Sunday 20 February 2011

A Very Warped History 7.5: 1999

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A very mini entry this time as we cover another instance of Warp gaining some mainstream popularity thanks to one of their flagship acts, Aphex Twin. The Windowlicker EP is infamous because of it's downright disturbing video (and the cover art of course). Like Aphex's other infamous video, Come To Daddy, it was directed by Chris Cunningham and is actually a big parody of how mainstream Hip Hop videos and how they portray women. And an exuse for Aphex to put his face on more things.


The full Windowlicker video (NSFW)


Onto the title track, Windowlicker is really the standout from this EP, and is probably the most accessible Aphex Twin song there is, being catchy enough to grab the casual listener, but still have that Aphex edge to it. It's also one of my favourite songs ever. Even more so when the mind melting breakdown at 4:50 drops.



The second song, reffered to as [Formula] or [Equation] by fans is well... completley strange, to the untrained ear, it's probably just noise. oh and the track's actual name is THIS:



Yeah, and to top it off, the last 10 seconds or so of the song actually contain a PICTURE of Richard's face. That's right, run the end of [Formula] through a spectrograph and you get THIS:





It's not all freaky faces and noise, mind. the last Track, Nannou is a sort of prelude to the stuff that would crop up later on Drukqs, an ambient-ish piano piece. It's one of the reasons I love Aphex, he's known for his harsh electronic beat fests, but he also makes some really nice downbeat stuff as well.



So ends Windowlicker, tune in next time where I'll be covering one of my favourite underrated Warp acts, Broadcast with their debut on Warp; The Noise Made By People.

J'aime Faire Des Croquettes Aux Chiens,
-Claude Van Foxbat

2 comments:

Silverdust said...

Windowlicker is the most amazing videoclip I've ever seen. Period.

The work Renaissance Man did on that song is pretty sick too, check it out.

Adam said...

What do you think warp would look like today if Aphex never signed with them?

Another question would be what would that label look like aphex twin hired a different director to make all his videos?

Great work as always foxbat!