droid

September 17, 2023

There's loads of reasons to hate him, but TBH his music is pretty good, not my cup of tea, but hes clearly very talented.

As for the Eno apostasy - his last album was amazing.

September 12, 2023

21 hours ago, IDEM said:

@diatoms, everyone, pull up a chair, sit down by the open fire, get comfy, this might take a while (hey, you asked!). Truth be told, it’s not a very special story, but maybe that’s what makes it worth telling.

This is a story about three young ducklings: Huey, Dewey and me, Louie. We weren’t actual ducks, we weren’t even brothers, but, you know, there were times when it felt like we were. Brothers, I mean, not ducks. It begins in 1991 in a small town by the name of Duckburg, Germany, not far from Frankfurt, but I guess it could be situated anywhere. Or maybe it couldn’t, because to us at least, it felt like we were at the epicenter of the electronic music explosion. And Frankfurt really was a happening place at the time, with Sven Väth, Talla 2XLC, Mark Spoon, Stevie B-Zet, Ralf Hildenbeutel, Alter Ego, Heiko M/S/O, Atom Heart and the whole Omen/Eye-Q/Harthouse/Recycle or Die universe. Berlin was slowly (and a bit pathetically, to be honest) trying to catch up with Tresor and Low Spirit.

My socialisation with dance music had begun during the second summer of love in 1988, when I was recording radio shows on tape and digging tracks like "Blue Monday '88", "S-Express", "Pump up the Jam", and "This Beat Is Technotronic". The music was floating in the air, seemingly everywhere, and I plucked it from there, catching it like lightning in a bottle, listening to those tapes in my children’s bedroom while playing games on my Atari ST under the roof of our crooked little house in our provincial hamlet, population 864 (at least until ol‘ Mr. Oehler died). It was home, it was cozy, and at the same time it felt like I had the whole wide world at my fingertips. As rural as it gets, but lined with neon, that little room filled to the brim with cybernetic visions and electric dreams induced by my cheap little boombox and some William Gibson novels. The music genre, I learned from then-popular teenie magazine Bravo, was apparently called Acid House, and it was big in England. There were rumors about drugs playing an important role in "the scene". It was all very exciting. I wore a Smiley button which I think I had painted a bullet hole and a trickle of blood on with a sharpie, somehow paying homage to Acid House, Tim Burton’s Batman and Alan Moore’s Watchmen (which I hadn’t even read) at the same time.

Two or three years later, I met Huey and Dewey in high school. We were 16, united by our love for music, by wanting to be part of the movement, the spur of the moment, the sizzle in the air. We were swimming in youth like in water. Life had a shimmer to it that was not yet dulled by the trappings of daily routine.

Depeche Mode were massive. Violator dropped, and it was omni-fucking-present. We became mini-Devotees, pogo'ing in our childrens' bedrooms to "Photographic", lights out because it was cooler (and probably because we were self-conscious). But more importantly, the seeds of 1988 had bloomed into a rich hotbed of synthetic sounds, and we were making regular trips to Boy Records in Frankfurt. You could actually buy those tunes the DJ's played in the clubs and on the air – how amazing!

Our messiah was Sven Väth, our mass was the Clubnight radio show on local station hr3 (later we would worship at the altar of his legendary Omen club, but at the time, we were still much too afraid to go there. The rumors …). Like most things, we'd learned about the show from our older brothers and their friends; the internet was not even y myth, an abstract, imaginary thing like the cyberspcae from those Gibson novels at best. I taped Sven's shows and listened to them on my cheap little walkman on the way to school and during my paper routes. "My name is Barbarella …" "It's a free concert from now on …" "The end of the world is upon us …" Unbelievable that you could get all that shit for free, for you to listen, rewind and listen to as often as you wanted. The world was full of wonders.

Not long ago I had bought my very first stereo from my confirmation money, with a decent tape deck and CD player (both of which still work to this day). My first CD that I bought with it was Enigma's MCMXC A.D. (I know, I know), but the second one was Kraftwerk's Electric Café, which makes me a bit prouder. In essence, not much has changed in my musical habits over the course of the past 35 years.

