6 ms·

I've heard a few of Aphex's stuff. How is he live? Perhaps I'm not musically apt to fully get it, but I would like to.

kodisha 8y ago
Not every song of his is like that. Mano of them are soft and nice. https://youtu.be/z56OiPR4r2s https://youtu.be/z56OiPR4r2s
d--b 8y ago
Live is awesome. It can get very intense though. I guess a good starting point is girl/boy song on Richard D James. It's 90s drum n bass that was pretty new when it came out, but sounds quite mainstream nowadays. It's typical Aphex Twin with pretty insane drum machine supporting a slow-moving melody. Many many many variations within the same track. Drukqs, and the later stuff (syro, collapse) are quite mature, more rhapsodic (like with very different moments within the same track) with an emphasis on non-standard scales.
dnos 8y ago
To be honest, I think he is more of a musician’s musician and a bit hard to “get”. Outside the artistic creativity itself, I find his music more enjoyable by recognizing the craftsmanship and musicianship required to create his unique sounds and rhythms. Once you realize it’s not just random noises, perhaps some of the songs may speak to you like I found. If you have ever tried creating electronic music with drum machines, synthesizers, midi loopers, etc, it would be a lot easier to appreciate his music I think. Maybe similar to say, free jazz? If you don’t appreciate or understand the nuances, I doubt you’d enjoy listening to it. I’m on mobile or I’d research, but I’m sure there are some great videos on YouTube explaining some of his or similar techniques?
- icelancer 8y ago
  > I think he is more of a musician’s musician This is the best way I've seen it put.
- king_panic 8y ago
  I'm not a musician, but I love `Selected Ambient Works 85–92`. It sounds way ahead of its time.
  - mruts 8y ago
    Best EDM album ever, I’d say.
    - dkdbejwi383 8y ago
      EDM isn’t a catch all term for all electronic music
      - shams93 8y ago
        Yeah he's IDM not EDM, IDM is a older term from the 90s they called it "intelligent dance music" because it uses the tools of dance music but just like you could dance to Duke Ellington but nobody danced to Charlie Parker you can't exactly dance to music as complex as his but it enjoyable listening for sure.
        avinium 8y ago
        > Yeah he's IDM not EDM, IDM is a older term from the 90s they called it "intelligent dance music" AKA "beard stroking music" in the D&B world. It's music that doesn't energize people and get them on the dance floor. Go see a IDM/"experimental/"beard stroking" DJ live, all you see are a bunch of young male hipsters standing around stroking their beards, commenting on the uniqueness of the "interplay".
        glitcher 8y ago
        Sounds very similar to the reasoning behind the "shoegaze" genre name. All of the above of which I'm a big fan! Guess I like heady music, more recently have seen IDM described as braindance as well.
- LifeLiverTransp 8y ago
  Its like with all people ahead of time, like the velvet underground. There discoverys are reappearing in nearly half of the songs of all liked bands.
- enneff 8y ago
  On what planet does Aphex Twin sound like “random noises”. It’s not like it’s musique concrete.
- xkcd-sucks 8y ago
  I listened off and on for decades and it never really "clicked". Then at some point in time, well into my adult life, I realized that I was quietly obsessed with Aphex Twin tracks and listened to them all the time. Broadly speaking, I think it's just about paying attention to details. For example in SAW2 trk1 "cliffs" there's kind of a "peak and drop" moment. It's implemented as a very small shift in phasing between two voices, one which was lagging the other begins leading the other. And maybe Although it's barely audible the feeling of the track changes from... maybe a wistful reverie on a solitary walk on an ocean clifftop in the breeze and sun of a late-summer afternoon... to something more "unblocked", like joyfully running down a hill to home. That kind of detail -- "Tempo" as a feeling, not just a BPM, accomplished by changing other stuff besides pitch and average loudness of notes. It is the sort of thing that one attends to when rehearsing with a good symphony conductor or a chamber-group coach. Or with a music teacher, e.g. "play through the measure to here [drawn out slightly]". You might be instructed to play something "scherzando", playfully, or "andante", leisurely. And God help you if you play something "lightly" instead of "playfully", or "dragging" rather than "stately", or vice versa! Rendering subtle emotional nuance through soundmaking tools is certainly learnable, and you get to learn Italian/Russian cursing for free. Or "The oboes here are cats, there's a cat in heat and the oboes are meowing around. Then the bassoon comes in and it's like a pregnant cat and it's not so excitable". That one came from a world-class Boston Symphony musician, and it's absolutely serious. Really good musicians play with sound. Sometimes they do things for the lols. Music being about pattern matching, good musicians also play with the listener's sense of expectation and fulfullment. Good musicians do with sound what good lovers do with touch. Good musicians do with sound what good comedians do with concepts. There are lots of good musicians in the world, and many don't have good recordings. Afx is one who managed to make a pretty good musical career out of his artistic vision, which seems rare. It's nice that it's easy to find recordings and people who've heard those recordings, and there's always something new to hear in them. An example of the expectations thing: An absolutely beautiful melody buried under much louder boring/aversive voices. It's impossible to focus on the melody so it leaves you wanting more. Related to this is the "bass drop" and the idk "fake-out bass drop", maybe. I think "teasing" / "trolling" / "ruining or messing with expectations" is something that seems pretty characteristic of Aphex Twin tracks. I think enjoying "challenging listens" is really just about exposure and mindfulness. Truly listening to all music helps. And playing music, only because it forces you to pay attention to what actually makes things sound the way they do. And paying attention to the sounds of the world around you, and how