Aphex Twin: Read part 1 of SYROBONKERS! - an interview with Aphex Twin

[Guest skytree]

you can't blame him really, though.

 

only people who suffered themselves or docs and therapists working with depressed people over years and years can understand how it feels like to be depressed. it's really unimaginable

Yeah honestly this is probably the most sober response. Unless you've experienced this stuff firsthand (or at least to a large degree with someone you love) I don't really think you're qualified to speak about it publicly. On the flip side, I think people with mental health issues should feel comfortable to speak out about it more, as that's where the experienced discourse ultimately stems from, and the passion for our culture to do better. Personally I'm kinda surprised he hasn't been depressed as fuck often enough to know for himself - rare for someone that creative to escape unscathed. Unless he's fucking with us, which is of course rather likely.

[mcbpete]

I think people with mental health issues should feel comfortable to speak out about it more

Alas there's such a huge stigma attached to the condition - so much so that not even all my family and most of my friends know I was diagnosed a couple of years back. I know their preconceptions of the illness would taint their opinion of me

[Guest Roksen Creek]

You only have to look at some of the responses in this thread to see the stigma attached to it. Imagine it in the real world.

[Allize]

also why are we talking about this, it's depressing.

[psn]

Saying that depressed people are neither loving, caring, learning or creating is pretty stigmatizing, yeah.

[Allize]

he didn't say that.

[Rubin Farr]

That's so cool he posted his kid's tracks!

[Guest chops727]

I think, like somebody else said he meant well, who knows maybe if you actually got to discuss it with him he would come back with more substance.

It's not like this interview was about depression, maybe he would have had more to say on the matter if it were.

I've personally suffered from mild depression off/on and lived with a good friend who was suicidal for a number of years .

Actually the good friend was a musician and made great music, he got himself out of it by going to the gym everyday and quitting Prozac.

[delet...]

Did someone's post get deleted, if so I'm terribly sorry, I was scrolling through absent mindedly and something that I was reading disappeared underneath my thumb, I didn't see the mod controls flash up though. So maybe someone edited their post.

 

Anyway my humblest if I nixxed your post mate.

[Guest Wander]

he didn't say that.

No, but it's easy for someone to read it that way.

 

I don't think single quotes like that necessarily warrant too much reading into, however. If RDJ got immediate feedback from someone pointing out that whatever he says is overlooking a few things and asked him to clarify his views, maybe he could come up with more reasoned stuff. This interview contains some pretty random and obviously not fully realized thoughts. I think that needs to be taken into account with quotes like that.

[delet...]

I think, like somebody else said he meant well, who knows maybe if you actually got to discuss it with him he would come back with more substance.

It's not like this interview was about depression, maybe he would have had more to say on the matter if it were.

I've personally suffered from mild depression off/on and lived with a good friend who was suicidal for a number of years .

Actually the good friend was a musician and made great music, he got himself out of it by going to the gym everyday and quitting Prozac.

Yeah I kept telling my friend to go on walks, exercise, he picked up a bit when he did this as well. Can't be underestimated how important, sleep, exercise and diet are, for all of us. That's one of those positive feedback loops the tree was going on about.

[delet...]

 

 

he didn't say that.

No, but it's easy for someone to read it that way.

 

I don't think single quotes like that necessarily warrant too much reading into, however. If RDJ got immediate feedback from someone pointing out that whatever he says is overlooking a few things and asked him to clarify his views, maybe he could come up with more reasoned stuff. This interview contains some pretty random and obviously not fully realized thoughts. I think that needs to be taken into account with quotes like that.

Hah, where's the fun in that. watmm loves talking about its mental disorders and richard's comment just enabled that for us. Hahar ;-]

[Guest skytree]

 

I think, like somebody else said he meant well, who knows maybe if you actually got to discuss it with him he would come back with more substance.

It's not like this interview was about depression, maybe he would have had more to say on the matter if it were.

I've personally suffered from mild depression off/on and lived with a good friend who was suicidal for a number of years .

Actually the good friend was a musician and made great music, he got himself out of it by going to the gym everyday and quitting Prozac.

Yeah I kept telling my friend to go on walks, exercise, he picked up a bit when he did this as well. Can't be underestimated how important, sleep, exercise and diet are, for all of us. That's one of those positive feedback loops the tree was going on about.

 

Yeah exactly. If I sleep in a bit too much and miss my morning routine of walking my gf to the subway it's much harder to get going in the morning. Just moving helps a ton. Also take a few select supplements and steer clear of alcohol or anything that disrupts my schedule too much (one reason why touring ended up being pretty rough on my system).

 

Maybe one day we'll have a full-body microcellular scanner of some sort that can just display your biological functions in realtime down to the molecular/atomic level and then spit out a list of things that need adjustment. That still leaves out much of the lifestyle stuff but chemical re-balance can def give you a leg up.

 

A lot of the stuff our civilization suffers from probably appears to be unnecessary medieval ignorance to more advanced species. Heck, even pissing on a pH strip would probably help a lot of people make health choices for the better.

