Aphex Twin: Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments pt2 EP

[modey]

Its an experimental EP.

 

its a gamelan trip hop album.

 

its not my idea of what experimental music is.

heh, well he's experimenting.. it's funny how the experimental 'scene' (at least in melbourne) has devolved into a very specific sound; kinda the antithesis of what experimental music should be about in the first place (tangent sorry)

Processing robot acoustic drums through a outboard reverb effect gated only at the end of the 4th bar to make it sound like a sampled break could well be audio geek pranksterism. That's what I assumed anyway. Sorta goes along with applying big vintage analog chorus(?), realtime reverse delay(?), subtle spectral effects(?) etc in order to create (x) on an EP called Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments. Magic.

 

x=10/10 +1 for the dog bark.

 

now about that midi pipe organ...

ha, yeah that did cross my mind (re: the drum break sounding sampled). I wouldn't put it past him..

 

 

and yes, the dog bark was a lol!

[ghOsty]

So, the EP claims to be Part 2... Will we ever see Part 1, or would that have been some of the piano tracks on Druqks or "aisatsana"?

 

Or...Or... is that what one of the supposed other upcoming LPs is?

[hello spiral]

Yeah the dog bark is great.

 

Seems to me that ended up on there as a happy accident. Prolly just richard doing a test recording or something then heard it on playback and went "wicked"

[klore]

that last Piano piece is a sort of new April 14th to me

[Guest temp1]

But there is a limit with what you can do with this kinda thing.

aw, limits to acoustic instruments? adorable

 

 

---

Tried to edit that last post. Guess i cant edit a post afterwards after a while.

But i meant, there is a limitation to what you can create this way, versus a computer and synthesisers... Electronic equipment.

 

I like the concept. And im not bashing this ep or anything. I think its cool. But i prefer Syro over this, thats all.

[Hugh Mughnus]

 

But there is a limit with what you can do with this kinda thing.

aw, limits to acoustic instruments? adorable

 

 

---

Tried to edit that last post. Guess i cant edit a post afterwards after a while.

But i meant, there is a limitation to what you can create this way, versus a computer and synthesisers... Electronic equipment.

 

I like the concept. And im not bashing this ep or anything. I think its cool. But i prefer Syro over this, thats all.

 

 

I agree with you that there's a limit to the medium (being physical).

 

I either watched an interview or read about squarepusher's recent endeavour with z machines, and how many guitar strings were broken in the process of making the tracks lol.

[Guest temp1]

 

 

But there is a limit with what you can do with this kinda thing.

aw, limits to acoustic instruments? adorable

 

 

---

Tried to edit that last post. Guess i cant edit a post afterwards after a while.

But i meant, there is a limitation to what you can create this way, versus a computer and synthesisers... Electronic equipment.

 

I like the concept. And im not bashing this ep or anything. I think its cool. But i prefer Syro over this, thats all.

 

 

I agree with you that there's a limit to the medium (being physical).

 

I either watched an interview or read about squarepusher's recent endeavour with z machines, and how many guitar strings were broken in the process of making the tracks lol.

 

 

Yepp.

 

Heh. I can imagine that. Love that video. Its a complex setup, and must have taken ages to setup. So yeah, there must have been allot of trial and errors in that process. ;) That was a cool project.

[d-a-m-o]

first listen.

[klore]

i disagree, there are no limits to acoustic or any kind of instruments,

 

despite the overload and the feeling that everything has being done, there is always something waiting for being discovered, even with a mouth's harp

[Guest bitroast]

Yeah the dog bark is great.

 

Seems to me that ended up on there as a happy accident. Prolly just richard doing a test recording or something then heard it on playback and went "wicked"

Lol yes.

 

I had a super quick listen at 45rpm (and by super quick i mean, darting the needle around track to track seeing how it sounded) and i dunnoooo. It sounds notably "sped up". Especially with the piano and melodies and whatnot. 33 is defs where its at.

 

@modey. The piano bass notes on track 1 still sound weird sped up. They almost sound like when you pplay a guitar or bass super detuned down to the point of the guitar string flopping around and losing pitch. I wonder if he detuned the piano way down or something? Or if its just a weird effect hes getting from placing shit on the strings prep piano style..

I have no idea. Doesnt sound like recording pitched down tho .

[Hugh Mughnus]

i disagree, there are no limits to acoustic or any kind of instruments,

 

despite the overload and the feeling that everything has being done, there is always something waiting for being discovered, even with a mouth's harp

 

There is a very specific limitation on the physical medium, based on the materials the medium are made of. You can only beat a drum so hard before it breaks.

 

I'm being very literal here btw. You can't take a jackhammer to aphex' "hat" drum and expect it to survive. It is limited.

[Guest bitroast]

 

 

i disagree, there are no limits to acoustic or any kind of instruments,

 

despite the overload and the feeling that everything has being done, there is always something waiting for being discovered, even with a mouth's harp

There is a very specific limitation on the physical medium, based on the materials the medium are made of. You can only beat a drum so hard before it breaks.