sounds are modified by the environment. And listening to the same recording over and over agin, to build familiarity. Personally, I became a total afx fanboy over decades, and it was an incremental and slow process. I was thoroughly and extensively trained in classical music through high school; I mostly just listened to Drukqs for the piano and endured the other stuff. In college I ate acid more often than usual; it was general knowledge that "listening to Aphex Twin... enhances your trip, it's like hacking your brain or something" and then you got on with the rest of your life. And then one day I found myself dissecting the auditory nuances of why I liked something, or why something seemed like a deliberate choice to irritate the listener. I think appreciating nuance is just something that comes with age, in that experience of the fullest range and detail of human experience comes with age. And also appreciation of a wider range of qualia, just like stinky cheese is something one usually does not appreciate immediately. Also, it's instructive to watch musicians playing, and see how they communicate with visuals, body cues, and sound. Chamber groups are good. Some bush-league music festivals are good, after the main day is over sometimes the professional musicians jam with each other for the lols, or sit in on another group's late night set.
- bgeeek 8y ago
  To be honest, I think he is more of a musician’s musician and a bit hard to “get” ? Not in the UK - I would say Selected Ambient Works vol 1 is one of the best records of the '90s. Still stands up very well today.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >If you have ever tried creating electronic music with drum machines, synthesizers, midi loopers, etc, it would be a lot easier to appreciate his music I think. Or if you merely like to listen to electronic music, like hundreds of millions of people around the world? Seems like your comment comes from someone for whom "real" music is rock, jazz, etc, and they assume everybody starts like that. But in electronic there are far more niche genres than Aphex Twin's. He was left of field in the semi-mainstream, not across the board.
glitcher 8y ago
Live shows are amazing! Saw him in 1996 in Seattle, and in 2003 at an All Tomorrow's Parties festival in UK. The latter was absolutely incredible, curated by Autechre. Boy I feel old ;)
efm 8y ago
A good overview of his music is this top 20 article on the 25th anniversary of Selected Ambient Works Volume II https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/feb/28/aphex-twin-best-songs-ranked https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/feb/28/aphex-twin-bes...
thinkalone 8y ago
His current live show is a bit intense: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj9URI2aKgM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj9URI2aKgM But it's also very rare for him to tour
meko 8y ago
He was really ahead of his time in terms of the electronic music sounds he uses. He was also known for unique methods of sound creation (like programming... A toaster? Stuff like that... Can't recall specifics atm). It takes careful, perhaps repeated listenings. My favorite time to listen to his stuff is while tripping though. From his 'weird' bleeps and bloops emerge something new entirely.
- meko 8y ago
  Whoops, misread previous comment as "how does he live", as though he 'didn't get' rdj's music, and couldn't fathom how he made a living... Ha ha...
- consumer451 8y ago
  Regarding Aphex and unique methods of sounds creation, check out his midi-driven robots. “Hat” : https://logosfoundation.org/instrum_gwr/HAT.html https://logosfoundation.org/instrum_gwr/HAT.html “snar_2” : https://logosfoundation.org/instrum_gwr/snar2.html https://logosfoundation.org/instrum_gwr/snar2.html He also has a full drum kit with actuatated drumsticks on each surface. I can’t find that online, but I saw it in an interview in his home studio.
inspector14 8y ago
seeing him live was both a a highly transformative and personal experience for me
- moretai 8y ago
  How so? I know those terms get tossed around with a lot of musical acts, but what did it for you? Would you equate it to a religious experience? If so, what do you think that is?
hermitdev 8y ago
I haven't seen Aphex live, but other ambient artists around 1999-2001 (Luke Bubert & BJ Cole amd [Greek letter mu]ziq. The shows were awesome and pretty chill. No one was dancing, just hanging out. Some drinking and ecstasy, probably more weed than anything. People sitting or laying on the floor, sitting on the stairs leading to the floor. It was fun and, though the music was "loud", you could still have a conversation without yelling.
EamonnMR 8y ago
I just went to one of his live shows and would definitely recommend it. He spends a good amount of it messing with his modular rig, doing crazy rolls, etc. For a music nerd it's pretty great.
clydethefrog 8y ago
Recent review from a performance in 2018. https://www.residentadvisor.net/reviews/23229 https://www.residentadvisor.net/reviews/23229
aasasd 8y ago
One surprise for me regarding idm live was how Amon Tobin's ‘nice soft electronics for listening in your room’ turned out more like eye-popping industrial hardcore when played on a club's huge speakers.
- aasasd 8y ago
  And btw, Richard has said in an interview that he knows how many of his tracks sound nicer when slowed down to 33 rpm instead of 45, and that you could just listen to the “RDJ Album” on 33 so you get ‘an album of standard length’ instead of 30 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWqf17mUyoQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWqf17mUyoQ Turns out, plenty of IDM, breakcore and other electronic music sounds excellent when slowed down, e.g. the entire genre of Belgian new beat is slowed down acid hardcore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yBvP3616Wc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yBvP3616Wc Hard house turns into pleasant groovy house with harder sound. But you'll need speed adjustment that doesn't adjust the pitch (i.e. like vinyl but not like Youtube's speed control). VLC can do that if the time-stretching option is disabled in advanced settings under ‘audio’. The sox console program can do that in batch (ffmpeg botches the audio for some reason).

