Caustic Window Compilation, SOSW and SAW 85-92

[Guest ruiagnelo]

i have been thinking about this for quite a long time now, and as i am listening to the CW Compilation i really don't have any doubt about it right now.

 

i feel that these three records are very similar too each other, in my ears. but i can't really say why.

 

it's not just because they are my favorite RDJ albums , but they bring me similar memories and there is a very raw sound to all of them.

 

 

discuss or just call me crazy

[Boxing Day]

SOSW is SAW I's darker brother.

 

CW has a few tracks that are very similar to SOSW (Cordialatron, Italic Eyeball and OTRT)

 

These albums were all done in Richard's early years , he had limited equipment apparently , that's why it sounds similar i guess.

 

Fun Fact , Joyrex J5 has the same synth as one of the UI's green tracks

[Guest ruiagnelo]

SOSW is SAW I's darker brother.

 

 

i can understand this point of view.

 

but at the same time they all sound so different to me

[Ragnar]

early RDJ persistant hi-hat

[KyonPalm]

Caustic Window does take some elements from it's brother Polygon, especially in tracks like Cordialatron (as Boxing Day said.)

Comparing the two to SAW 1 is a bit tougher though, as all the tracks (sans Green Calx, of course) are considerably more soft.

[Guest Calx Sherbet]

i understand the SOSW/SAW I comparison. to me they could easily have interchangeable tracks and it would still all run smoothly. it's just that SOSW didn't seem as "happy". caustic window on the other hand...i guess it sometimes has that atmosphere. but it's really a different colour on the spectrum

[Guest narkeworld]

i have been thinking about this for quite a long time now, and as i am listening to the CW Compilation i really don't have any doubt about it right now.

 

i feel that these three records are very similar too each other, in my ears. but i can't really say why.

 

it's not just because they are my favorite RDJ albums , but they bring me similar memories and there is a very raw sound to all of them.

 

 

discuss or just call me crazy

 

The connection is that those albums are techno. They're Aphex techno stuff, done basically before the braindance idea was spawned + I'm sure this was done before the whole beard thing. Camos, dogtags, Quadraverbs, Doc Martins (I think he used to wear Doc Martins), man those were the years. Magical! I got into Aphex in 1993 and it was magical, music reviews for Xylem Tube were cool as hell, the reviewers were so chuffed. I wish I could take new aphex heads back to that time, back to the old idm-digest chat rooms. It really was magical. I'm stoked that you're so into stuff from that time period. On EP, the Analogue Bubblebath stuff, the old remixes, wow what can I say. Oh yeah there is nice article on the A.I. series in a Mixmag magazine from 93, it has the words Moby Nutter on the cover and some guy yelling, I've been trying to find that again for some time now. There is a cool picture of Aphex in it (headshot) with out the beard. Oh also pick up the Diesel M release on Choci's Chewns (this is a Mu-Ziq project of sorts), it's nice old rephlexion techno. It's on soulseek right now!:)

[Guest narkeworld]

i have been thinking about this for quite a long time now, and as i am listening to the CW Compilation i really don't have any doubt about it right now.

 

i feel that these three records are very similar too each other, in my ears. but i can't really say why.

 

it's not just because they are my favorite RDJ albums , but they bring me similar memories and there is a very raw sound to all of them.

 

 

discuss or just call me crazy

 

The connection is that those albums are techno. They're Aphex techno stuff, done basically before the braindance idea was spawned + I'm sure this was done before the whole beard thing. Camos, dogtags, Quadraverbs, Doc Martins (I think he used to wear Doc Martins), man those were the years. Magical! I got into Aphex in 1993 and it was magical, music reviews for Xylem Tube were cool as hell, the reviewers were so chuffed. I wish I could take new aphex heads back to that time, back to the old idm-digest chat rooms. It really was magical. I'm stoked that you're so into stuff from that time period. On EP, the Analogue Bubblebath stuff, the old remixes, wow what can I say. Oh yeah there is nice article on the A.I. series in a Mixmag magazine from 93, it has the words Moby Nutter on the cover and some guy yelling, I've been trying to find that again for some time now. There is a cool picture of Aphex in it (headshot) with out the beard. Oh also pick up the Diesel M release on Choci's Chewns (this is a Mu-Ziq project of sorts), it's nice old rephlexion techno. It's on soulseek right now!:)