Sooner or later we wanted to hear those cool new tunes in the club and were beginning to go out. On Thursday nights we went to local club "La Boom" where that guy Pascal was spinning. After months of frequenting that club, I got wind that our "Passy", the guy who'd taught us to dance, was actually the Pascal F.E.O.S. from the same Clubnight radio show, who regularly performed side-by-side with demi-god Sven Väth. I'd had no idea! My mind was blown once more. Sven himself would play the club. That night, I mustered all my courage and asked him about a certain record he was playing. In that raspy voice of his, he said "Vinyl Countdown". It was like being touched by a higher power. Much later I found out that "Vinyl Countdown" was a project of Mike Ink/Wolfgang Voigt.

We became died-in-the-wool rave kids. Jesus Christ, we wore welder's goggles and had police whistles around our necks, which we frequently blew, stopping just short of carrying hoovers on our backs. (I don't remember any glowsticks though; I think that didn't become a thing until later.) In short, we were the kind of kids that I would find incredibly annoying if I'd still go out today (which I don't - I haven't been to a club in eight years or so.) We were innocent ducklings, and while the whole club was probably pilled out, we didn't do anything harder than alcohol back in those days, Batida Kirsch (cheap coconut liquor mixed with cherry juice) being the drink of choice. We danced like maniacs to T-99's "Anastasia" and "Charly" by The Prodigy. "Mentasm" was huge.

Back then, there were no edgelords, there was no segregation in the scene, it wasn't fractured in countless microgenres. We really were one merry crowd. Basically, you were either listening to "techno" or you weren’t, and if you did, you were alright. Dewey somehow acquired a recording of one of those La Boom nights. The first track was Rozalla's "Everybody's Free", followed by tunes like Human Resource's "Dominator", "There Is No Coke" by Quartermain, 4Hero's "Mr. Kirk's Nightmare" and so on, complete with Pascal's announcements. I think the Hypnotist's "The House Is Mine" was on there, one of my favorite tracks. Those sounds were mental! It was pure ecstasy, frozen in time, a still image of something wild and free and boundless that you could set in motion at a whim. I borrowed the tape and kept it for weeks, then months, then years, until it passed into my possession and ended up as a staple of my car’s tape roster.

One day, word got out that an actual techno music store would come to Duckburg, Germany, where we went to school. The three of us were all but kicking their door down, we were literally standing in the store the first day as they were still filling the shelves. We were little sponges, desperate to suck it all in, so eager, so wide-eyed.

We quickly developed a method. As our financial means were reciprocal to our hunger for new tunes, we would go to the store, listen to all the new records we saw fit, then choose a handful we liked and more or less randomly decide who was buying what. We would then either hang out at one of us for epic recording sessions or lend each other the new vinyls and record them on tape at home. (If it hasn’t become clear at this point, the importance of cassette tapes in my musical upbringing and that of countless others simply cannot be overstated.) By the end of the month, I usually had a 90 minute tape full of new music, which I’d just label "03/1992" and so on. I always recorded the whole EP or 12'', warts and all, and would then gradually digest them by listening to the tapes on repeat.

I swear I still very clearly remember the day we discovered an EP by an artist called Aphex Twin, titled Analogue Bubblebath. I'm not entirely sure if I was the one who picked it for listening, but I guess so; I know I’d read an enthusiastic review about it in that little black-and-white zine called Frontpage that you could get for free in Boy Records. That and the more glossy Groove Magazine was where I'd also read about Final Exposure's Vortex, John + Julie's Double Happiness or the Balance of Terror EP by Life After Mutation (a Drexciya side project, but of course I had no clue then), which were among my first records. That day, however, after we had passed the record around and listened to it, it was decided that Huey was to buy it and then share it with Dewey and me.

