Saving The Date

Had this scheduled for a while, normally I like to do these date posts for a quick stopgap, but as I'm sure you're aware it has been a hot minute since I've been around (more on that at the end) - so I figured I'd expand it out to somethin' a little bigger. Let's go.

Today we're talking Drukqs, the sort of black sheep of Aphex Twin's discography, and for a long time the last proper full length album from the man until Syro. Hefty in length - 30 tracks over 2 discs (rising to 34 with some bonuses if you snag the donwloadable version from AFX's Warp page), though some of them debatably shouldn't count towards that number - track 13 Aussois being 13 seconds of distant voices, Bit 4 is similar but with a two note warble. But I digress, we're here to talk about the flipside of the album, twinned with the usual Drill 'n' Bass you'll expect from Aphex are a fair few beautiful Piano interludes.

And we may as well start with by far and away the most famous of the lot and the namesake for this post - Avril 14th. Even those not into Aphex at all will probably have heard this in some format: it's been sampled a lot in addition to appearing in a wide variety of media, TV shows and other miscellaneous avenues. It's a perfect demonstrator of this side to the album - achingly beautiful and lovingly recorded in a way that you can hear lots of incredible small details on a close listen. It's not my favourite of this type of tracks on Drukqs, but it's one I will always stop and listen to if it comes up.



I'm going to jump around the tracklist a bit and shine a light on some of my choice picks from the list - the album actually opens with one, the comparatively noisy Jynweythek. Sporting an almost eastern influence in parts, it's very different from Avril while retaining that same overall sound. My favourite Aphex Twin tracks have always had a strong melodic component, it's something that he excels at, and Jynweythek has it in spades. It might not be dripping in acid or backed with ludicrous snare rushes, but something about it remains identifiably Aphex.



Drukqs feels like a very personal album - sometimes in very obvious ways - Lornaderek being a voicemail recording from Richard's Mum & Dad on his Birthday (Currently I am being pained by the realisation I am now older than him at the time of this album's release), the track titles heavily featuring a lot of Cornish language, the region where Richard grew up. Of course, the Piano songs have this inherent pang of nostalgia to them - but one that stands out most of all to me is QKThr, the sole organ track of the key-focused side of the album invokes coastal scenes effortlessly.



Retutning to more Avril adjacent territory next. The opening melody of Strotha Tynhe is one of the first to come to mind when I think of these tracks. Which is a little odd as it only really appears the once, the rest of the runtime flirts with returning to the same, but always with a slight variation. In my more arty moments I might say it's a fantastic depiction of the way things change over time. Very pretty either way.



Looping back around to the same sort of sound from Jynweythek for the penultimate selection. Hy A Scullyas Lyf Adhagrow might be near enough my favourite of the bunch, short and sweet but I could loop it a couple of times and be just as happy. Once again a great showcase of Richard's ear for melody, it's a very pretty listen, the ending note puts a nice full stop to things, would have made a nice end to disc 1 on it's own but there's another Piano tune that follows it.



The actual closing track on the other hand, Nanou2 is just sublime. Very understated compared to some of the other examples here, it shares little in common with it's prequel (that being Nanou from the Windowlicker EP), though that is also a lovely little bit of melodic machinations from Richard. Wonderfully structured and perfectly placed on the tracklist, it's one I can come back to time and time again and it never bores. Simply wonderful.



And that'll about do it for today, apologies again for the long abscence - it sounds cliché to say but I plain don't have as much time as I used to. I am going to try and make an effort to be around more, I have tons of ideas for posts but putting pen to paper (or rather, fingers to keys) is the hard part. If the day does come when I decide to stop completely I will be sure to say so and not just go full ghost. Until next time, as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Animation Blues

About finished up my latest video project, and got time to get stuck into a project that stuck out in my inbox about a week ago. Now some introduction: the worlds of Jazz and electronic music may seem like odd bedfellows, but there's plenty of influence to be seen: from the Lounge meets Drum & Bass combo from the E-Z Rollers, combined with more of a trip hop feel from Red Snapper, the often frantic bass guitar work from Squarepusher to the more experimental parts of Flying Lotus' Cosmogramma, and again on the Ideas+Drafts+Loops tape.