 

And lastly, if you guys don't own it already pick up Trance Europe Express 3. It has a great article in it on Rephlex, Kinesthesia, an Mu-Ziq [93/94, but it's still techno imo, the eclecticism stuff had just started to creep in (which when it was early on like 93-94 was just wicked), , i.e. Mike talks about doing a jazz-techno record]. The pictures of Chris and Mike are to die for, perfect Rephlexions. Even the green lighting in one of the Mu-Ziq photos is pure orthodox Rephlex.:)

[Guest narkeworld]

i have been thinking about this for quite a long time now, and as i am listening to the CW Compilation i really don't have any doubt about it right now.

 

i feel that these three records are very similar too each other, in my ears. but i can't really say why.

 

it's not just because they are my favorite RDJ albums , but they bring me similar memories and there is a very raw sound to all of them.

 

 

discuss or just call me crazy

 

The connection is that those albums are techno. They're Aphex techno stuff, done basically before the braindance idea was spawned + I'm sure this was done before the whole beard thing. Camos, dogtags, Quadraverbs, Doc Martins (I think he used to wear Doc Martins), man those were the years. Magical! I got into Aphex in 1993 and it was magical, music reviews for Xylem Tube were cool as hell, the reviewers were so chuffed. I wish I could take new aphex heads back to that time, back to the old idm-digest chat rooms. It really was magical. I'm stoked that you're so into stuff from that time period. On EP, the Analogue Bubblebath stuff, the old remixes, wow what can I say. Oh yeah there is nice article on the A.I. series in a Mixmag magazine from 93, it has the words Moby Nutter on the cover and some guy yelling, I've been trying to find that again for some time now. There is a cool picture of Aphex in it (headshot) with out the beard. Oh also pick up the Diesel M release on Choci's Chewns (this is a Mu-Ziq project of sorts), it's nice old rephlexion techno. It's on soulseek right now!:)

 

And lastly, if you guys don't own it already pick up Trance Europe Express 3. It has a great article in it on Rephlex, Kinesthesia, an Mu-Ziq [93/94, but it's still techno imo, the eclecticism stuff had just started to creep in (which when it was early on like 93-94 was just wicked), , i.e. Mike talks about doing a jazz-techno record]. The pictures of Chris and Mike are to die for, perfect Rephlexions. Even the green lighting in one of the Mu-Ziq photos is pure orthodox Rephlex.:)

 

The braindance idea may have come about when those three albums you're talking about were made, who knows, but that whole braindance thing happened later after SOSW, CW and SAW1 imo, that stuff is just Aphexian techno to me, that brain dance stuff starts creeping in with ICBYD and the Ventolin stuff. I was always do mad when RDJ album came out, it's like he killed off his techno pysche then, the Analords are good but that old techno stuff is just magical, really fucking magical! This is hopefully it for awhile, the editors fucked or I'm fucked. hehe;)

[Guest nene multiple assgasms]

early RDJ persistant hi-hat

 

maybe this and the reverb?

[thief]

narkeworld, do you remember how the bradley strider records were received ?

[Guest narkeworld]

narkeworld, do you remember how the bradley strider records were received ?

 

