Is Aphex Twin's Recent Music Less Ambitious Than His Earlier Work?

[Pirtek]

1 hour ago, chim said:

C'mon, we're talking about a guy who would DJ with sandpaper without a second thought. I'm pretty confident he takes little offense from bantz and divided opinions on his output. 

The whole composing with a cirklon and dinosaur hardware, while no doubt skillful (and tedious), is a very luxurious and deliberate problem. It's also been the M.O for over a decade by now. I think he's just comfortable where he's at and has nothing to prove. 

Spot on!

[chenGOD]

On a scale of 1-10 (with 1 being the least likely and 10 being the most likely) how likely are you to recommend Aphex Twin to a friend?

What thoughts, feelings and associations do you have when you think about Aphex Twin?

Thinking about Aphex Twin and other electronic music artists, what differences first come to mind?

Would you be the one most likely to use Aphex Twin in your household?

 

 

[YEK]

9 minutes ago, chenGOD said:

On a scale of 1-10 (with 1 being the least likely and 10 being the most likely) how likely are you to recommend Aphex Twin to a friend?

What thoughts, feelings and associations do you have when you think about Aphex Twin?

Thinking about Aphex Twin and other electronic music artists, what differences first come to mind?

Would you be the one most likely to use Aphex Twin in your household?

 

 

Yes, and you have to ask these questions over phone just as the recipient is about to eat dinner.  

[droid]

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.

[hoggy]

3 hours ago, chim said:

C'mon, we're talking about a guy who would DJ with sandpaper without a second thought. I'm pretty confident he takes little offense from bantz and divided opinions..

Actually probably true. I hope that’s true, it’s probably easier to make good music if you don’t care about praise and criticism

[beerwolf]

1 hour ago, droid said:

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.

Yes I'm sure OP is trying to make sense of why they don't (perhaps) like his new music. That's exactly what I felt when he released Syro (post Syro blues as I put it) It gave me a feeling of isolation from most other watmmers. Soundcloud corrected that (a little) and Cheetah/Collapse (a little more) but I've only really felt completely back on track with Aphex since Blackbox recorder. I now feel like I did 'back in the day'. Its a great feeling.

Edited August 31, 2023 by beerwolf

[hoggy]

2 hours ago, beerwolf said:

Yes I'm sure OP is trying to make sense of why they don't (perhaps) like his new music. 

Actually truest point so far I think, it’s hard to accept when something you love changes into something you don’t understand

[hoggy]

You know what, I listened to Syro this morning and realised that I love about 4 of the tracks and I don't care about the rest.. and I feel the same about all his other stuff. It's only Druqks that really fucking does it for me all the way through

I feel kinda the same about Ceephax, and though the new Snares doesn't move me as much as the older stuff, I still love it

Don't know why I was resisting accepting that for so long - the stuff they make that I love, I *really* fucking love, so it's hard to accept when they kinda suck.. I dunno maybe I was conditioned in the days of rock albums half full of filler when I was a teenager

Also it makes me really uncomfortable to dislike stuff, and to say that that's how I feel - I don't want to be a downer.. it's boring not liking things but maybe trying really hard to like stuff is not the solution

Also I don't like Arca

I might change my mind about all of this in 15 minutes time

Oh and the Barbie movie kinda sucked

Edited September 3, 2023 by hoggy

[hoggy]

I think part of it is like knowing how much love and enthusiasm and work goes into making stuff, you feel kinda ungrateful or something - like when you get a christmas present that someone spent so much time thinking about and was really excited to give to you and you just think it's crap, and you don't want to

[hello spiral]

I think he's painted himself into a nice and cozy sound palette corner since Tuss. The detuned acid lines, dry af drums, cop show dadfunk corner.

Cool if you dig that I guess, I don't particularly.

Also I am not impressed by the difficult gear technicalities behind how you got these tracks, whocares.gif, if this is the end result.

There are some nice little compositional tricks and touches on some of those London 12" tracks, what @Alcofribassaid about elegance and lightness of touch. I just wish he could get out of this sound palette corner he's painted himself into, it's terminally dull.

But as has been said 90000 times in this this thread, he does what he wants so *shrug*

[cruising for burgers]

I love it when people say they don't like it and then somebody else replies oh u simply don't get it...

[d-a-m-o]

3 hours ago, hello spiral said:

I think he's painted himself into a nice and cozy sound palette corner since Tuss. The detuned acid lines, dry af drums, cop show dadfunk corner.

Cool if you dig that I guess, I don't particularly.

Also I am not impressed by the difficult gear technicalities behind how you got these tracks, whocares.gif, if this is the end result.

There are some nice little compositional tricks and touches on some of those London 12" tracks, what @Alcofribassaid about elegance and lightness of touch. I just wish he could get out of this sound palette corner he's painted himself into, it's terminally dull.