 

I'm being very literal here btw. You can't take a jackhammer to aphex' "hat" drum and expect it to survive. It is limited.

What are you blubbering on about stephen?

Pointing out that something will smash if you try hard enough to destroy it has nothing to do with this conversation :p

[David Bowman]

what a beautifully personal release. richard playing his machines at home, his dog and child audible in the background. I feel a lot of sawII vibes. intimate as well as carefree/experimental. thank you richard.

[Bazeley]

I think that control over acoustic instruments is only more limited than control over the sound of an analog synthesiser due to practical difficulties in how to affect the sound. (hence swinging a piano from the ceiling, and preparing a piano.) however, if you hit an acoustic drum twice, the sound will not be the same the second time: a perfect circle only exists in the abstract. The sound modulates itself! Perhaps this is the beauty of it for Richard? If richard is planning any installations of acoustic instruments, then the sky is the limit, and i'm going to be there to see it! Digital signals are even less limited than analog synths, you can do some amazing stuff in real time these days. Wether you like the sound or not is subjective. compressing air is fun.

 

This ep is so good.

[delet...]

rang around, noone's got it till next week. ;-/ should i buy the wav's off yee olde blerp.

[d-a-m-o]

received cd and vinyl this morning. thanks blerp ! The Ep is great !

[Guest progben]

I just hope Richard ignores the criticism on soundcloud and reads watmm instead. The world is in great need of more records like this

[delet...]

99% of soundcloud was positive. dude is bathing in cosmic bliss.

[Guest Toastmann]

Just downloaded it from bleep, reeeaaally digging it so far.

 

Some songs with the bells and bass have an Amon Tobin-y like feel to it.

 

I'd like to hear if he can push the robots to Drukqs-esque stuff.

Thinking about it again, I would really like a Drukqs-like ep with acoustic instruments.

[ghOsty]

Someone suggested hearing some covers of old tracks with this setup... would be kinda cool to hear some of the old classics done fully accoustic. I'd jizz my pants over an all accoustic version of Meltphace

[d-a-m-o]

no stickers with the order. Blerp plz...

[Guest chunks]

 

May have been mentioned, but that tank pic with his dad confirms what WATMM had picked up on earlier. It is indeed the correct Derek James in this documentary at 6:40:

[youtubehd]aIbpt1aDFqM[/youtubehd]

 

No fucking way.

 

Swansea is literally 20 minutes away from me. If his parents are still in the area, it looks like the chances of me bumping into Rich have increased tenfold.

 

[Tatdylf]

omg tomorrow...

the cum is oozing out of my dick

edit: I didn't even have to touch it

[Guest progben]

Here's my review of CCAI2 for Manchester Rocks:

http://manchesterrocks.webs.com/apps/blog/show/43031579-aphex-twin-computer-controlled-acoustic-instruments-pt-2-review

 

Bear in mind that this is mainly for a metal/rock readership who aren't especially familiar with RDJ's stuff. I thought it'd be good to cover it though and hopefully get a few more people to listen to the record.

 

Feedback appreciated! (I noticed a couple of typos, but hey ho).

[Lucas]

when I read in one of the Syrobonkers! interview that he feels like "he's just warming up" with music making, it made me laugh and it amazed me in the same time because I thought it wasn't something he said to show off or something, rather simply honest truth about how he feels right now. Aphex Twin is the artist I know who goes the more consequently into this process of constantly changing his tools, trying to push it further or into another direction with every release and sometimes even track (that's another subject but it's normally quite important for me to listen to albums entirely and I've always find more difficult to do that with AFX's albums and not to pick some tracks here and there for a quick listen, because the individual tracks sound so unique somehow. for that reason I actually think several of his albums almost lack of cohesion for a whole listening).

 

anyway, back to this "warming up" thing, SYRO sounded extremely deep and mature to me because it was only made possible because of RDJ's present notoriety, which allows him to have so much equipment and to organize it in several rooms with completely different workflows... SYRO wouldn't have been possible at the time of Druqks because he didn't mature enough experience (nor had enough material means) for it at that time imo (and I don't want to say anything like SYRO is better than Druqks because I think it doesn't make any sense to compare albums like that. each album has been made at a given time of the artist's personal development and they all make sense equally in this context).

 

Now comes this EP, which shows a new direction in his music. We know he's been exploring there since some time already but now we can hear a first "achieved" compilation of it, studio quality. And now I think about this quote with the warming up and see this EP is just another confirmation of that. I believe there will be several other EPs of this series because this one is probably just a tiny bit of what he's been exploring with those robots. And then will very probably come the time where he'll try to combine this robots setup with the good old electronic he's been doing for so long now. I'm very optimistic about the music RDJ will want to show the public for the rest of his life.