Aphex Twin - 26 Mixes for Cash
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Aphex TwinEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2003-03-25
Music Label: Warp Records
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- Time to Find Me - Aphex Twin, Peacock
- Raising the Titanic - Aphex Twin,
- Journey - Aphex Twin, Gentle People
- Triachus - Aphex Twin, Jeffs, Chris
- Heroes - Aphex Twin, Bowie, David
- In the Glitter, Pt. 2 - Aphex Twin, Sakurai, Atushi
- Zeros and Ones - Aphex Twin, Edwards, Mike
- Ziggy - Aphex Twin, Nav Katze
- Your Head My Voice - Aphex Twin, James, Richard [1]
- Change - Aphex Twin, Nav Katze
- Une Femme N'Est Pas un Homme - Aphex Twin, Takahashi, Yukihiro
- The Beauty of Being Numb (Section B) - Aphex Twin, Reznor, Trent
- Let My Fish Loose - Aphex Twin, Takemura, Nobukazu
- Krieger - Aphex Twin, Beck, Michael DJ
- Deep in Velvet - Aphex Twin, Boa, Phillip
- Falling Free - Aphex Twin, Halliday
- We Have Arrived - Aphex Twin, The Mover
- At the Heart of It All - Aphex Twin, James, Richard [1]
- Flow Coma - Aphex Twin, Massey
- Windowlicker - Aphex Twin, James, Richard D.
- Normal - Aphex Twin, Ford, Peter
- SAW2 Cd1 Trk2 - Aphex Twin, James, Richard D.
- Mindstream - Aphex Twin, Dangers, Jack
- You Can't Hide Your Love - Aphex Twin, Upton, Ed
- Spotlight - Aphex Twin, Vibert, Luke
- Debase (Soft Palate) - Aphex Twin, Flowers, Mike
Free Music Notes for 26 Mixes for Cash
Free Music Review: The good parts are very good; most of them are on CD1 though.
Hit: 3 Stars
Aphex Twin's remixes were often original works in disguise. Occasionally he claimed outright that he hadn't even bothered to listen to the originals that he was supposed to be remixing. That may have been hot air, but 26 Mixes For Cash sounds like an original Aphex Twin album, not a collection of remixes. More accurately, it sounds like an alternate history of Aphex's career, like a summary of his albums with a different set of tracks.
The first disc mostly contains tracks released in the early nineties -- softer, more melodic material in the vein of his first album Selected Ambient Works 85-92. The drum tracks and melodies do tend to be a bit less memorable on the whole, there's nothing like the bass line of "Tha" or the keyboard hook in "Ageispolis." For instance, "Time To Find Me" is very similar to "Xtal," right down to the unintelligible sample of female vocals, but the beat isn't quite as concise and catchy. "Raising The Titanic" has a good rolling drum track, but the strings just keep time, and don't really play anything interesting.
But still, when a musician is at his peak, even his lesser works can be excellent -- and the early nineties were absolutely AFX's peak, his first album is far and away his best. So, just about everything in the first half of 26 Mixes For Cash is enjoyable. And there are a few tracks that would fit in well on Selected Ambient Works 85-92, the highest praise I can give. The best of these is "Journey," a very long, slowly evolving piece with intricate percussion and lovely, wistful synth lines and vocal samples. Also very enjoyable is the bouncy melody in "In The Glitter Part 2," the hazy, drifting modified French-film style pop song "Une Femme N'est Pas Un Homme," and the funky hip-hop beat in "Change," which Gorillaz should sample for their next album.
The "reconstruction" of Jesus Jones's "Zeros And Ones" is a sparse, dark mood piece with lots of echoing feedback. In just six minutes, this one track covers everything that Godspeed You Black Emperor take ninety minutes to express. And AFX does it much better, too. He's even got the train noises approaching and receding.
Also notable is "The Beauty Of Being Numb," nominally a remix of Nine Inch Nails. Aphex famously said, "I never heard the originals...I don't want to, either." But I'm not inclined to believe him, because this track actually sounds a lot like NIN's soft instrumental side, somewhere between "A Warm Place" and "The Downward Spiral." It ends with Aphex blowing into a straw over and over -- a hilarious, on-target parody of Trent Reznor's tendency to put these kinds of aimlessly dissonant noises into otherwise quiet songs, granted that AFX also did that a lot. The majority of the song is quite pretty, though, and there's a keyboard melody that's more sophisticated than a lot of NIN's music at the time.