Not every song of his is like that. Mano of them are soft and nice. https://youtu.be/z56OiPR4r2s https://youtu.be/z56OiPR4r2s

d--b 8y ago

Live is awesome. It can get very intense though. I guess a good starting point is girl/boy song on Richard D James. It's 90s drum n bass that was pretty new when it came out, but sounds quite mainstream nowadays. It's typical Aphex Twin with pretty insane drum machine supporting a slow-moving melody. Many many many variations within the same track. Drukqs, and the later stuff (syro, collapse) are quite mature, more rhapsodic (like with very different moments within the same track) with an emphasis on non-standard scales.

dnos 8y ago

To be honest, I think he is more of a musician’s musician and a bit hard to “get”. Outside the artistic creativity itself, I find his music more enjoyable by recognizing the craftsmanship and musicianship required to create his unique sounds and rhythms. Once you realize it’s not just random noises, perhaps some of the songs may speak to you like I found. If you have ever tried creating electronic music with drum machines, synthesizers, midi loopers, etc, it would be a lot easier to appreciate his music I think. Maybe similar to say, free jazz? If you don’t appreciate or understand the nuances, I doubt you’d enjoy listening to it. I’m on mobile or I’d research, but I’m sure there are some great videos on YouTube explaining some of his or similar techniques?