Why do I bother setting that up you say? Well this is exactly more of that, albeit leaning more on the jazz side than the electronics. There's a lot of piano work on here too, but if it's good enough for Aphex Twin then it's good enough for Mr. James (And if I could play I'd make use of it too).

Maybe a little out of leftfield for our usual posting, but there's some highlights to be sure. Tracks 2 & 3 show off some lovely Downtmepo/Trip Hop and Indie-ish electronic respectively, and I'd recommend you start there for a perfect summary of the vibe here. (Also be aware the player starts on track 6 from some reason) I can definitely see some good stuff coming out of Mr. James' camp in future, particularly if he takes it in a more Hip Hop / Tip Hop direction but then again I am biased. Regardless, get stuck in, and I'll see you in a couple days!

-Claude Van Foxbat

Gloomy Sundays Vol. II

Another week, another weekend session to sit down and get sad. Not sure if Adam's gonna knock up some for ya as well but here we go with my picks.

Alex Colville - Pacific (1967)

More Dania Shapes, where here OPN apes long time buddy and sometimes collaborator Tim Hecker with a piano piece. I recall seeing OPN say somewhere he loves Pianos, and one of the first tracks he recorded as OPN called Grief And Repetition shows this off well. This one is a solid addition to that lineage, sounds like a lo-fi Nanou 2 from Aphex Twin's Drukqs



No mention of ambient is complete without the grandfather of all Ambient as we know it today. Eno has a lot of Ambient under his belt, this one is taken from the soundtrack he made for NASA's documentary For All Mankind. A few times on the album Eno injects some Americana via a country sounding guitar, think The KLF's Madrugada Eterna only more spacey.



And finally with Röyksopp announcing a return to the dark and and introspective end of their conventional studio albums with their upcoming and suitably moody titled The Inevitable End let's look back on their last full on ambient release Senior. I remember most of the tracks here being warm sounding, but right at the end things take a very cold turn indeed. It may not be the best track on the LP, but I can't think of a better way to say goodbye.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Snowpocalypse

The first winter snow of the new year fell yesterday in the great city of Chicago. Ever since I moved here over the summer I knew this day would come; the season everyone has been warning me about, "The Chicago winter". I'm not even a full month into it and already it's absolutely miserable. Canadian Drone and Ambient artist Tim Hecker is going to make it a lot worse.

Heckers music is hard to describe in words because it's a very emotional listen. To me it's like a midnight blizzard: cold, howling and swirling, dreadful, introspective, and ultimately beautiful. It's hard to choose which tracks to recommend since each of his albums have different moods and should be listened to in their entirety.

The first track is from the album Ravedeath 1972. A majority of the album was written with pipe organ in an Icelandic cathedral, so everything sounds distant, old, and suffocating. The track starts off abrasive and grainy, but then a melody starts to form, and then pulsates in this breathtaking track.  

The next track is from the follow up album Virgins. Virgins, is a lot more in your face. Louder tracks that are very jarring, surreal, and absolutely depressing. The track black refraction is one of the quietest and loneliest spots on the album so its easy to recommend  I could go on and on about how I love the piano loop that gets distorted, the haunting noises in the far corners... But instead you'll just have to listen for yourself and check out the rest of his work.

-Adam

A Very Warped History 9: 2001 (1 Of 2)

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2001. Aphex Twin releases the long awaited sequel to the cult classic Richard D. James Album. Press reaction was somewhat mixed upon release, something tells me they were expecting RDJ Album 2.0 (and rule #1 of Aphex Twin is never expect anything). So when it came to picking up this album about a year ago I had the press were telling me it was a letdown, and a friend of mine actually said not to bother with it. But my mind was saying "hey, it's Aphex it can't be THAT bad right? Besides, I've bought a few albums that the press didn't much care for that weren't all that bad". And with that, I dove straight in without even listening to any of the tracks.