Then there's "Let My Fish Loose," which follows the classic Aphex style of alternating two simple melodic segments, and even features eerie children's voices, another common AFX touch. But the use of outside source material lends a little variety to the track. The acoustic bass and the flute set it apart from Aphex's usual sound. And the acoustic guitar in the middle of the song is beautiful.
The only track on the first disc that I didn't like is the remix of David Bowie's "Heroes," which has too much Bowie and not enough Aphex. The strings play very simple loops over and over, while Bowie yelps over them. It's not a good fit in my opinion. I kind of wish Aphex had done more "reconstruction" here.
Unfortunately, the second disc is much patchier, like the second half of AFX's career. Though it does have its moments, like "You Can't Hide Your Love," possibly the best track on the entire collection. It's an unabashed synth-pop song, unlike anything else in the Aphex catalog. The electro-bass rhythm is extremely generic, but it's produced with that unmistakable gentleness that characterizes Aphex's best music. Then there's "Deep In Velvet," in which a spastic jungle beat is combined with melodic keyboards, much like in "Flim" from the Come To Daddy EP. The real distinction, though, is the anthemic vocal sample "then one day, she will walk..." that wafts in and out of the background. The percussion style in "At The Heart Of It All," the other NIN remix, actually sounds a lot like what Trent Reznor himself did later on Year Zero. "Debase, Soft Palate" is also pretty decent, with some jazz elements for variety.
There's also one very odd track, a remix of 1:2 from Aphex's minimalist ambient album Selected Ambient Works Vol. 2. The synth is left unchanged, but now it serves as a backdrop for hissing acid-style percussion. The rhythm is a straightforward acid-house sort of thing, quite unlike the jungle percussion of Aphex's late-nineties output. Surprisingly, it sounds a lot like what Aphex did later on Chosen Lords in 2006. But it's more of a curiosity, since the redress can't hide what was originally drab music to begin with.
The rest is rough going: goofy industrial banging ("Krieger"), ear-splitting hardcore techno ("We Have Arrived"); boring glitchy drum workouts ("Remix By AFX," "Windowlicker Acid Edit," "Normal"), and those unlistenable jackhammer drill-and-bass beats that AFX beat into the ground during the late nineties ("Spotlight"). Other tracks, like "Mindstream," are all right, but don't really add anything to the first disc.
This is one of those albums where the final score doesn't mean a lot. The first disc, by itself, would get four stars easily, but I think the second disc is very uneven. There is a lot of really good music here though, and if you like latter-day Aphex Twin, you might enjoy the whole thing more than me.
26 Mixes for Cash Poster
A 26 track compilation on 2 CDs of Aphex Twin's blinding remixes (plus two previously unreleased Aphex tunes). Encompassing 10 years of always evolving, unpredictable Aphex Twin sounds, from acid trax and raved-up bangers to strangely commercial pop and his inimitably delicate, ambient empathies. Gatefold digipak. Warp. 2003.It's hard to imagine Aphex Twin having a more appropriately named label (Warp); fitting also that 26 Mixes for Cash should have such an honest title. Having passed off a random gabba track as a Lemonheads remix and not bothering to hear the Nine Inch Nails originals before handing over his mixes, Aphex Twin has historically proved a little wayward in his methods. Not so much remixing as recycling, Richard D James's method is not unlike flinging tracks into a garbage crusher just long enough so only the bare bones of melody and structure survive. Covering a decade's work, this stunning eclectic mix effortlessly flicks from cinematic ambience (Nine Inch Nails--"At the Heart of It All") and industrial pandemonium (Mescalinum United's "We Have Arrived") to squelching acid trance (his own previously unreleased acid edit of "Windowlicker"). The disparate range of artists remixed is as remarkable as the music, with Mike Flowers Pops and Wagon Christ making unlikely bedfellows. Improbable yet inspired highlights come in the form of his haunting interpretation of David Bowie's "Heroes" symphony conducted by Philip Glass and the breathtakingly ethereal transformation of Curve's "Falling Free." --Christopher Barrett
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