Huey was this ghostly pale, very thin guy with slightly frizzy blond hair, and he had been basically chain-smoking as long as I knew him and probably since long before. Whenever we weren't sitting in class, he was constantly rolling these thin, crooked cigarettes, and the insides of his spindly index and middle fingers were permanently stained yellow. He had very dry, caustic humor, and his laugh would often end in a worrying smoker's cough. His parents had made him see a doctor fopr that, and he'd allegedly been prescribed some pills which he then proceeded to unceremoniously roll into cigarettes and smoke. At least that’s what he told us, and we had no reason not to believe him. (Another anecdote he liked to share was how one day he’d been listening to very loud techno music in his room, which had prompted his mother to yell at his father that apparently "the lawnmower was broken!", which just killed us.) Huey’s father was also the one who most often drove us to La Boom, which he’d call a Pressluftschuppen (only very roughly translatable as "jackhammer shack"). I always found that funny too, and the word stuck with me.

Anyway, that day it was Huey who got to keep Analogue Bubblebath, while I (I shudder to think) probably took home some ephemeral trance record I’ve long since forgotten. But I borrowed the Aphex Twin EP, recorded it on my crummy old turntable and listened to it endlessly on my paper routes. It was magic. The title track had an atmosphere unlike anything I’d ever heard. To this day it gives me the shivers as well as heavy bouts of nostalgia whenever I listen to it, and it instantly transports me back to that carefree, untroubled time. Listening to it as I type this, I immediately tear up, and why the hell wouldn’t I? "Like tears in the rain …" It’s a fucking proustian madeleine, that record is. After the eponymous track, "Isopropophlex" quickly changed gears; it was so rough, so raw, so hardcore. I loved it. "En Trance to Exit" reminded me a bit of tunes like "Quadrophonia", but was clearly on another level, while the closer "AFX 2" was just this fever dream of a track. Four tracks, one statement, absolutely to the point. And the title was so clever too – it really was like soaking in a bubblebath of beats and melodies. Pure Genius!

Years passed, and as it is prone to happen at that age, we lost touch with each other.

I finished school and moved out from my parents'. Discovered the gunjah and got quite into it, casually at first, then heavily, recklessly, smoking more or less daily for years. Listened to SAW II stoned in bed, passing out and coming to again. Took my first E, mushrooms and what-have-you. Loved the hell out of I Care Because You Do, especially "Alberto Balsalm", which every single time conjured the image of a lonely janitor in the basement of an abandoned school building at night, clanking away on heating pipes with his monkey wrench, a haunting image that made smile at the same time. Played Space Cadet on my Windows 95 machine for hours and hours, accompanied by the Richard D. James Album – which I nevertheless didn’t quite love as much; I wasn’t really into drill'n'bass or breakbeats in general, they felt so light and fluttery and unsubstantial, and I wanted more oomph.

Come to Daddy scratched that itch, as did Windowlicker. "Bucephalus Bouncing Ball" was mind-blowing. We played the Come to Daddy video on repeat at random parties, made it go viral at least in our circles before the term existed. That prolonged scream was so aburd, so incredibly funny, we couldn’t stop laughing.

After finishing college, I was on the dole for half a year before finding a job, and they employment agency made me participate in a course in fucking "Event Management" (lol). One day we were asked to bring something, anything we loved for a sort of show-and-tell, and I played the "Windowlicker" and "Rubber Johnny" videos in full length back to back to an unsuspecting (and rather shocked audience). Good times. A friend told me that one night he and some mates of his had been smoking heavily and were slumped in front of the TV when "Windowlicker" came on, and the moment the voluptuous dame turns around, one of them started to explosively throw up in the trashcan. Fun times.

Reading the other stories here, it seems like I'm in the minority, having discovered Aphex Twin before drugs, and, well, before Drukqs. I’m not ashamed to say that album didn't wow me either when it came out. More broken butterfly beats, and the piano works were just too introspective for my taste at the time. I would however call another friend-in-music of mine every year on his birthday and play him the beginning of "Lornaderek" as a private joke. By 2001, I was working at a record store myself. (The best thing abiut the job was that I ended up keeping five or six 26 Mixes for Cash posters. Yay.)

