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The Legend of Richard D. James
It feels good to have a new double-CD of Aphex Twin in your hands. Thoughts eventually wander to a time around 1992-1994, when the fan of Richard James' music was bombarded at an amazing rate by his releases under a host of different names. Then, after the 1996 'Richard D. James' album, he seemed gone, ominously telling interviewers he was thinking of retiring from music, saying he didn't feel the need to release music he made. And so at record stores one would, over a period of five years, overhear a desperate query in regards to a possible release date of "the new Aphex". One local record store even went so far as to sarcastically write on its upcoming release date board behind Aphex Twin: 2005. Finally replacing it with a terse: "never!".
You feel the case, study the front: no Aphex logo on the cover, gone are the scary faces, and it appears under a strange one word title that only starts to make sense when you speak it out aloud. You wonder if it really ought to be here. Certainly James in recent interviews has been playing his trickster role again, claiming the album is a result of him losing an MP3 player with over 100 of his tracks on a plane and deciding he might as well release the best tracks before they would turn up on the internet. And sometimes the album feels like a mixed bag thrown together from tapes of different periods just to satisfy demand (or, whisper it: make a quick buck). In short, we will return to the threads that run through the album, which are woven far tighter than one realizes after a casual listen, but somehow 'Drukqs' also feels haunted by a sense of closure, a visit to and reinterpretation of past models, and, through the piano tracks going full circle by apparently stripping the music of all technology, leaving only melody, confronting and embracing, instead of killing, the Father. In the case of the prince of ambient, the figure of Erik Satie.
Childhood Utopia
What is it with Warp artists and their obsession with childhood? Squarepusher's overactive practical jokes, Boards of Canada's 70s soccer kids getting lost in the suburbs, Autechre homing in on the pure feeling of childlike wonder, and Aphex Twin, somehow even when pushing 30, resembling a smart kid more than anything approaching an adult. On the new album, 'Lornaderek' is nothing more than James' parents singing 'Happy Birthday' on his answering machine. After a couple of listens you start to realize how essential it is in prying open 'Drukqs', how it in some way feels naïve and uncanny at the same time: his parents sounding more like singing fairytale bears, his mother congratulating "my little 28-year old son". The message is positioned between 'Drukqs'' most melancholic tracks, the slow organ of 'Qkthr' conjuring afternoons lost in child-like reverie, while the beautiful 'Btoum Roumada' is the sound of snow falling, slowly returning the world to its original magical state. Elsewhere, as on the manic jungle track 'Ziggomatic 17', samples of old video games blast their way through the whirlwinds of beats.
Why this obsession with the child? Does it have a relation with technology (the sampler, the video game)? Are we certain that our memories of youth are real? Or is it just a generational fascination: the feeling that the general naiveté of the 70s conduced a temporary children's utopia, now lost forever? Or is it more of a continuation of a certain Romantic sensibility that values the magical perception of the child as the true way to see the world?
A Best Of Tracks You Have Never Heard Before
'Drukqs' as a gesture to fans is almost friendly without precedence: Every aspect of the Aphex Twin sound up till now is present; no one can possibly be disappointed this way. There are 'Richard D. James'-style jungle tracks, 'Analogue Bubblebath'-style electro tracks, weird industrial sound-poems in the style of 'Selected Ambient Works II', and some techno tracks with 'Selected Ambient Works 85-92'-style melodies. And, for those of us who expect something new, there are the stunning "impossible" piano tracks scattered throughout the album (Apparently James found a way to trigger the piano through his laptop, thereby finding combinations of notes that are physically unplayable, yet, for all its tech-wizardry, extremely beautiful.). As with 'Richard D. James', I'm not too keen on the jungle tracks, although now that I don't feel the gravitational pull of purist jungle culture circa 1996, they are far more enjoyable. It still isn't proper jungle, but it helps that the bass sounds are far deeper this time around, especially on the great '54 Cymru Beats'. Another highlight in this style is 'Omgyja Switch', which uses sampled whips as hi-hats and in its cartoony intensity of sound reminds me of Butthole Surfers doing a jungle track. 'Ziggomatic 17' finally makes you realize how to listen to these tracks: as the imagined soundtracks of old arcade games when you reach higher levels and everything just speeds up.
Between the poles of manic jungle and serene piano tracks some real gems are to be found. 'Bbydhyonchord' and 'Taking Control' are the most conventional Aphex Twin tracks, sounding like outtakes from the Polygon Window album. More demanding are the dark ambient tracks that invoke Edward Burke's sublime as "a sort of delightful horror, a sort of tranquility tinged with terror." 'Prep Gwarlek 36' and 'Ruglen Holon' are neat examples of industrial gamelan, while 'Kladfvgbungmicshk' is driven by a mad clockwork rhythm through which occasional piano melodies try to find a way out. The intense 'Gwarek 2' is a long sound painting built out of gasps, female screams pulling away into the void, hums, little reversals, metal sounds, and the sound of sneakers in a sport hall. Even better, and early contender for the absolute highlight of the collection, is 'Gwety Mernans', where a bass-echo keeps pounding away until finally a beautiful dark melody is threaded through. The stuff bad dreams are made of. All in all a very rewarding collection of aural treasures to keep the Aphex-addict happy for some time. Still, one wonders what must become of us when he really decides to quit distributing his drukqs?
http://www.kindamuzik.net/recensie/aphex-twin/drukqs/1156/
Meer Aphex Twin op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/aphex-twin
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