  A lot of the more organic sounds, strings etc.. were likely samples.

 

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Lots of percussion routed through the filter of the ms20 with the resonance up giving the distinctive metallic ting iirc

Love this album so much, and got even better with all the store add ons. 

Sekonda is one of my fav aphex tracks. Cannot until this day understand it didn't make the album or a release on its own. 

Anyhow, it took me awhile to 'get' this album, one day I heard what he had done, combining the soft melodies of ambient music with the crazy hectic drums. That moment for me was mind blowing. 
Think my fav track is Start as you mean to go on. 

  On 4/27/2020 at 10:45 PM, Time Tourist said:

Sekonda is one of my fav aphex tracks. Cannot until this day understand it didn't make the album or a release on its own. 

Yeah, this!  I listened to the bonus tracks again this morning, and after 20 seconds of that track was like "WTF how was this not included?"  One of the highlights of that era for sure.

  On 4/27/2020 at 10:21 PM, Brian Dance said:

Lots of percussion routed through the filter of the ms20 with the resonance up giving the distinctive metallic ting iirc

Cool.  Did you read that somewhere?  I forgot to mention the Casio FZ-1/FZ-10M which he was known to use around that time.  I have both an MS-20 and an FZ-10M.  The Casio has quite a nice, unique sounding filter.

Cover looks even funnier collapsed

If this had been a double album and included all those bonus tracks at the time... fuck, could you imagine?

It would have been hailed as the best electronic album of all time. (I feel more "balanced" now with the extras...)

We had to wait HOW LONG to finally hear Sekonda?  goddamn

sekonda has spiritual healing powers...

  Quote

94 ish

there was this track, icct hedral and another tht i wrote after coming down off microdots, i was off my face walking around london and i just wanted to hear these tracks so bad and had the cassette in my pocket,the player i had just died and i just walked into a shop and bought this walkman with the last money I had, was really tweaking , they were fuckin expensive but it was sooooo worth it.. no decent food for a few weeks but sony pro walkman in the bag!

Yes Steve Reich vibes 4 sure, was very interesting meeting him a couple of years ago, he REALLY wanted to release my Pendulum array re-work which was a huge compliment on nonsuch but i never got around to sorting it out... Had an initial super good long conversation with him in Poland, picked each others brains and kind of forget where we were..still got lots of things buzzing around inside my head from it..but then we said our goodbyes thinking we would probably never meet each other again but was really funny/odd because my girlfriend and I just KEPT bumping into him, party in a polish bar, around the festival, the airport lounge, transport bus, on the plane in the arrival lounge, it got really embarrasing, by the end I was like look im fucking sick of seeing your face mate!

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Late 90s--I tried playing Aphex Twin for people my age and they couldn't follow the beat, buncha lamers. I played the opening track of ICBYD for my folks and they were dancing around--but I guess they had more of a musical and jazz background. It was hilarious though

I keep debating buying the double album online version, but like, I already have a copy on wax and cd so.. how many copies...

I first discovered Aphex via the NIN 'remix' in 95, so this was my very first purchase a week or two later.  It was October-ish, and I'll always associate this record with dropping temperatures and warm drinks.  My favorite album changes all the time, but best album opener ever seems to be a lock.  Also agree about the best artwork of all time.  It strikes an absolutely perfect balance of warm and unnerving.  His expression is perfect for what you're about to hear, and I always get excited just seeing the art.  

I love this album way too much. My top favorite is Drukqs and this album comes after it.

I also imagine; what if we got the extra tracks on the album (on release), how cool would THAT be?

It would have blew minds even more if that happened back then and to be honest, even with its vanilla status it still blows minds of both new listeners and people that come back to it.

I just love the whole album with its extra tracks and can't choose any favorite track in particular because they are all so good.

Great thread Killabyte. Here are some ICBYD memories of mine:

I was already a big fan, had most of the CD stuff he'd released so far, had loved the Ventolin EPs. Had heard there was an album coming but this was before the internet really got going (the internet was there, but it was full of monty python jokes and all unorganised) so you had to buy the NME or whatever to find out what was coming out and so there was always an air of mystery about when things would appear.

Was in Bristol and thought I'd wander into a record shop to see if I could find the new Aphex album. Saw this big display of album art with loads of big pictures of some long haired dude's face and assumed it was some heavy metal or something, ignored it and went flicking through the CD racks to see if I could find the new album ... eventually realised that the big display _was_ the new aphex album.

Listened to it in my room at Uni. It was the holidays and I was still there for some reason or other so the place was largely deserted. Spooky.

And a funny thing, given where we're all at now: There was a big Ebola outbreak in Zaire (as it was then) at that time - spring/summer 1995. This was the first time Ebola had really made international news in a big way so it was pretty scary, it got a lot of attention and it did seem like it might get out of control. In my head Icct Hedral really got linked with my fears of a pandemic. I literally couldn't listen to Icct Hedral for a long time, its such a bad trip sound.

(and since that time, a pandemic has been one of my biggest fears, we had close calls in 2002, 2009 etc. But weirdly now that one is happening I feel a kind of relief, like having to face a fear and then adjusting to it)

Took me years to realise that a lot of the track names are anagrams - of "Aphex Twin", " Caustic Window", "Richard D James" etc.

So Acrid Avid Jam Shred - I really love it but (and killabyte will probably come and kick my arse for saying this) the bit at about 4:36 when it all drops back to the beat always seemed a bit like RDJ couldn't think of what to do next so just started the track again. Its one of those tracks where theres lots of looping segments built on top of each other, and then the question becomes how many layers can you have, and its a really effective technique, makes for a compelling listen, but then with all the repetition it becomes hard to move the track forward onto something else.