Then came the creative lull, or at least what I perceived that way. Analord and Tuss were at the periphery of my attention, I was aware of their existence, but never really pursued them. The Soundcloud dump was too overwhelming for me. Richard had become something like an old family member – beloved, but taken for granted a bit, not always appreciated in full, even though they’re always sort of present. Part of the inventory.

Like everyone else, I was by now getting bombarded with music (working at a music store didn't help), and I had a hard time digesting all of it. Albums became less and less important anyway, there was just this never ending onslaught of new tracks, and the carousel was spinning faster and faster. In short, the digital revolution happened. The internet came over us in a big way, and it definitely was a force to be reckoned with. I would still listen to RDJ's backlist, mostly I Care ... and SAW II, which had become stone-cold classics for me, but were quickly getting up there – 25 years and counting.

I'd long given up drugs, didn't smoke, didn’t drink. I'd become a father, was pretty settled in my worklife and personal life, become fat and saturated, a bit jaded, even blasé. Paradoxically, music had become ever more important as a hobby and a means to stay sane. Other interests came and went, people came and went like Hewey and Dewey and so many others – the choons stayed, I just got more and more particular about what I liked. I bought most of Richard’s works, even the Analord series, and I'd often think back to that fateful day in 1992 when we had been listening to Analogue Bubblebath in that new store and my friend Huey had gotten to keep it and what this EP had come to mean to me over the years and what it would mean to own it today. It had become my White Whale, but one that would be impossible to catch. (Of course, I had since acquired a reissue, but that wasn’t the same as that actual record I had recorded on tape back then, it didn't have the aura.) I would wonder whatever had happened to Huey and Dewey and become a bit melancholy. Where had all those years gone, and why had life changed so much? And what the hell was up with that Richard fella? Why didn't he just get off his butt and finally release some proper new tunes?

Then came Syro, and I dutifully jizzed my pants, listened to it and really liked it, then gradually listened less and less because other, newer music got in the way. Then when the Collapse EP came out, I revisited Syro, and it changed everything. Syro and Collapse both clicked with me in a major way, and both are now among my favorite pieces of music ever. I became obsessed with them, listening to those tracks over and over and over again. This might be total conjecture, but to me it felt like these were the works of a mad genius who had tinkered around with his instruments on his own for years and years, getting absolutely masterful at what he did, honing his style to utter perfection, and now sharing his exploits with the undeserving public. These tunes were so clearly on another level it wasn't even funny. Man, was the force ever strong in this one.

I still maintain this position.-For me it is not necessary about the technical proficiency (which is apparently off the charts), but all about the atmosphere. Richard's tracks transport me to a place unlike any other, a halfworld, a strange limbo unlike anything I've ever inhabited. This is the part where, like with drugs, words fail and those in the know just know. Syro and Collapse were like meeting an old lover and discovering, quite untypically, that the spark was still there, not only revelling in old memories, but falling in love anew.

I finally joined WATMM, where I'd been lurking for quite some time, followed all news about Richard intently. The shared enthusiasm somehow took my love to new heights, even if I wasn't really able to contribute more than a few silly jokes. I finally got to see Richard play live in Berlin and then in Paris, where I also got to meet Ivan Ooze in person (hi!).

Today, Aphex Twin is part of my personal Holy Trinity, along with Autechre and Kraftwerk. These are the Big Three that nothing else will ever touch.

A couple of years ago, visiting with my parents, I learned that my old friend Huey was dead. Apparently, he'd had to have some sort of tongue surgery, and there were complications, and he died on the table. I was shocked. To my knowledge, he was the first from our class to go. I hadn't seen him since those long-gone halcyon days ages, and in my head he was still that young boy, spindly-looking, but full of life. Dead? Impossible.

I don't know what happened to the Analogue Bubblebath vinyl and if he'd still had it when he passed. Sometimes I still wonder what happened to it, where it is today. I wonder where he is today. Why did he vanish from my life, even though we had been friends one time? Was he married, did he have kids? Was he still into music, into Aphex Twin? Had he listened to those other records Richard put out? Had he loved them? Had he also remembered that fateful day in the store? Had he cherished that record, had it been a priced possession for him? Or had he sold it long ago for loads of cash? Had Analogue Bubblebath led him to become a devoted Aphex Twin fan, or had it had no impact on his life? Does it matter?