Drukqs, while not his "best" album (certainly his longest, clocking in at 30 tracks) it does have it's moments and is also arguably his most personal album, with the skittering beats and everything that makes that sound so uniqley his turned up to 11 (His reasoning being that he wanted to push the new software of 2001 to it's limits.) and the track titles being in Cornish. However these tracks that we've come to know the Twin by are intersected with some lovely poignant piano pieces, (actually programmed to be played by sequencers rather than actually "played") These pieces contrast so much with the tracks proceeding them that it shouldn't flow well at all. But it does. In fact the album OPENS with one of them.



I quite liked the atmosphere the first track gave, this was my first time listening to the album so I had no idea what was coming next. And then it hit me. the first time I listened to the album I was on a very long road trip back from the middle of the English countryside and I had to actually stop myself from grinning like a madman. All the press complaints suddenly made no sense. The mangled and cut up beats, the soft melodic synths, this was still undoubtedly Aphex Twin.



This juxtaposition of sounds continues on later tracks, for example on this one the synths lines introduced at 1:08 just sound fantastic to my ears even more so when it joins the rest of the mix. This is followed by a change in styles around 2:44 where for once Aphex adopts an almost conventional drumbeat, interjected by a brilliantly executed sample after which Aphex resumes his regular beat carving techniques, all leading up to that crescendo of noise at 3:54. A favourite of mine for sure.



Probably the most known piano based track on here, odds are you've heard Avril 14th somewhere before. But that doesn't take away any of the beauty from it, to think that something like this could come from the same guy who made Ventolin is a real testament to his musical flexibility. Oh, and be sure to listen through headphones, for this one and a few others Aphex put microphones inside the piano, so if you listen carefully, you can hear the internal mechanisms working away.



This next one... This next one. I can't even begin to describe it, it's just an eight minute journey though the mindset of Drukqs and perhaps the best track here. filled with ups downs and twists and turns. Just immerse yourself in it.





Another piano piece and the most obviously Cornish titled song on the LP there's not a real lot to say about this one, it's like the others we've heard so far, though this one is a bit more dreamy compared to the sounds on Avril 14th and Jynweythek.

Aphex Twin - Hy A Scullyas Lyf A Dhagrow


QKThr (Or Penty Harmonium, as it's called on the vinyl) bucks the trend with the piano bits, as the vinyl title suggests it's played on a harmonium instead, leading to that rustic seaside shanty sound that plays into the album's "personal" feel



Afx237 v.7 is another tune you might recognise, Chris Cunningham used it in his now infamous short film Rubber Johnny. It also breaks the trend set by other Aphex style tracks so far on the album, moving away from the tried and tested light synths and beat barrages of Vordhosbn and the like, and instead bringing a much more experimental feel to the sounds.



And topping it all off is the final track and yet another piano solo, Nanou 2. the (presumably) sequel to Nannou from the Windowlicker EP ends the LP on the same not it began on, only this is a lot more melancholic, with some sparse keys punctuating the otherwise silent track. In my mind is a perfect closing track for Drukqs, especially since it's the last we've heard from AFX in ten years (Analords excluded).



You'll notice that as we progress through the years a lot less of these releases will be tarred with the "Classic" label. Perhaps they haven't been out long enough to be considered Classic, perhaps that label was thrown around too much in the early 90's, I don't know. The latest record I saw described as a classic from Warp was Flying Lotus' Cosmogramma and while it's a good album, I don't think it's worthy of that title; It just didn't have that same connection with me like the older stuff from Warp, I don't know what it was but it was lacking that something to make it extra special. And I leave you with that thought.

Sounds Of The Post-Millenium,
- Claude Van Foxbat