Aphex Twin: drukqs The appearance of a new album by electronic genius Aphex Twin (a.k.a. Richard James) is A Very Exciting Thing. For one thing, this is his first full-length release (a double album, no less) in five years, with only an EP (1997's brilliant Come to Daddy) and a three-song single (1999's Windowlicker) to tide us over. For another, one awaits any Aphex Twin release with barely contained anticipation, for here we have a true visionary, a genuine original, somebody so creative that many of his releases have single-handedly invented new forms and genres. Each succeeding Aphex Twin album, as a rule, determines the new territory that the majority of the less dancefloor-oriented techno artists will be exploring in his wake for the next couple of years to come.
Richard James is also renowned as something of a rogue artist, with an impish sense of humour (check out his off-the-cuff nonsense replies to questions concerning the latest release at his website for evidence of this). There isn't an artist out there who is less concerned with his audience, with commercial success, media perception, etc. He regularly circulates complete fabrications about himself mixed with truth, so that it is nearly impossible to assemble any sort of coherent picture of the man or his life, and I suspect he periodically releases albums that he reckons will alienate as many people as possible, to avoid the risk of becoming overly popular.
How ironic, then, that he has achieved such legendary status, astounding critical acclaim and popularity. Aphex Twin is almost certainly the single most respected pop-electronic artist out there, and has a particularly intensely devoted fan following (stories are constantly circulating concerning some of the more extreme cases, such as the woman in Japan who insisted when she die she be buried with her Aphex Twin CDs.)
And so we come to his latest release, drukqs. The first question is, What exactly are we dealing with here? Has he staked out new territory? Has he boldly gone where no one has gone before? Well, the answer is, for once, No. The bulk of drukqs is more or less familiar terrain for Mr. James, though there is a good amount of diversity here as several more-or-less familiar Aphex styles are represented. And one thing is for certain: If no new worlds are laid out on this release, he has certainly, in retreating to the trenches, continued to refine and perfect his sounds and styles. Familiar territory, but delivered with confidence and mastery - a rock-solid slice of all (or at least many) things Aphex.
There has been some speculation surrounding the motivation for this release, as it comes after an announcement - last year or thereabouts - that he was retiring, at least temporarily. It's a year later, and he releases two hours of new music. Perhaps the whole "retiring" thing was just one of a multitude of hoaxes, yet another example of Aphex toying with his fans. Or perhaps he really has retired, but in the meantime gathered up all his unreleased tracks kicking around his hard drive and made an album out of them, which would explain the familiarity of the new pieces. He has also suggested that in fact the album is a compilation of all the tracks floating around on the Internet claiming untruthfully to be by Aphex Twin. Who knows?
I will add another possibility: Maybe this is a compilation of tracks by the multitude of friends and associates who have been particularly influenced by Aphex Twin over the years. There are a number of tracks here that, had they been played for me blind, I would have stated with perfect conviction were by Squarepusher, Aphex's friend and label-mate. There are other examples - "Taking Control" sounds more like a Luke Vibert track, with a distorted and manipulated computer voice regularly asserting, "I am totally in control of the drum machine." This is a curious reversal of things; traditionally it is Aphex Twin who does the influencing, not vice versa. But at this point, maybe it has inevitably become more of a two-way street. All this would be explained, though, if these are indeed older tracks.
Whether they are or no, they remain fantastic, even if they do push our limits and expectations slightly less than some of his previous work. A majority of the tracks here are in the frenetic, mutilated, hyperactive, spastic drum-and-bass vein, with maddeningly rapid, constantly evolving, sliced-and-diced beats constantly whipping about, and slightly abstract bleeps and and squawks racing about just as quickly. Again, this is something we've heard from Aphex before, but it remains a treat to hear him attack this territory with such skill and verve - an artist at the peak of his powers.
There are some surprising twists and turns, and some amusing details thrown in. Stand-out tracks include the unstoppable madness of "Cock/ver 10" (I was surprised to see a "Parental Advisory: Explicit Content" sticker on the front of the album - curious for an instrumental artist... Well, this is the track that earned it, as the song breaks halfway and someone yells, "Come on you cunts let's have some Aphex acid!!!"). "Gwarek 2" is a piece of avant-garde composition drawing on the work of contemporary composers like Stockhausen, Ligeti and Xenakis. The Windowlicker single had included a brief thirty-second clip of pure academic musique concrete, perhaps thrown in just to prove he could do it (and thus confirming the belief of people like myself that he is fully versed in the repertoire), and "Gwarek 2" takes up where this left off. Conversely, many of the sound bites used for that bit on Windowlicker are recycled into a more straight-up drum-and-bass number here, "54 Cymru Beats," which opens disc 2 and is a mindbending treat, with its wild "Whee!" samples and an indecipherable computer voice mumbling something about vampyres, or maybe "veepyres" or something along those lines... The pace of this track keeps upping the ante, slamming into a randomized acid sequence, then moving on to a passage of hyper-edited machine screech that is not for the weak of heart. Another highlight is "Meltplace 6," which sounds like the whimsical analog musings of Boards of Canada grafted to a Luke Vibert-style hyperactive funk beat.
The surprise here, though, is that a good third of the tracks explore a melodic, somewhat ambient vein, the majority for piano. While ambient territory is nothing new to Aphex Twin - for example, his collection Ambient Works Vol. 2 helped to define the genre, and certainly took it to new places - we would usually expect electronic textures from him. Instead, there are multiple tracks of straight piano (hence the cover photography of the insides of an old upright), some of which sound like he has sampled an old, rich, out-of-tune monster and then built the track from those samples, while others sound like he is actually sitting and playing it live. While there is nothing virtuosic about these performances (another example of which is a clearly "live" hurdy-gurdy performance (?!!)), it is a surprising turn from a previously all-electronic artist (with rare exceptions, such as Philip Glass's orchestration of the track "Icct Hedral" on the Donkey Rhubarb EP). These piano tracks vary between sonorous, resonant environmental pieces and straight-forward melodic ditties. That he is able to pass back and forth between such simple piano pieces and the madness of the pneumatic-drill-gone-wild tracks is a remarkable achievement. Indeed, there would appear to be some unidentifiable internal logic at work linking these seemingly irreconcilable elements, because, without any sort of link or bridge, the sudden shifts definitely work, and make a unified whole out of wildly disparate parts.
While such diversity is certainly welcome, and these surprisingly lovely pieces are perfectly charming, I do have some reservations. If anything, it is the inclusion of these pieces that marks a clear theme to this album, and while it works, I can foresee potentially being mildly disappointed if this were the direction in which he chose to progress in the future. It is a fine line between charming diversions and sappy New Age-flavoured noodling, and while there is no question he remains on the right side of the line here, he should be wary. Unlike any of the other styles in which he chooses to work, his tonal, melodic instrumental composing, while decent, isn't necessarily any better than that of many others - it is not a style at which he necessarily excels. This only becomes true when using such traditional timbres as the piano work here; elsewhere, his textural genius very effectively takes on the focus of fairly simple, straightforward compositions. But these are only qualms for the future; as far as drukqs is concerned, these pieces have a welcome place, and make for a rich and varied experience.
So, at the end of the day, perhaps not Aphex Twin's most memorable album to date. But decidedly a solid, refreshing, often exciting piece of work. Fans will in no way be disappointed, and will find Richard James in full form. As for the newcomer or the uninitiated, well... hold on tight!
Aphex Twin: drukqs. Warp/Sire Records, 2001.
Review by James Andean, BadMonkeyX. 4th issue, December 2001.