Dewey, bizarrely, later went out with my younger sister. It was a short-lived relationship, and I never encountered him, but he found the infamous La Boom tape in the car where I'd left it after moving out and got it back.

Time is a strange thing. I don't know if it's the same for other people, but you see, the thing is I can't really feel it, and it drives me mad. It's like it exists and doesn't exist at the same time. When I listen to the music I love, to those old tunes that are still so close to my heart, it's like I’m ageless. And yet I know it will eventually get the better of me. In reality I'm going on fifty years old. How much time do I, how much time do any of us have left?

Ol‘ Mr. Oehler is dead.

Mark Spoon is dead.

Stevie B-Zet is dead.

Heiko M/S/O is dead.

Pascal F.E.O.S. is dead.

Andy Fletcher is dead.

Drexciya's James Stinson is dead.

Kraftwerk's Florian Schneider is dead.

(Mr. Kirk's son is dead.)

Caspar Pound aka The Hypnotist is dead.

Frontpage has long ceased to exist.

Groove still exists online, as a mere shadow of its former self.

Lee Newman from John + Julie is dead.

Lorna and Derek are dead.

HUEY IS FUCKING DEAD!

I wish my story had a point, but I guess it doesn't. Unlike diatoms perhaps, I’m not sure if music has healing powers. I don’t think Aphex Twin has at any given time saved or will ever save my life, and he sure as hell didn’t save Huey’s. But for the better part of my life (over two thirds, actually), he's always been there, as a constant, and by now I'm pretty sure that it will stay that way until the end. I know that whenever he will release new music in the future, I will make it my top priority to listen to it. All I have, all we have to counter time is passion. When the passion is gone, I’m not sure I’ll want to carry on.

It’s not a very special story, and I know that there are millions of others like it. But this is mine.

Beautiful.

September 12, 2023

On 9/8/2023 at 5:50 PM, BlockUser said:

This isn't bad. She seems really open and receptive. Feeling too much to be judgmental. She's actually singing along lol! That's nice.

On 9/8/2023 at 6:19 PM, gnarlybog said:

Interesting, it would be easy to laugh at this, but i appreciate the nuanced emotional analysis and attention given.

Absolutely, seeing someone engage sincerely with something that is clearly completely alien to them and expressing their feelings so clearly is... good actually?

September 12, 2023

10 hours ago, chenGOD said:

Of course constant attack is not necessarily in military form. I think US sanctions have been a massive failure with respect to North Korea, and wish they would reconsider the targets of those sanctions. I do find it somewhat ironic you consider espionage, or the threat of attack when the majority of those pressures come from North Korea (see assassination attempts such as the Blue House Raid, the bombing in Yangon that attempted to assassinate the SK president Chun Doo-Hwan, the targeting of North Korean defectors), or look at this long list of provocations and see how many originated with North Korean soldiers/agents infiltrating the South: https://beyondparallel.csis.org/database-north-korean-provocations/. This interview for the BBC from a defector provides some interesting insight: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58838834

Perhaps if the North had spent less of their budget on the military and more on economic development, they might not be in the state they are in today - but of course, the ultimate goal of juche thought was really about keeping the Kim family in power, and not about creating a centrally planned economy that was beneficial for all North Koreans.

The US/USSR both wanted to form a trusteeship to govern Korea, as they both believed Korea wasn't ready for self-rule, despite centuries of self-governance in Choseon Korea. For all his faults, Rhee at least opposed this. The Communists in the North supported it (btw, I'm sure we are in agreement that North Korea post-1950 was not communist?). Regardless, the lack of support in the South led to the withdrawal of American forces by the end of 1948, and the same with Russian forces in the North in the same year. I am curious though how you think the repression of Communists in the South caused the North Korean military to invade? Do you honestly believe that the right-wing factions in the South wanted to cause the invasion?

