APHEX TWIN

druqks

2CD/3LP, Warp

Richard D. James did it again – he made THE electronica record of the year. Reason one: Because he put down all the standards as a sort of library for every other young electronoid to peruse and try to reach to, all the while keeping on with breaking down barriers and boundaries. Reason two: Because everybody will or already has said so (except for those who always try to gain individuality by taking the position no one else takes.) Anyway, what have Autechre and Pan Sonic been up to in the last months?

I am surely not the perfect reviewer to tell you something about Aphex Twin or any electronic music. I don’t really know a lot about electronic music. Holy Moly, how often have I said that and why am I a worse reviewer regarding electronica as opposed to, lets say, punkrock, jazz or country? Well, I don’t know a lot about electronic music, obviously, but I do not know everything about other styles as well. I don’t consider myself an expert in any kind of music at all and, after all, do I have to know a lot. Maybe I just excuse myself before I do something in this field, because there are so many self-claimed “experts” in the area and electronic music is the hippest thing to do around. All the intellectuals, students and smart people write about electronica and they do it really high-brow and hardly understandable. Am I afraid of their judgement or do I lack self-conscience? Should I react with a hearty fuck you to them and just keep going? What would Aphex Twin do? I think he would do what he always does – hide himself somewhere and produce tracks that are a part of his own vision and not give a damn about other people’s opinions. That is sound advice.

“Druqks” is the electronica record of the year. At least for me. On the one hand this means, that this is the one complete album I bought this year from this genre. I usually only by EPs because electronica-albums are way too much for me. “Druqks” is too much for me as well. It took me weeks to swallow it and I still haven’t stomached most of it. Not because it is so heavy or so way out of the ordinary, but because of its hugeness and all encompassing vision. There is so much on it – the tracks range from beautiful, harmonious piano-solos through the fucked-up drum’n’bass-stuff to pure noise and back again. He does the Elton-John-Mastering-Routine pretty much, that is, one low mellow track and then a faster one. With ol’ Sir Elton that means a ballad, a rocker, a ballad, a rocker and so on (I once listened through a whole Elton John album when I was babysitting the 6-year-old of friends of my mother lotsa years ago.) With Aphex Twin this of course means something else. But there are no obvious breaks between the tracks. You could keep your eyes glued to the display of your CP-player of course and count ‘em all out but that doesn’t make sense (except if you want to review the record…) The tracks lull into one another like they should, so “druqks” feels like a very big something, maybe a brick of a CD, or a rock. In my humble opinion (see above) this makes this record so fucking brilliant, its sheer size. Who else but Aphex Twin could have done that?

There are also a lot of hidden jokes and inside-puns on the CD. E.g. that it is not playable on computers – is that a joke, an act of self-defence against rippers or a kick in the ass to electronica-nerds? Or read the track titles – does any of this make any sense? Aphex Twin leaves more questions open than he answers, but I guess he wants to tell us, that the answers lie in the spaces between the questions – whatever that means.

12/2001