• Music

  • Aphex Twin......all downhill since '94?

This is going to go down well….but here goes………

I, like many on here, grew up listening to SAW Vols 1 and 2 which are IMO some of the best electronic albums of all time. Plus the Analogue Bubblebath EPs were decent fare….but since then the majority of his output has been unlistenable for me, which is fucking annoying considering what went before. An utter assault on the ear drums.

Seems like he spent his early years compiling deep electronic music that a multitude of folk could access, with beautiful melodies and atmosphere, but then stuck two fingers up and said fuck you, i’m now making this racket.

Ive tended to swerve anything he’s done for about 20 yrs, but I was listening to SAW Vol 1 today and thought has he ever gone back to those types of tracks and if so are they any kop?

    Many of his Analord tracks had the same sound.

    I remember buying Analogue bubblebath off Luke Slater way back when it was first released. It just sounded so different then came Digeridoo which is still my fav track of his. Hearing that in a small club is mental. Those bellowing sounds bouncing off the walls filling the entire space. Selected Ambient works is still good. The last album I bought was Syro which is shit.

    I liked Syro to be fair to the lad. Druqs was absolutely fucking tripe.

    Love this….seen him twice over the years.

    …I Care Because You Do is one of my favourite albums of all time. Amazing stuff.

    I have wondered why he makes some of the more unlistenable tracks he does, when he can make such stunning music. Does he genuinely think they are great or he just wants to make controversial music as people expect that of him.

    Have seen Aphex Twin twice.

    Absolute fucking garbage.

    IndustryStandard I kinda get what you’re saying, for sure SAW 1 and 2 are his best albums (and it’s pretty commonly considered that they’re among the best electronic albums of all time), and with his output after that you often have to get through a lot of irritating stuff to get to the good bits, e.g. a lot of Drukqs is indeed pretty unlistenable, yet it still has the great Avril 14th and Vordhbosn.

    Echoing a comment above, Syro was very good and tended more towards the ambient and melodic rather than loud and messy.

    His recent-ish Soundcloud dumps have also had a lot of good tracks in them, with many sounding more SAW-era (though I don’t think it was revealed when all these unreleased tracks were actually made).

    There are a few good compilations of his best previously unreleased Soundcloud tracks on Youtube, e.g. these two, which have a lot of more SAW type stuff (there’s a few tracks which overlap on both comps):

      Windowlicker also came out in 1999, which could be considered a high-water mark in terms of his mainstream appeal (and the closest he ever came to a pop song?!). It also of course has one of the best music videos of all time.

      Quite liked a few of the bits on Drukqs. But yeah, his earlier stuff is his more listenable stuff.

      Once saw him spin dub out the back of a British Gas van.

      The Field Day album was pretty good tbf, definitely listenable with his trademark “quirkiness” in the percussion.

      The Collapse EP was also pretty coherent, but hyped TF by Warp which kind of made it feel like a let down given all the press it had beforehand.

      Hello, btw

        4 years later

        Supreme x Aphex Twin collab -

        Looks nice but I will wait for the Ed Smallman x supreme colab before I part way with my money.