[delet...]

hah!! @ last bit.

[BCM]

So basically what you lot are all saying is your all a bunch of miserable depressed bastards beyond help and anyone who tries to help you is a cunt.

Awesome.

lol

[Rubin Farr]

Great pics and unreleased tracks!

[Adamovich]

this dodeccaheedron story is fucking hilarious, I enjoy this track even more now

[Guest skytree]

Also, this is genius - wanted something like this for ages - would be straightforward enough to pull off:

 

USB to modular HUB with up to 16 i/o's

Say you get 4 to start with and you can buy more to expand it to 16.

So you plug in your solenoid beaters which on the same cable have a contact mic which takes audio back to the USB port of the thing its hitting, cable to be at least 4m long,would need a really nicely designed flexible clamp to fix solenoid to hit whatever you like, drums, saucepans, children&pets heads , windows etc.

Then sell additional 1 cable/contact mic combo cables to plug into your hub, could have large and small solenoids for smaller or larger objects.

would be fuckng amazing, could be so compact , just take your laptop anywhere and start sequencing rhythms out of everything and anything and be able to record it easily and in good quality.

[yshf]

That quote about depression is probably the most ridiculous thing rdj has ever said.

This - please note that in my original post I didn't comment as to why it was amazing. Started some debate I can see... I wasn't like saying it was such a great, positive, or remotely correct quote. I just found it kinda funny. He's getting at the right ideas through the whole quote, but still sounds like the crazy fucker we know him to be. That's why I enjoyed it so much I guess.

 

But yeah, I understand how that isn't a helpful comment or piece of advice for dealing with depression. As someone who has dealt with depression recently, and (to a greater extent) anxiety in the past, I know how frustrating that kind of advice can be. Should have been more clear I guess... 'Pologies.

[Guest chops727]

 

That quote about depression is probably the most ridiculous thing rdj has ever said.

This - please note that in my original post I didn't comment as to why it was amazing. Started some debate I can see... I wasn't like saying it was such a great, positive, or remotely correct quote. I just found it kinda funny. He's getting at the right ideas through the whole quote, but still sounds like the crazy fucker we know him to be. That's why I enjoyed it so much I guess.

 

But yeah, I understand how that isn't a helpful comment or piece of advice for dealing with depression. As someone who has dealt with depression recently, and (to a greater extent) anxiety in the past, I know how frustrating that kind of advice can be. Should have been more clear I guess... 'Pologies.

 

Maybe he typed repression, spelt it wrong and the spellchecker turned it into depression, *smile*

There's loads of other mispelt, wrongly spellchecker corrected words in there, that they have not bothered to correct.

I noticed it said ' think ' where it should have been thin.

 

So are his Lannerlog Yamaha DX100 sound bank cassettes the first official RDJ release?

[KovalainenFanBoy]

 

 

So basically what you lot are all saying is your all a bunch of miserable depressed bastards beyond help and anyone who tries to help you is a cunt.

Awesome.

In that 1 tiny sentence, you have bitterness, envy, & negativity ! So your not loving/caring creating or learning and therein lie your possible reasons for depression.

 

[Friendly Foil]

 

I think his sunny disposition is helped by the fact that he hasn't had to work a day in his life. The amount he moans in interviews about how much he hates compiling tracks, touring, or doing promotional stuff, I imagine he'd know what depression felt like if he had to do that stuff every day for 40 years.

In that 1 tiny sentence, you have bitterness, envy, & negativity !

 

So what, Smack still has a point.

[WaxenPith]

 

 

I may have blacked out for a while there, but has no one else caught that apparently PhonicBoyOnDope (he of being… banned? from watmm several times or whatever) is apparently RDJ ???

 

Even though obvious troll, I'll still bite just for everyone else :) firstly, he's not banned at all (and hasn't been afaik), and he's obviously not Richard. Second, he used this name on a 1992 release:

 

http://www.discogs.com/Various-The-Philosophy-Of-Sound-And-Machine/release/51236

 

Q-Chastic

CAT 002

Written-By – PBoD

 

And it's also been explained in the 2005 I Love Aphex Twin special that Mary Anne Hobbs made for the BBC, I think it was Mixmaster Morris who did the explaining of the name.

 

 

Ohhhhh, okay. No, no troll on my part, but I was not aware that PBoD was a previously-known pseudonym of RDJ. I didn't know the name was out there already. It being confirmed and then later co-opted by another troll makes much more sense.

 

Cheers for the straightening-out!

 

 

Guess I'm a troll for picking an early moniker of his as my display name.

 

Holy shit at this interview. Amazing read, great way to spend a chunk of my day. Thanks much to Dave and Richard for doing this! Hearing those early tracks was a real treat as well. Would absolutely love to hear more stuff like this

 

[Amen Warrior]

Good reading, can't wait for part 2 :) thanks to all involved.

 

Lol at girlfriend police chase story. That whole bit has got to be bollox right? The only part of that I believe is that he owned quite a nice bike and cycled it to a demo!

[NI64]

I really liked the use of the word 'lush'.