icelancer 8y ago
> I think he is more of a musician’s musician This is the best way I've seen it put.
king_panic 8y ago
I'm not a musician, but I love `Selected Ambient Works 85–92`. It sounds way ahead of its time.
- mruts 8y ago
  Best EDM album ever, I’d say.
  - dkdbejwi383 8y ago
    EDM isn’t a catch all term for all electronic music
    - shams93 8y ago
      Yeah he's IDM not EDM, IDM is a older term from the 90s they called it "intelligent dance music" because it uses the tools of dance music but just like you could dance to Duke Ellington but nobody danced to Charlie Parker you can't exactly dance to music as complex as his but it enjoyable listening for sure.
      - avinium 8y ago
        > Yeah he's IDM not EDM, IDM is a older term from the 90s they called it "intelligent dance music" AKA "beard stroking music" in the D&B world. It's music that doesn't energize people and get them on the dance floor. Go see a IDM/"experimental/"beard stroking" DJ live, all you see are a bunch of young male hipsters standing around stroking their beards, commenting on the uniqueness of the "interplay".
        glitcher 8y ago
        Sounds very similar to the reasoning behind the "shoegaze" genre name. All of the above of which I'm a big fan! Guess I like heady music, more recently have seen IDM described as braindance as well.
LifeLiverTransp 8y ago
Its like with all people ahead of time, like the velvet underground. There discoverys are reappearing in nearly half of the songs of all liked bands.
enneff 8y ago
On what planet does Aphex Twin sound like “random noises”. It’s not like it’s musique concrete.
xkcd-sucks 8y ago
I listened off and on for decades and it never really "clicked". Then at some point in time, well into my adult life, I realized that I was quietly obsessed with Aphex Twin tracks and listened to them all the time. Broadly speaking, I think it's just about paying attention to details. For example in SAW2 trk1 "cliffs" there's kind of a "peak and drop" moment. It's implemented as a very small shift in phasing between two voices, one which was lagging the other begins leading the other. And maybe Although it's barely audible the feeling of the track changes from... maybe a wistful reverie on a solitary walk on an ocean clifftop in the breeze and sun of a late-summer afternoon... to something more "unblocked", like joyfully running down a hill to home. That kind of detail -- "Tempo" as a feeling, not just a BPM, accomplished by changing other stuff besides pitch and average loudness of notes. It is the sort of thing that one attends to when rehearsing with a good symphony conductor or a chamber-group coach. Or with a music teacher, e.g. "play through the measure to here [drawn out slightly]". You might be instructed to play something "scherzando", playfully, or "andante", leisurely. And God help you if you play something "lightly" instead of "playfully", or "dragging" rather than "stately", or vice versa! Rendering subtle emotional nuance through soundmaking tools is certainly learnable, and you get to learn Italian/Russian cursing for free. Or "The oboes here are cats, there's a cat in heat and the oboes are meowing around. Then the bassoon comes in and it's like a pregnant cat and it's not so excitable". That one came from a world-class Boston Symphony musician, and it's absolutely serious. Really good musicians play with sound. Sometimes they do things for the lols. Music being about pattern matching, good musicians also play with the listener's sense of expectation and fulfullment. Good musicians do with sound what good lovers do with touch. Good musicians do with sound what good comedians do with concepts. There are lots of good musicians in the world, and many don't have good recordings. Afx is one who managed to make a pretty good musical career out of his artistic vision, which seems rare. It's nice that it's easy to find recordings and people who've heard those recordings, and there's always something new to hear in them. An example of the expectations thing: An absolutely beautiful melody buried under much louder boring/aversive voices. It's impossible to focus on the melody so it leaves you wanting more. Related to this is the "bass drop" and the idk "fake-out bass drop", maybe. I think "teasing" / "trolling" / "ruining or messing with expectations" is something that seems pretty characteristic of Aphex Twin tracks. I think enjoying "challenging listens" is really just about exposure and mindfulness. Truly listening to all music helps. And playing music, only because it forces you to pay attention to what actually makes things sound the way they do. And paying attention to the sounds of the world around you, and how sounds are modified by the environment. And listening to the same recording over and over agin, to build familiarity. Personally, I became a total afx fanboy over decades, and it was an incremental and slow process. I was thoroughly and extensively trained in classical music through high school; I mostly just listened to Drukqs for the piano and endured the other stuff. In college I ate acid more often than usual; it was general knowledge that "listening to Aphex Twin... enhances your trip, it's like hacking your brain or something" and then you got on with the rest of your life. And then one day I found myself dissecting the auditory nuances of why I liked something, or why something seemed like a deliberate choice to irritate the listener. I think appreciating nuance is just something that comes with age, in that experience of the fullest range and detail of human experience comes with age. And also appreciation of a wider range of qualia, just like stinky cheese is something one usually does not appreciate immediately. Also, it's instructive to watch musicians playing, and see how they communicate with visuals, body cues, and sound. Chamber groups are good. Some bush-league music festivals are good, after the main day is over sometimes the professional musicians jam with each other for the lols, or sit in on another group's late night set.
bgeeek 8y ago
To be honest, I think he is more of a musician’s musician and a bit hard to “get” ? Not in the UK - I would say Selected Ambient Works vol 1 is one of the best records of the '90s. Still stands up very well today.
coldtea 8y ago
>If you have ever tried creating electronic music with drum machines, synthesizers, midi loopers, etc, it would be a lot easier to appreciate his music I think. Or if you merely like to listen to electronic music, like hundreds of millions of people around the world? Seems like your comment comes from someone for whom "real" music is rock, jazz, etc, and they assume everybody starts like that. But in electronic there are far more niche genres than Aphex Twin's. He was left of field in the semi-mainstream, not across the board.