Speaking of reading history, while Cumings is great, he does make some very specific leaps of faith in his writing, and continues to deny that the DPRK initiated the Korean War (which started when North Korean troops rolled across the 49th parallel on June 25th, 1950) - but at least he finally alludes to both the Soviet Union and the US in being culpable in their roles, instead of just blaming the US.

All of these events took place against the economic backdrops of central planning and capitalism. And there is no doubt which one ended up providing more for its citizens. And yes, even while capitalism does have many failings, it has been better than any implementation of central planning we have seen to date.

Oh yeah, Im well aware of NK's long history of espionage, but I was thinking of the constant surveillance of NK by UC spy planes and satellites, the time honoured deployment of CIA spies with weapons inspectors and the more recent sabotage of NK missile tests by the US.

Yes, I agree that if NK had spent less on defence they would have had more money for everything else, that's precisely my point. Whatever about the appalling internal policies of the country, they have had a real and legitimate fear, articulated repeatedly by the US of total atomic annihilation.

The events leading up to the war are complex, but I don't think there's any serious commentator who claims that political repression in the South was not a major factor. At least 30,000 dead at Jeju, hardline crackdowns of labour movements and protests, the 1948 election mired in violence, murder and boycotts, and ofc Rhee was responsible for the deaths of at least 200,000 between 1948 and 1954, the victims of massacre and political murder, which is strong indication of the character of his regime. It is in this context that the invasion took place, as the North (rightfully) viewed the south as a client state of a foreign power that was hellbent on opposing anything other than the most modest of socialist and political reform, which, as elsewhere in Asia, was wildly popular amongst the population. For the North (as with Vietnam) it was seen as a war of liberation against another set of colonial invaders and their quislings. That said, ofc I don't think the SK right wanted war, but I do think it fits very well historically into the US mode of operation.

September 11, 2023

I appreciate the reasoned response, but I think you are overlooking something critical. Constant attack does not necessarily have to come in military form. It can come as sanctions, economic pressure, espionage, sabotage, or even the threat of attack, which can often, in of itself massively distort economies, as Im sure youre aware as NK currently spends about 25% of its annual budget on the military.

18 minutes ago, chenGOD said:

I'm not versed enough in African history/political economy to pass any verdicts there, but I'd point out in Vietnam, just as in Korea, the initial aggressors were the Viet Cong, who were supported by the North Vietnamese.

I don't particularly want to get in the intricacies of post-colonial asian geo-politics, but the only way this would seem vaguely plausible is if you completely ignore what happened in the years prior to each war, which in both cases were preceded by endless broken pledges by the US and its clients, manipulated or cancelled elections and labour crackdowns, state terror and massacres like the Jeju uprising. The US wanted to eliminate socialism in Asia and fold the region into a US dominated economic order and did everything they could to achieve this aim, including the escalation of atrocities to provoke military responses, at which point they would annihilate their opponents. Korea was in this sense a test run for Vietnam. I honestly would have thought this was uncontroversial at this point.

September 11, 2023

OK, so you know your stuff, but to claim so glibly that SK and NK both 'started from the same place', whilst ignoring the unimaginable, genocidal destruction wreaked on the North and then the most profound impact on the economy the dissolution of the Soviet Union - seems remarkably disingenuous, I mean, how precisely could NK have '80% of the peninsula's heavy industry' when virtually every single target in NK was destroyed by US bombing? If you have read Cummings you will know just how devastating the bombing campaign was. Even as you acknowledge the complexity of the issue you then dismiss the disastrous 1997 recession as a 'hiccup', ignoring the gargantuan structural problems at the heart of SK's capitalist economy that caused the recession.

The problem with every critique of left economies is that it ignores an indisputable historical fact. From Russia, to Chile, Vietnam and the Congo, virtually every single state that seriously attempted to adopt communist or socialist economic models was either smothered in its cradle or attacked with such overwhelming force that it faced total destruction. You cannot assess the economic validity or potential of any group or organisation if they are subject to constant attack and undermining by vastly more powerful opponents, it would be like asking you to complete your tax return and plan your finances whilst someone burns your house down and beats you to a pulp.

