Translated material
Strange guy from Cornwall
On September 22, the WARP label is released by a new album of one of the most famous and influential electronic workers of the planet Richard D. James, better known as Aphex Twin , - Syro , the first in thirteen years. This album is among the most reverently expected records of 2014. Egor Antoshchenko compiled a brief guide to the world of Richard D. James, who clarifies why the Internet is already flooded with fakes Syro .
1. Cornwall
The childhood of Richard D. James, born in Irish Limerica, took place in one of the quietest places in England. County Cornwall-the dream of recluse and escapists: Cape Lands (“Earth”) rests on the Celtic sea, around a single city-only villages. And yet - stone ruins remaining from the ancient mines, where until recently they mined tin. Once the musician said that he earned his first synthesizers with mining labor, but now the industry is completely bent. And to the question, what generally made him make music, answered that there was simply nothing more to do. “This place had a mystical aura,” Richard recalled. “Around they told a huge number of half -precious stories about local witches, hermits, other strange characters who live here on the edge of the world.” There was no musical life here - therefore, having studied for an engineer and receiving a diploma, Richard James went to London. But a lot of Abrakadabra popularized a lot, which seems to be a root of the uninitiated. For example, “JYNWEYTEK YOLOW” from the penultimate album “ Drukqs ” (2001) means nothing more than “Electronic Machine Machine”, “ Gwly Mernans” means “Death Bed” and so on.
Aphex Twin - "ON". Director Jarvis Cocker
2. "Selected Ambient Works 1985-1992"
The first full -length album Aphex Twin , recognized as a masterpiece, classics of electronic music of the 1990s: thirteen compositions recorded on a cassette film, which, according to legend, almost destroyed the cat. On some of them, according to the years, Richard D. James worked at the age of fourteen. “Selected Ambient Works” , like other romantic electronic records of the beginning of the nineties, is beautiful to this: listening to her, you have a long-forgotten feeling that once caused you a huge and unknown world around. Children's attitude and immediacy Aphex Twin manages to keep in his music to this day. Talking about the recording of Syro , the musician said that he was rushing between several studios at his home, one of which was completely filled with musical robots.
Aphex Twin - "Xtal" ( the first track With "Selected Ambient Works 1985-1992")
3. Image
Back in 1995, when humanity first saw an unkind smirk Aphex Twin on the cover of his third album “I Care Becake You do” , “trade in face” by electron workers was considered a bad tone-we, they say, are not some kind of rockers, but an avant-garde. Richard D. James, who, back in those years, claimed that in our times any musician needs to be a little marketer, imposed his image in almost all clips: starting with “Donkey Rhubarb” , ending with the popularly beloved Windowlicker . His face can also be distinguished in the spectrogram of the second track with the single “Windowlicker” , which is entitled by the intricate mathematical formula, at the very end of the work. As a result of the inventive and aggressive self -party of Twin, the only one, perhaps, from the cohort of “smart electronics” became a star from the undergrand: it is strange that t -shirts are not yet released with him.
"Donkey Rhubarb"
4. Clips of Canningham
Cyberpank fan Chris Cunningham - a large British clipmaker and a video artist, who worked with Bjork and Madonna, his best works, “Come to Daddy” and “Windowlicker” , shot for Aphex Twin . The first is a post -apocalyptic sketch from the life of a sleeping area, a funny horror about a grandmother, a dog and something. By the time of filming, Cunningham had the experience of creating all sorts of monsters for the film “Night People” by Clive Barker, as well as work on the visual effects in “Artificial Mind” Stanley Kubrick (who will eventually remove Stephen Spielberg) and several covers of the Judge Dredd comics. "Come to Daddy" was shown by MTV Only after nine in the evening, but it was this video that finally secured Richard D. James a place in the mainstream. Then the clip for the track “Windowlicker” followed: as Cunningham himself said, he once saw “Come to Daddy” among hip-hop-video and he wanted to shoot something more appropriate for the video. The resulting ten-minute film was quite tough along the gangste-rapper fetisha (many considered it racist and sexist). Cunningham himself said that he likes hip-hop, but, depending on the clips of the rappers, he often wondered: “Are they serious?”
It must be the most frightening video of Cunningham made without the Rubber Johnny budget for the AFX 237 V.7 composition from the Drukqs album , where the director himself played a freak in convulsions in a wheelchair. According to Cunningham, it was a painful work: it was necessary to focus on the head of the head and act almost naked for four winter London evenings for an hour.
Rubber Johnny - the last one day a joint clip of Canningham and Aphex Twin
5. Myths
Thanks to skillful marketing aphex Twin himself is now a half -slip character from electronic music, which is told about legends and myths similar to those that little Richard James listened to his native Cornwall. Many of the long -standing actions of the musician can be folded limits: for example, he traveled on a tank and lived in a bank building, this strange guy from Cornwall. The tank was actually Bether Ferret Scout C AR , used by the British military in ground operations of the 1950-1970s. According to the musician, it was more difficult to manage this unit than all the equipment in his studio, but "he is cooler than any virtual game in the world." Former HSBC Bank building, which Aphex Twin bought a “Come to Daddy” to record, impressed him with his thick walls and perfect sound insulation, plus he wanted to live in a place “where the money constantly comes”.
The case was widely publicized when during his DJST APHEX Twin lost sandpaper instead of a vinyl plate - this is one of the most famous Apocrypha D. James. A piece of this paper (however, its provenance has not been proven) went at the auction of EB AY for 232 pounds. Another time, the musician either forgot, or simply scored on the remix for alt rockers Lemonheads , and when the courier came for a record, he gave him a film with some unrelated track and received 4000 pounds in return. In Russia, legends are especially popular about how Richard D. James unsuccessfully went to Moscow in 1994 at the Britonika festival and allegedly talked about here forever, as well as that he lived in Moscow and regularly hanged out at the Solyanka club.
In one of the old interviews Aphex Twin admitted that he writes music in a dream, because he knows how to sleep, remaining in consciousness: this remains only to take on faith, however, many of his tracks sound as if they were recorded somewhere between sleep and reality.
Among other things Aphex Twin 'U we owe one of the curious interviews in the history of the Russian Muzezhurnalism .
6. "Syro"
In the mid -nineties, Richard D. James said that thanks to laptops, electronic music will become new folklore - almost everyone can record and perform it. The prediction came true more than one hundred percent: for example, long before the “Syro” exit for the new album Aphex Twin on the Web issued at least two solid, but had nothing to do with it.
How many more records will be assigned to Aphex Twin in the future - one God knows (all the more he hinted that other releases should follow for Syro ) , but the tendency to abandon authorship, so that the music would hear as many people as possible, incredibly cute.
As for the genuine “Syro” , it is probably stupid to expect sound revelations from him - given at least the fact that in recent years Richard D. James has been raising two sons in the Scottish village where three hundred people live, and is not too interested in the surrounding civilization. The components are known: stumbling percussion and dreamy melodies ( minipops 67 [120.2] [Source Field Mix] -the first published track from the record), drama-beis on steroids ( Papat4 [Pineal Mix] ), a little emphanty and the piano play in Eric Sati, as well as Own opuses like “Avril 14th” and “Nanou 2” .
Once Aphex Twin traveled on a tank, now prefers a bicycle - the impressions of his music have changed exactly the same, it began to seem easier, affordable and safe. Once the musician was known as an eccentric, a freak and a madman, and now he amazes his sobriety of glance at things (about a new album he says something like “I didn’t think that someone needs him”). The revolution is over, the disco is tired - it's time to start from scratch.