I wish I knew for sure. Those kinds of records might not have been reviewed in the NME [maybe a small review in Mixmag, but wow I think a Bradley Strider release was probably spoken about at Fat Cat or Ambient Soho back in the day, maybe even a lot, it would have beeen so cool to have been at those stores then] or stuff like Raygun (however their was one issue of Raygun [1994] that talked about Aphex a little and something about SAW 2, Oh yeah there is little blurb about Aphex in Q magazine from about 1992, there is a picture of Aphex in it with a turtle neck on and no beard, that picture is what got me into Aphex not even his music, just how he looked heheh;)) I think good stores back then would just get the nice stuff [b. Strider kinda things] in and store employees would tell customers about the records, not a lot of fanfare. When I got my Bradley Striders in like 96 I think I had to special order mine, at least Bradley's Robot. I don't think it was too big of a deal when those records were released (I remember not a lot of talk about them in the IDM-Digest chat rooms, but man I remember the label Clear being talked about a lot though:)). I think that both of those records (the "robot" one and the second version of the "beat" one, the one without the distortion) were released in 96, maybe, my memory is fuzzy, the thing is is that Rephlex releases would sometimes have like 1994 printed on them or 1993 but they were released two years later, Industrial Folk Songs is like this, the Lisa Carbon Trio is like this and so to is the Chimera release, both the single in the white Rephlex sleeve and the album itself. The first B. Strider comes in two versions and the first one I think slipped by me because I wasn't into Aphex or Rephlex yet, or it was just such a rare release from 93 on and you wouldn't get that kind of thing in Colorado, U.S.A., maybe London??. And when I got the "robot" one and the second version of the "beat" one I got them in a really quiet way, again not a lot of fanfare. I think all the Warp stuff overshadowed Aphex's Rephlex release at the time i.e. On ep, Ventolin, ICBYD, RDJ album. If the B. Strider "robot" ep and the second version of the "beat" one were released in 96, for sure they would have been overshadowed by the RDJ album (if a few years before, ICBYD and the rest of the Warp stuff would have overshadowed it as well, maybe, probably :)),, man, I saw that album (RDJ) in the Target departments stores in 96, all those stores sell now are Taylor Swift, Kanye, Coldplay, stuff like that hehe. I think 96 was a big year for "electronica", The Chemical Brothers, Underworld ( I think Trainspotting came out in 96, they sed that one Underworld track in that movie), Fat Boy (whatever it was called) Slim and I sometimes really think that the RDJ album was made to make some money, it's just not techno anymore, just music to satisfy the indie and MTV "electronica" market, oh well who knows. So, imo opinion I think the B. Strider releases were "quiet" releases.

[Guest Diao]

I remember seeing Come To Daddy at a local target (Kansas City) around when it was released. When I first started listening to Aphex (1997ish), I bought almost everything from Best Buy. I didn't have to special order it either, it was always in stock. I got AB1, AB3, AB4, SOSW, ICBYD, RDJ Album, SAW1&2 all from Best Buy off the shelves then. I remember they would even have several copies of some of the Warp releases. I also got the Braindance Coincidence there when it came out. Now you have to special order any of that stuff and it takes weeks to get in if they even get it. Kind of a bummer . Now my favorite local record store (which isn't even local, its a 30 minute highway drive) doesn't carry a lot of the music I listen to (although they happily order it for me). I miss the 90's. It was indeed a magical time for electronic music.

[Guest ruiagnelo]

i have been thinking about this for quite a long time now, and as i am listening to the CW Compilation i really don't have any doubt about it right now.

 

i feel that these three records are very similar too each other, in my ears. but i can't really say why.

 

it's not just because they are my favorite RDJ albums , but they bring me similar memories and there is a very raw sound to all of them.

 

 

discuss or just call me crazy

 

I'm stoked that you're so into stuff from that time period.

 

i think i am living my own 90's right now.

early analogue bubblebath experimental music or SAW's are my favorite aphex releases. i love warp's artificial intelligence series as well and pretty much anything IDM-ish produced at this time. recent discoveries i made like X-Asp, Terrace/ Florence, Edge of Motion, Ismistik, luke slater's early ambient techno stuff, mark broom first eps or dan curtin's side projects bring me such a feeling of enthusiasm and excitement that i feel like exploring every old label and catalog to the very last release.

 

there is good music being created and released nowadays, and there are a lot of artists out there that i really like and where i have my eyes put on, but the feeling of discovering a new IDM record from the 90's or even early 2000's is a treasure for me. it's the only music i really always like.

[Guest narkeworld]

I remember seeing Come To Daddy at a local target (Kansas City) around when it was released. When I first started listening to Aphex (1997ish), I bought almost everything from Best Buy. I didn't have to special order it either, it was always in stock. I got AB1, AB3, AB4, SOSW, ICBYD, RDJ Album, SAW1&2 all from Best Buy off the shelves then. I remember they would even have several copies of some of the Warp releases. I also got the Braindance Coincidence there when it came out. Now you have to special order any of that stuff and it takes weeks to get in if they even get it. Kind of a bummer . Now my favorite local record store (which isn't even local, its a 30 minute highway drive) doesn't carry a lot of the music I listen to (although they happily order it for me). I miss the 90's. It was indeed a magical time for electronic music.