September 11, 2023

4 hours ago, chenGOD said:

Why can't you stick to the question that you asked me instead of taking a gish gallop approach to this? Why don't you come up with a counter-example where a centrally planned economy has resulted in better outcomes than one which uses capitalism as its basis?

There's a perfect example - North Korea vs South Korea. Both created at the same moment in time, with the exact two approaches we're discussing being used, both starting from the same economic/industrialized base. So why don't you tell me why you think North Korea's central planning and devolution to a fascist state with autarky is the better option than South Korea?

This shit is particularly hilarious, as if any of the nations that have tried to implement communism haven't engaged in the same practices (stolen goods, human trafficking, exploitation of labour, etc.)

Im sorry but this is completely insane, NK & SK did not start from the 'same economic/industrialised base'. In the Korean war, more bombs were dropped than in the entire pacific theatre of WWII. Virtually every single structure in north Korea larger than a hut was bombed or burnt out of existence, with up to 90% of North Korean cities destroyed, millions killed and the entire country essentially moved underground, a campaign that has been creditably described as genocidal. Despite this, NK somehow managed to rebuild the county in an unprecedentedly swift modernisation and the conventional wisdom is that per capita income in North Korea exceeded that of South Korea well into the 1970s.

Indeed as well as being governed by a succession of military juntas, SK was considered an economic basket case for decades after the war despite significant US investment and support and their integration in the US dominated asian economic sphere. The decline of NK since has as much to do with the fall of the soviets as mismanagement due to central planning, and there are a multitude of other historical, economic and political factors which have led to this situation, most notably the continued refusal of the US to enter in detente despite numerous attempts by successive SK and NK administrations, and indeed historically high support for unification amongst South Koreans.

2 hours ago, Satans Little Helper said:

But the comparison between both North and South Korea should be an obvious one, imo. The starting point was the same. The ending point...well yeah.

You guys really need to read some history.

September 8, 2023

A beautiful soul. RIP.

September 6, 2023

One of the most entertaining and insightful AE reviews Ive ever come across.

August 31, 2023

OP, please stop thinking about music this way, all it will do is limit your enjoyment of one of the greatest gifts we have.

The only thing that matters about music is if it makes you feel something. Everything else is bullshit.

July 21, 2023

Yeah, its the other mix on the 12". Underrated.

July 20, 2023

I dont normally do this, but I got sent a promo of this and immediately thought of WATMM.

https://machinerecords.bandcamp.com/album/coordinates-ep

July 20, 2023

July 17, 2023

On 7/16/2023 at 11:27 AM, Dragon said:

i think it's fair to say that the sad, wistful melancholy vibing tracks by RDJ don't work very well.

This seems very wrong. They are his best tunes; Lichen, Rhubarb, Quino-Phec, Blue Calx, Red Calx, Pancake Lizard, Waxen Pith, Zeroes and Ones, Stone in Focus... There's an entire canon of masterfully melancholy Aphex.

July 14, 2023

1 hour ago, Rbrmyofr said:

I remember a stage dancer at the Olympia Aphex Twin gig. I believe (but may be wrong) it was Paul Nicholson who danced on stage for a lot of Aphex Twin gigs during the 90s and also designed the Aphex Twin "A-" logo.

He may have been there too, but I remember some mangler jumping onstage as well. The chillage idiots mentioned it on their show afterwards, I heard a recording of it a couple of years back.

July 14, 2023

7 hours ago, phudoshin said:

Dude.. I studies Applied Physics in DCU 91-96. AND i was at that Olympia Aphex set.. i was well out of it but i have a memory of a bearded dancer and RDJ was off stage? I thionk he played some SAW2 stuff tooI asked umack about it once but got no details .. he said only it was a "proper rave"

Last coincidence.. I know Duncs brother and stayed with him in oz back in 2003. Good times!

The 'bearded dancer' was some rando from the crowd who made it onstage IIRC. I don't remember any SAW II, I think he played the acid version of heliosphan. IIRC Railway Raver was excellent in support.

