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Amazon.com essential recording: If techno ever does become the sound of young America, don't expect Richard James to be its poster boy, deserving though he may be. A native of Cornwall, England, James is obsessed with the mechanics of music making: As a kid, he took apart and reassembled the living room piano. Under the names Aphex Twin, Polygon Window, AFX, and other aliases too numerous to mention, he showed that he could make entire tracks with the sounds produced by tapping on a Coke can. Like the indie rockers of yore, he revels in his marginality because of the creative freedom it gives him. His full-length U.S. debut, Selected Ambient Works Volume II (1994), includes some of the most serene sounds this side of the Orb, but his favorite hobby is the not-at-all-blissful pastime of driving a Daimler Ferret Mark 3 tank through his parents' backyard. None of his recordings have captured the competing impulses to lull you to sleep and blast out your eardrums as well as Richard D. James, his third and best album. As the title indicates, James has turned inward for inspiration, painting aural pictures of real and imagined scenes from his west country childhood. "Goongumpas" is a fanciful, playful tune that wouldn't sound out of place on the soundtrack to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. As his adventures with the family upright indicate, James was a bit of a devil even as a child. "Beetles" is the sound of a boy frying bugs on the sidewalk with a magnifying glass, and "To Cure a Weakling Child" shows flashes of the sort of sadism found only on preschool playgrounds. If you still doubt that young Richard developed early on, the romantic Nino Rota-style strings on "Girl/Boy Song" are just made for passionate seductions, and the tune appears in three mixes, each one hot and hornier than the one before. The raucous undercurrents of even his calmest tunes and the sources of many of his most common sounds are what link James to the rock tradition. With Richard D. James, the artist solidifies his position as an electronic music mastermind who has earned a spot beside such well-respected innovators--whether or not he's destined for stardom. --Jim Derogatis
Customer Reviews:
- A mixed bag of sweets and rocks: As indicated by the running times above, this album is relatively brief, such that it could almost be considered an EP -- the best stuff is found when Aphex Twin mixes frenetic beats with lush melodies. The paragon of that is "Girl/Boy Song", fusing pizzicato strings with crisp, yet at-times sloppy drumwork. Snares flail and assail as the string bite back, harmonic development pulling you in deeper (as opposed to the same thing repeating over and over, which is a common failing with this kind of experimental music).
"4" has a delightful, Oriental steppishness to it, with an overall mood that sounds fast and slow at the same time -- RDJ, when he gets it right, is a temporal master of controlling mood through precise sound selection and arrangement.
"Fingerbib" is another of my faves, its near-pastoral beat tapping along, sounding like the soundtrack to a Flash animation with a humanoid and his pet-something-or-other.
Most of the other tracks, however, work as LOLarious jokes suited for Internet viral videos (like the perverted innocence of "Milkman"), but they're not something I've listened to with any great length. I'm fond of experimental techniques melded with hummable tunes, but can't say I like abrasive bursts of noise which don't advance the music. - I have to be honest,: I know exactly why people rate this much higher than i have. I'm not criticizing anyone who rated this higher; this is just a personal opinion. Basically, after hearing what Richard D. James is capable of, this just fell short of a few expectations. I LOVE most of the songs, but there are a couple of songs i dont like as much that drag the whole album down for me. Tracks like "4", "Peek", "Girl/Boy Song", "Yellow Calx" and "Milkmen" are GREAT! I love listening to these tracks because they're so cleverly made. But, for example, the high pitched keyboard in "Corn Mouth" and the whilstles in "Logon Rock Witch" just come across as annoying. I respect experimentation in music (please dont get me wrong), and i listen to a lot of music like Merzbow, Sunn0))), Sonic Youth, but when i hear some sounds on this album, i skip a track. I'm not sure what others think of this, but it's just these tiny things that ruin it a little bit for me...
HOWEVER, i still think people should buy this. I'm giving this 3 and a half stars, because a majority of the songs on this album are freakin awesome but it's just those couple of tracks that i could have done without. I recommend people to buy "Selected Ambient Works" and "I Care Because You Do" first. - Engulfing ... but in a good way: I have the European version of the album so I will be reviewing based on the first 10 tracks.
Intense, fierce, engaging. I really like this album. 4 kicks off the whole album with such a fever pitch that it commands your attention. You may ask why only 4 stars? I'll give you 2 answers, Peek 824545201 and Logon Rock Witch. They have got to be 2 of my least favorite tracks from AT. It's a shame because the remaining tracks are insanely good. Since I have the European release, I too have a gripe about it's length. This could have been an EP as it clocks in at barely 30 minutes.
Standouts: 4, Fingerbib and Yellow Calx.
Enjoy. - Perverse Migraines: Huge berserk burning compositions employ the shock motif. Their overwhelming physical awkwardness exhausts the listener. Strange fusions of mechanical electronic crankshaft rhythms come across as illiterate pompus headaches. James' role as "genius loci" is based upon his staggering musical vulgarity.
- 4 and 1/2 stars.: weird and wonderful stuff in the shiny metal of this disc. it's an electronic spazz-out tempered with lush ambient carpeting for your ears to walk on. at times it feels as if you are inside a musical pinball machine and brain is being used for the pinball. if lewis carroll had dreamed music instead of lunatic books it might have sounded like this. your aural center becomes the rabbitt hole, and it's fun falling down and down. definitely headphone music. doesn't work quite as well being tossed to you from speakers. yes, headphones required. and i recommend it.
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