Aphex Twin - Richard D James Album
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Aphex TwinBrand: APHEX TWIN
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1997-01-28
Music Label: Rhino
Soundtracks:
- 4
- Cornish Acid
- Peek 824545301
- Fingerbib
- Carn Marth
- To Cure a Weakling Child
- Goon Gumpas
- Yellow Calx
- Girl/Boy Song
- Logan Rock Witch
- Milkman
- Inkeys
- Girl/Boy Song [£18 Snare Rush Mix]
- Beetles
- Girl/Boy Song [Redruth Mix]
Free Music Notes for Richard D James Album
Free Music Review: Excellent.
Hit: 5 Stars
The Richard D. James Album is Aphex Twin's 1990's magnus opus; a musical odyssey with as much to offer on the first listen as on the hundredth. Looking past the racing drum beats, the screeching synths, and the distorted samples, the Richard D. James Album is as much a tribute to the history of electronic music as a prophecy of its future.
The album commences with the track "4" which pits a string melody against fast drum samples and various computer generated sounds. The pleasant and soothing sounds of this first song betray the eerie beauty thematic of the album and belie the significantly more harsh noises and tracks heard later. The third track, "Peek 824545201" is an excellent example of this principle. Aphex Twin blends and sequences the noise of a squealing computer modem with a collection of beeps, whirs, and various other electronic sounds to achieve a truly unique sonic harmony; as much an entrancing alien soundscape as a futuristic, machine-made dance tune.
All songs on the album showcase Aphex Twin's perfectionist mastery of electronica, but not all are as complex as "4" or "Peek 824545201." "Fingerbib" achieves the same strange elegance of the other mentioned tracks with significantly less instrumentation. "To Cure a Weakling Child," "Beetles," and "Milkman" take the album in a drastically different direction, using sampled vocals to give songs a variety of different feels. "To Cure a Weakling Child" combines the voice of an adolescent with very fast drum samples and computer noises to create the playful sound continued in the next track, "Goon Gumpas," which uses almost entirely either real instruments or computer representations of real instruments. "Milkman" is a much stranger song. The beginning of the song sounds like computer generated gibberish, but has been revealed to be an encoded (extremely violent and vulgar) statement in English by astute listeners using software to decode the segment. The rest of the song consists of Aphex Twin gently repeating somewhat inappropriate lyrics that become increasingly distorted and pitch-shifted over fast drum hits. "Beetles" is perhaps the creepiest song on the album: Aphex Twin quietly and somberly laments that "Beatles under my carpet, under my feet, they come out in the heat" over slow synthesizer sounds.
The crown jewel of the album is the masterpiece "Yellow Calx." The three-minute-long song is comprised of extremely intricate drum samples meshed with a few different computer noises over which a very simple melody plays. The haunting nature and mechanical precision of the song is recurrent in many of Aphex Twin's works, but "Yellow Calx" stands out as one of his best for reasons that can only be heard, not explained.
Taken as a whole, the Richard D. James Album is deeply rooted in the tradition of electronic music. Aphex Twin, like historical artists composing in the style of "elektronische musik," relies heavily on sounds generated entirely by electronic means. "Peek 824545201," for example, contains many sounds of pure electronic origin, not relying on any "real" sounds. Like historical "musique concrète," Aphex Twin also manipulates recorded sound to create his music. He distorts, loops, and samples the human voice on multiple tracks, and he samples physical instruments and children's toys on the album as well.
Looking forward, the album introduces new concepts in electronic music. In interviews Aphex Twin has claimed that he used data from 1980's video games to generate some of the computer sounds used on the album. Some of the track titles are borrowed from keywords in an old version of the BASIC programming language. These atypical uses of computers in making electronic music add an intriguing element to Aphex Twin's work. His songs are rich not only sonically, but in the variety of ways in which he creates sounds.
The Richard D. James Album is an essential addition to anybody's record collection. Aphex Twin's music is aurally superb, but the album offers much more. It provides a window into the underpinnings of the history of electronic music. It can be analyzed and altered to reveal secrets and messages encoded in the music. It showcases the creativity and variety not only of sound, but of the process of making sound. The Richard D. James Album is the perfect subject of an afternoon of relaxed listening, a semester of scholarly investigation, or as the inspiration to create new and interesting music in new and interesting ways.
Richard D James Album Poster
No Description AvailableNo Track Information Available
Media Type: CD
Artist: APHEX TWIN
Title: RICHARD D. JAMES ALBUM
Street Release Date: 01/28/1997
Genre: TECHNO
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