July 11, 2023

On 7/8/2023 at 2:05 PM, Rbrmyofr said:

The second Funnel set was a good one, here's a few lines I wrote for somebody years ago: "Second time Autchre played here this year, this time they were armed with fancy new looking laptops and played a lot of new material from their recently released LP5 album. Support was a DJ set from Mira Calix."

A guy I hung out with called Kevin interviewed Mira Calix for a zine he made called Slanted and Enchanted (which I wrote some "articles" for also, I use quotes as my writing was terrible, Kevin's was much better). She told him that one of her favourite ever albums was Loveless by My Bloody Valentine. (RIP)

Kevin first introduced me to Autechre via a mix tape he made for me which included "Second Bad Vilbel". That was also the first time I heard an Aphex Twin track which was "Ventolin (Wheeze Mix)". I remember there was also a Sabres of Paradise track, some Red Snapper, DJ Shadow, DJ Krust and Photek. He wrote a little description of each of the producers too, it was a great introduction to a world I remained deep in all my life to this day. We met in a univertisy I was attending (and then dropped out of) called DCU, I was trying to study physics.

The next night Aphex Twin played at The Olympia Theature which was also a great gig and was the first time I met Trev and Dunk aka Ambulance. They gave me a tape of their music which depressed me due to how good it was (I was trying to make music too).

Dunk is going to support Autechre this October at the Vicar Street gig in Dublin. He's my favourite Irish producer and I have yet to catch up to his high and prolific level of music production. His music is available here: https://countersunk.bandcamp.com/ Three of his tracks are in the new Autechre DJ mix (one a co-production with Deasy, real name David Cleary).

That Olympia gig was probably the best Aphex show Ive been too.

December 27, 2022

8 hours ago, marf said:

Now young people are dying in higher numbers mysteriously and cancer is drastically on the rise. I dont know. I will keep watching and hope I dont get hit hard with Covid.

lol, yeah, its being caused by the the unmitigated and rampant spread of covid. We've known since 2020 that infection can cause a delayed acute reaction resulting in cardiac problems, strokes etc. and we've seen about an average of 8% excess deaths across the west this year. We've known that covid can damage the immune system since 2020 and now we're seeing widespread immune dysregulation resulting in an onslaught of hospitalisations for illnesses that are normally relatively harmless.

Vaccine damage is a real thing, its undeniable, but its a minor issue compared to the suffering and chaos being caused by allowing a deadly bat-virus to spread unchecked through society.

November 28, 2022

Its difficult to overstate how hard it was to find out about stuff back then. I used to collect label phone numbers and ring them to try and get records.

November 28, 2022

Picked up SAW 1 in 93. Didn't really know anything about the wider scene. Heard Polygon Window and AI 1 around the same time but didn't have any real grasp of what WARP was. I think the first non-aphex WARP I bought was Virtual State by Richard H Kirk. Id heard of Autechre but I just thought they were pale Aphex imitations. It was probably late 94/95 when I was getting into jungle and heard amber and then tri repetae and anti in early morning after parties and realised how good they were.

November 18, 2022

Wow. Oddly enough the only tune Ive ever found a good mix for with Subterraneans was an Alva Noto track.

November 9, 2022

Nah, its open access now, and its way better value than Dall-E or stable diffusion. Pay $30 a month and you get unlimited slow time and 15 hours fast time, plus you have access to all the midjpurney models and their two x stable diffusion based models. the only things missing are in/out-painting and init image. I often generate stuff in MJ and then outpaint in Dall-E, which works pretty well once the style is dialled in. https://www.midjourney.com/

It can get a bit confusing with all the options, but its by far the best option. Hit me up if you get stuck with anything.

November 9, 2022

If you wanna do comics you should ditch Dall-E and try out Midjourney V4. I pretty much only use Dall-E for outpainting now.

October 4, 2022

That Romance LP is nice, we played it on the show in March.

September 28, 2022

Aghast as I am to be in agreement with the tankies and conspiracy nuts and Russians, but it was totally the US. They had the means, the motive and the opportunity as well as a record as long as your arm.

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