 

Yeah it was really interesting to be able to go into big chain stores and buy fairly obscure electronic music. I think I bought the Mike and Rich cd (man, buy a "cd" sounds so 90's hehe)at a Media Play and I bought basically the whole A.I. series at national chain store called Soundwarehouse. The 90's were big for electronica and techno music, it was great, maybe even the best times because that electronic music vibe was everywhere.:)

[awesomeperson]

Joe Meek was born in 1927, in a small country town on the edge of The Forest Of Oean. At the age of eleven he was oe given a copy of Practical Wireless as a Christmas present. By the time Joe was 13 his parents' garden shed was overrun with electron- ic trash: a workshop crammed with a gramophone, second-hand 78s, wirelesses and any electronic gadgetry he could lay his hands on. He made his own magnetic pick-up for the gramophone, then made a one-valve amp. He would put up speakers in the trees around the cherry orchard and play records to the birds. At 15 he bought an amplifier so that he could offer his services to the local dancehall. DJ Joe was soon playing to the masses, as well as providing live soundtracks for local amateur dramatics. Aged 16, he built a TV set from scratch. It was the first in Newent, well before transmissions to the Gloucester area had started.

Richard D James was born in 1970 in a remote part of Cornwall. At the age of eleven he made his own crystal wireless. By 13 he was dabbling in electronics. "I didn't have any equipment when I started. l used to make tape loops and put them on ghetto blaster motors or reel-to-reels that I could get for five quid from junk shops. I did a hell of a lot with those, like creating finished collages of sound that I'd then make, say, five copies of. I'd sync up all the motors and play the tapes back, fluctuating the tape speed to create effects like flangeing, chorus and phase-shifting. I bought a Roland 100M monosynth when I was 13, but I got really pissed off with it. I started customising my keyboards then changing the components. "

At the start of the '50s, after his spell in the army, Joe Meek worked for Currys, the TV chain, and later the Midlands Electricity Board. In his spare time he built his own tape recorder. He created and edited voices, making up comedy sketches, then adding sound effects with the aid of another recorder. By 1950 he was recording the birds at 3am, car tyres screeching, glass breaking, panel-beating and multitracking the results - going from tape to tape three or four times to make ten-minute epics of sound. "Through customising the stuff I got a working knowledge of the keyboards and the circuitry. I started building little modules and that's gone on to building whole circuits. The biggest thing I built was a sampler - it took about a year as a college project. The teachers didn't know what a sampler was, so it was all down to me. It worked for about eight weeks and then packed up. Half the time it didn't sample, it just made really good noises, mad stuff - I've still got a massive library of sounds from that. " In the summer of '53 Joe cut his first record - a selection of sound effects - on a disc cutter he'd made himself. By 1954 he was cutting records with local talent, and his activities leapt when he recorded a vocal track with a local schoolgirl, enhanced by an echo unit he'd built into a tape recorder. He sent it to a record label in London, but to no avail.

In the summer of '91 Richard cut 'Analogue Bubblebath', his first record as the Aphex Twin. It was released on a friend's label, Mighty Force, in Cornwall and sold out of its 500 pressing in two weeks. The record companies in London didn't get a whiff of it.

Joe moved to London and wound up as a sound balance engineer for Radio Luxembourg. His first record was on Parlophone - 'Bad Penny Blues' by the Humphrey Lyttelton Band - and was the first jazz track to reach the Top Twenty. In the UK. Joe was credited only as sound balance engineer but producer Dennis Preston noted later: "I don't think, with due respect to the musicians, that it was the music we made. I think it was Joe's concept. He had a drum sound - that forward drum sound - which no other engineer at the time would have conceived, with echo. It was the sound that Joe created that made that record. "

A few weeks after the first pressing had sold out, 'Analogue Bubblebath' was repressed under the name of AFX. This time there were 2,000 copies, some of which began to find their way into the hands of DJs. R&S in Belgium picked up on the track and released it again, this time backed by 'Didgeridoo' - the track Curve played to open their set on their UK tour and which became the anthem of every club in '92. "All the sounds on 'Didgeridoo' are homemade," said Richard. "Four different sounds that go in and out and change all the way through. They all come out of little boxes that I made for that track, with a digital drum track over the top. "

Joe worked with Rod Stewart, Tom Jones, The Honeycombs and Freddie Starr. He turned down The Beatles.

