Roll up roll up: behold the freak show. Yes for this month only the Aphex Twin bandwagon is in town. Come and marvel at the Richard D James boy-wonder. Can you separate the music from the myth?
Yes amid the usual fanfare, dubious hype (lie of the album: he's bought a power plant in the middle of a roundabout) and propaganda, Aphex Twin has unleashed 'Drukqs'. Cor blimey guvner, whatever does it all mean?
Well, with most artists, though least of all AFX, it would be customary to start with the music. 'Drukqs' is a thirty track, 2CD album - the first long player from the Cornishman since 'Richard D James'. Thankfully, it doesn't flow seamlessly like DJ-made albums, in any particular direction. There's stark contrast between moments of post-jungle sonic chaos (first seen on '95's 'Hangable Auto Bulb' EPs) and chilled abstraction. In structure it's most like the mighty, yet impenetrable, 'Selected Ambient Works vol II'. And in-between the chaos and peace, 'Drukqs' induces a whole host of emotions using acid squiggles, plucked piano strings and 80s electro-breaks.
Most moving is 'Petiatil Cx Htdui' an Eric Satie-like piano composition, all naked vulnerability and beautiful sorrow. Truly Aphex has lost none of his taste for heart wrenching melodies. But then you're reminded this is an AFX album. With any "serious" artist you could safely wallow in the induced self-indulgent melancholia. But imagine instead that Richard is in fact laughing at you in your time of sorrow, staring down from above into your pit of pain, before calling in the dump trucks and burying you alive in soil. It's more "here's Johnny" than "come to daddy." Still feeling safe are you?
This is, after all, the man who's spent most of his time since the mid '90s running from those who would worship him. He's declared he's giving up music more times than Mr Fingers but the more fans proclaim him genius, the more he messes them about. AFX fans, being perverse buggers, proceed to then love him even more. It's a laughable situation; one that James no doubt chuckles about himself, before releasing limited edition 7" of his own farts (remixed).
So while fans proclaim AFX "genius", 'Drukqs' is way too much an Aphex album to fulfil such a title. Certainly, if it's dates are to be believed, 'Selected Ambient Works 85-92' put James well ahead of almost everyone electronic, bar Juan Atkins. But it was the follow up, 'Vol II', which truly raised the bar. Since then Oval, Four Tet, Thomas Brinkman, Autechre and Merzbow (to name just a very few) have pushed the sonic envelope further and in new directions. 'Drukqs' is way too schizophrenic to achieve that. But then AFX doesn't even pick his album tracks, apparently, so why would he even want to achieve such goals?
To simply measure 'Druqks' and the Aphex "genius" in terms of musical composition, however, is to do him a disservice. Truly with the Brandon Block Muppets on one hand, and the legion of faceless DJ deep house dullards (exchange for your preferred micro-sub genre at will) on the other, "dance music", if James still is part of such a thing, badly needs characters like him.
His distorted face-caricatures are his image. Perversity, the unexpected, is his norm. The adoring media are simply there to be played with. He's a one-man brand: 'Druqks' even bares the inscription "Aphex is a registered trademark of Aphex Systems Limited and is used by permission (This must be used in same font, text size etc. as rest of artwork and clearly legible.)" Well let's hope the world's dotmusic-bearing browsers do you right Mr Twin, Dadist font size accuracies and all.
Observing the cult of Twin, you're left wondering if it's the hype that fulfils itself? In which case why is AFX even releasing an album, when doing the opposite of whatever everyone expects and wants, fulfils everyone's expectations? Perhaps, behind bluff, ploy and counter-myth, he does care after all. 'I Care Because You Do' becomes simply 'I Care'. Steady on: it's only an Aphex Twin album after all. He's just having a laugh isn't he? Isn't he?