Some tracks I couldn't really deal with the dischord or the off-rhythm stuff (Waxen Pith, Wax the Nip, Wet Tip Hen Ax) so I didn't listen to them much at the time and havent listened to them much since, might be interesting to go and check them out again (Killabyte is probably hunting me down as I type this)

I formed a deep appreciation of Mookid a few years later when it was my 'alarm clock' wake up tune, would listen to it as I woke, its got a very deep beauty to it.

Next Heap With always seemed really interesting because its got a proper 'song' structure with different sections, and it uses orchestral sounds and key changes. I always took the track title to be RDJ saying 'the next heap of tracks from me are going to have more structure and less repetition'. And that did seem to happen in a way. Or it could just be that the title was just an anagram of "The Aphex Twin" and I'm reading too much into it.

So yeah a great album, and also it kindof set up the patterns of 'what is an Aphex Twin album like?' because the previous ones, SAW 1 and SAW 2, although great, were the odd ones out when you look at what came after - SAW 1 being more like a complation, and SAW 2 being more like a high concept art piece. So, say, the Richard D James album and Drukqs, for example, although they are very different, have more in common with ICBYD than they do with SAW 1 or 2.

Soon after we had the Donkey Rhubarb EP and although Donkey Rhubarb was fun but a bit tiring, this bought us Pancake Lizard which for a long time was the favourite track of a lot of people here and is still a big favourite of mine.

I think I mustve heard ICBYD late 2001, and was pretty much blown away. I'd already heard CTD/Windowlicker/Drukqs and was working my way backwards through the discog.

The first time he'd used proper strings which really add a level of prestige to tracks like Acrid Avid & Wax The Nip.. Surprising (tr)hip hop vibes throughout which he rarely returns to now. Lots of tracks employ the ol' classic Idm trope of juxtaposing harsh midtempo drums and fluffy synths, (which I love.) Cylobian Sunset and Tri Rep also do this in spades and came out the same year.

 Mookid & Alberto are top 10 tracks, utterly unique. Love that mad 606 being crunched through an MS-20 on Wet Tip Hen Ax. Weaker spots for me, Ventolin slightly comes off as gimmicky and Slags! is a bit of a tonal clang, shouldve been a Caustic Window track.

  On 5/6/2020 at 10:29 AM, Key said:

I think I mustve heard ICBYD late 2001, and was pretty much blown away. I'd already heard CTD/Windowlicker/Drukqs and was working my way backwards through the discog.

 

lol pretty much the exact same thing for me.  

ICBYD with the recently added tracks? Damn, the value of that album doubled. Tripled. Those extra tracks. Not that it wasn't good before. But hell, those additions.

I remember at the time of release it didn't really gel well with me though. It was a period when triphop was the thing. And this album got quite a bunch of those slower moving tracks which kinda fit that stamp, if you catch my drift. (eg acrid avid jam shred) I just wasn't into this AFX going triphop thing. But that's the thing. If you approach this album as triphop it's ...it just isn't. And it's stupid, I know. It was just the context in those days, I guess. Up until that point it was mostly techno, acid or ambient. This was a bit different in tempo. Not techno. Not ambient. What the hell!? Had to get used to it...

And with those new tracks....godly

  On 4/27/2020 at 1:45 AM, aencre said:

What’s missing from this discussion is the indisputable fact that this is also his best album art.

yeah i'd agree. unlike most of his other releases, where it feels like someone else swept in for design duties, this one is a homemade affair, which resonates with the tracks within.  Scribbled titles and the audacity to slap that painting on the front cover, which somehow straddles amateur, weirdness, and quite nice to look at at the same time

Cow Cud is a Twin is an incredible track.  Flips a cheery sample into something laid back but with a slightly twisted undertone.  And the field recording / door slamming transition into the full recording is just pure recording studio fun, keeping with the home-spun vibe the cover gives me.  Also this is one of the few tracks that seems to bridge the sounds and styles of both saw1, saw2, and icbyd, even though it was made later in the album process (1994)

  On 5/19/2020 at 9:41 AM, Sam Schofield said:

 

I know the socially accepted ranking is more like

SAW2

Drukqs

ICBYD

RDJ

Syro

SAW1

or something along those lines, but what can I do. 

  On 5/20/2020 at 11:48 AM, Sam Schofield said:

1.Saw 2 

~

Aphex twin - further down the spiral (2 tracks).

Aphex Twin: All Of Tomorrow's Parties (DJ Set 2003). Part 1 & 2. Bootleged.

~

2.Druqks 

3.Saw 1 

4.27 mixes for cash

5.I care

6.Syro?

 

 

 

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i see you’re in plymouth. i was in plymouth when this came out. at uni there from 93 to 97. virgin megastore was almost a daily visit when i took a walk around a few shops in own. this was on a listening post, with a small display with other records on besides it, at the downstairs corners small door. i’d bought everything from ‘on’ there, but this and RDJ album were too expensive for me or i just didn’t spare the cash to get them at the time. i can remember the day FSOL ISDN album came out too, with an entire display of limited discs getting pretty much sold out within a day. this was my kind of music then, and i did pick up some stuff like squarepusher plays, bubble and squeak ... lots of students were into this kind of thing then. i’ve still got my SAW2 from virgin plymouth, and i kept the receipt, too. bought day of release.

  On 5/20/2020 at 3:04 PM, Sam Schofield said:

need to give syro another litsen as a whole

I think it's one of his best. Like an Analord/drukQs blend and I like that.