glitcher 8y ago

Live shows are amazing! Saw him in 1996 in Seattle, and in 2003 at an All Tomorrow's Parties festival in UK. The latter was absolutely incredible, curated by Autechre. Boy I feel old ;)

efm 8y ago

A good overview of his music is this top 20 article on the 25th anniversary of Selected Ambient Works Volume II https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/feb/28/aphex-twin-best-songs-ranked https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/feb/28/aphex-twin-bes...

thinkalone 8y ago

His current live show is a bit intense: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj9URI2aKgM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj9URI2aKgM But it's also very rare for him to tour

meko 8y ago

He was really ahead of his time in terms of the electronic music sounds he uses. He was also known for unique methods of sound creation (like programming... A toaster? Stuff like that... Can't recall specifics atm). It takes careful, perhaps repeated listenings. My favorite time to listen to his stuff is while tripping though. From his 'weird' bleeps and bloops emerge something new entirely.

meko 8y ago
Whoops, misread previous comment as "how does he live", as though he 'didn't get' rdj's music, and couldn't fathom how he made a living... Ha ha...
consumer451 8y ago
Regarding Aphex and unique methods of sounds creation, check out his midi-driven robots. “Hat” : https://logosfoundation.org/instrum_gwr/HAT.html https://logosfoundation.org/instrum_gwr/HAT.html “snar_2” : https://logosfoundation.org/instrum_gwr/snar2.html https://logosfoundation.org/instrum_gwr/snar2.html He also has a full drum kit with actuatated drumsticks on each surface. I can’t find that online, but I saw it in an interview in his home studio.

inspector14 8y ago

seeing him live was both a a highly transformative and personal experience for me

moretai 8y ago
How so? I know those terms get tossed around with a lot of musical acts, but what did it for you? Would you equate it to a religious experience? If so, what do you think that is?

hermitdev 8y ago

I haven't seen Aphex live, but other ambient artists around 1999-2001 (Luke Bubert & BJ Cole amd [Greek letter mu]ziq. The shows were awesome and pretty chill. No one was dancing, just hanging out. Some drinking and ecstasy, probably more weed than anything. People sitting or laying on the floor, sitting on the stairs leading to the floor. It was fun and, though the music was "loud", you could still have a conversation without yelling.

EamonnMR 8y ago

I just went to one of his live shows and would definitely recommend it. He spends a good amount of it messing with his modular rig, doing crazy rolls, etc. For a music nerd it's pretty great.

clydethefrog 8y ago

Recent review from a performance in 2018. https://www.residentadvisor.net/reviews/23229 https://www.residentadvisor.net/reviews/23229

aasasd 8y ago

One surprise for me regarding idm live was how Amon Tobin's ‘nice soft electronics for listening in your room’ turned out more like eye-popping industrial hardcore when played on a club's huge speakers.

aasasd 8y ago
And btw, Richard has said in an interview that he knows how many of his tracks sound nicer when slowed down to 33 rpm instead of 45, and that you could just listen to the “RDJ Album” on 33 so you get ‘an album of standard length’ instead of 30 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWqf17mUyoQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWqf17mUyoQ Turns out, plenty of IDM, breakcore and other electronic music sounds excellent when slowed down, e.g. the entire genre of Belgian new beat is slowed down acid hardcore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yBvP3616Wc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yBvP3616Wc Hard house turns into pleasant groovy house with harder sound. But you'll need speed adjustment that doesn't adjust the pitch (i.e. like vinyl but not like Youtube's speed control). VLC can do that if the time-stretching option is disabled in advanced settings under ‘audio’. The sox console program can do that in batch (ffmpeg botches the audio for some reason).