Richard has remixed Meat Beat Manifesto, Saint Etienne, Curve, and Jesus Jones. He turned down U2.

Joe was very secretive and in later years became acutely paranoid, convinced that EMI had planted bugs in his studio to discover the recording techniques he was using.

Richard is a bit of a mystery. He dislikes most music, and despises the late payers and inefficiency of the music industry. He vanishes, leaving cryptic messages on his answering machine and keeps his equipment secret, cloaking it at live shows and disguising it with pointless leads and boxes.

Joe was prolific. He started his own production company and held a roster of performers and writers who under various names carried his production techniques to Decca, HMV, Parlophone, Columbia, Pye and Top Rank.

Richard has released his work under various pseudonyms - Polygon Window, Caustic Window, Diceman, Bluecalx - on a number of different labels: Mighty Force, R&S, Warp, Sire and RePHlex Records (the last his own label still operated independently by his mates in Cornwall). "I've only released about one per cent of the stuff I've got recorded and it's all been old recordings, stuff I did when I was 13, 14 or 15. There's a lot more I want to get out. "

By the beginning of the '60s Joe was Britain's first successful independent record producer. In America, Phil Spector was beginning to have hit upon hit. But Joe was established, in a small studio above a shop in London's Hollowly Road, and, though he was pumping money into ten ideas for every one he managed to sell, he was enjoying a respectable amount of chart success.

By the end of '92 Richard was being hailed as the new Eno, his answering machine constantly clogged with offers of remix and DJ work. He was hounded by US label, Sire, and signed to them while inking a long-term deal with Warp for the UK and Europe and keeping RePHlex Records as an independent alternative. He's built a studio in his Hackney flat and, though he hasn't had any huge chart success, most of his releases are high on the price list of rarities.

Joe's new instrumental group, The Tornados, were backing Billy Fury for the summer season in Great Yarmouth when Joe came up with the idea for his greatest success. On June 1 1, 1962, an American communications satellite picked up signals and for the first time beamed 'live' TV pictures across the Atlantic to England. When The Tornados had a two-day break from their schedule Joe got them into the studio to recreate the sound of the satellite speeding through space. The end result was speeded up by half a tone to give it a sense of urgency and to help create the atmosphere he added some special effects, the ingredients of which he kept secret. In August '62 'Telstar' went to number one, staying for 47 weeks in the charts. To this day it is Britain's biggest selling instrumental track.

Richard's answering machine is still playing its message: a cut from The Prisoner pronouncing, "Give yourself to me - tra la la la la, la la. " Warp and Sire are gearing up to release a new Aphex Twin single, the first of his new recordings, to be followed by 'Ambient Works 2', this time a triple album, due towards the end of October. I leave four messages, four questions. Does he know about Joe Meek? What date was he born? Could EMI be bugging his studio? And does he know anyone called Heinz who owns a gun? The Aphex Twin doesn't return my calls.

At the age of 37, Joe Meek shot his landlady and then turned the gun on himself. His motive remains a mystery.

Originally Appears In The Trance Europe Express CD Booklet, Article and photos by Rob Deacon.

[joshuatxuk]

i understand the SOSW/SAW I comparison. to me they could easily have interchangeable tracks and it would still all run smoothly. it's just that SOSW didn't seem as "happy". caustic window on the other hand...i guess it sometimes has that atmosphere. but it's really a different colour on the spectrum

 

early RDJ persistant hi-hat

maybe this and the reverb?

 

There is a lot of playing around with distortion and breakbeats too. I think CW stands out by being more dance oriented and hardcore. It's dark, unrelenting, "experimental" rave music, I still find it mindblowing compared to other music from period.

 

I agree SOSW is consistently moody in general, though Hedphelym and Green Calx are dark, SAW 85-92 is a more playful, "happy," and varied album. CW seems to point to methods RDJ would use on Xylem Tube and was also using on the Analogue Bubblebath tracks.