But as has been said 90000 times in this this thread, he does what he wants so *shrug*

True, even if I like his 2014-2023 run, I miss the diversity of style of something like 26 mixes for cash where you go from something like Time To Find Me (AFX Fast Mix) to Falling Free (Aphex Twin Remix) (one can argue that he's remixing other artists in this case, but still)

Edited September 3, 2023 by d-a-m-o

[hoggy]

2 hours ago, cruising for burgers said:

I love it when people say they don't like it and then somebody else replies oh u simply don't get it...

they are kind of both true from different perspectives though

[hoggy]

5 hours ago, hello spiral said:

I think he's painted himself into a nice and cozy sound palette corner since Tuss. The detuned acid lines, dry af drums, cop show dadfunk corner.

The specifics don't really matter though - someone else might have the same sound palette but do something completely different with it and you might like it, or he might make similar music with a different palette and you wouldn't like it - I think it's how everything works together as a whole that either resonates with something in you or doesn't

To plagiarize Zizek again, there's something he says about when someone says "they'd be perfect if only the nose was slightly different", but if the nose was actually different, there would be no interest whatsoever - sometimes the presence of some disturbance creates the idea of the ideal in it's absence, but it's an illusion

Which I think works the other way round too - like with Francis Bacon approach (or whoever works in an accidental way), it's like sometimes an accidental mark just does something you can't explain, it creates something which works in the context of the whole in a way that you could never really plan

Edited September 3, 2023 by hoggy

[beerwolf]

38 minutes ago, hoggy said:

The specifics don't really matter though - someone else might have the same sound palette but do something completely different with it and you might like it, or he might make similar music with a different palette and you wouldn't like it - I think it's how everything works together as a whole that either resonates with something in you or doesn't

To plagiarize Zizek again, there's something he says about when someone says "they'd be perfect if only the nose was slightly different", but if the nose was actually different, there would be no interest whatsoever - sometimes the presence of some disturbance creates the idea of the ideal in it's absence, but it's an illusion

Which I think works the other way round too - like with Francis Bacon approach (or whoever works in an accidental way), it's like sometimes an accidental mark just does something you can't explain, it creates something which works in the context of the whole in a way that you could never really plan

Definite Big Brain stamped on that

[cruising for burgers]

1 hour ago, hoggy said:

they are kind of both true from different perspectives though

u simply don't get it do u?

[hoggy]

1 minute ago, cruising for burgers said:

u simply don't get it do u?

no, I don't like it

[cruising for burgers]

6 hours ago, hello spiral said:

tldr

 

u simply don't get it do u spi?  (⁠ ͡⁠°⁠ ͜⁠ʖ⁠ ͡⁠°⁠)⁠

 

[hoggy]

I just realised that the fact that the reactions on here are ambiguous kind of makes sense for watmm - you can react in a way that might be sarcastic, or might not

But probably is

[cruising for burgers]

1 hour ago, hoggy said:

"they'd be perfect if only the nose was slightly different", but if the nose was actually different, there would be no interest whatsoever - sometimes the presence of some disturbance creates the idea of the ideal in it's absence, but it's an illusion

oh that explains why I fancy women with slightly big noses...

2 minutes ago, hoggy said:

I just realised that the fact that the reactions on here are ambiguous kind of makes sense for watmm - you can react in a way that might be sarcastic, or might not

But probably is

https://forum.watmm.com/topic/103506-your-interpretation-of-the-reaction-emoticons

[hoggy]

6 minutes ago, cruising for burgers said:

 

u simply don't get it do u spi?  (⁠ ͡⁠°⁠ ͜⁠ʖ⁠ ͡⁠°⁠)⁠

WOW!! I have to find a good D/L for this stuff!! This stuff makes you feel crazy

3 minutes ago, cruising for burgers said:

oh that explains why I fancy women with slightly big noses...

Oh hi there 

[cruising for burgers]

Just now, hoggy said:

WOW!! I have to find a good D/L for this stuff!! This stuff makes you feel crazy

doesn't even make sense at 33rpm... I think it's a prank and it's supposed to be actually played at 45rpm... doesn't really matter if it was cut at 33 or 45 the playback speed is what matters and I'm only gonna be convinced when I heard one of these tracks live or on that new tape from Bristol... ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

[cruising for burgers]

6 minutes ago, hoggy said:

oh hi there 

 

oh shit dinner first.

[hoggy]

3 minutes ago, cruising for burgers said:

doesn't even make sense at 33rpm... I think it's a prank and it's supposed to be actually played at 45rpm... doesn't really matter if it was cut at 33 or 45 the playback speed is what matters and I'm only gonna be convinced when I heard one of these tracks live or on that new tape from Bristol... ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

damn, the one on slsk is 33

Just now, cruising for burgers said:

 

oh shit dinner first.

dinner during, why not

[cruising for burgers]

2 minutes ago, hoggy said:

damn, the one on slsk is 33

I got that 45 from slsk, if u can't find it I can go online and share it...

2 minutes ago, hoggy said:

dinner during, why not

things r gonna get messy though ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Edited September 3, 2023 by cruising for burgers