The secret’s out, and it’s been that way since midnight saw an embargo lifted and the me-first culture of the modern music industry hit social channels with a bang. The new Aphex Twin album – the first new album from Richard D James under that most famous name of his since 2001’s ‘Drukqs’ – is pretty decent.
You need more? Well, you’re here now, so: ‘SYRO’ is indubitably an Aphex Twin record. I know how that sounds: you were expecting what, exactly, right? But when an artist has been away from a chosen identity for as many years as James has Aphex Twin, there’s no certainty when walking into a small room to hear an album played loudly at you with the absolute minimum of context.
Yet, from the first seconds of opener ‘minipops 67 [120.2] (source field mix)’ onwards, this is obviously him– the fingerprints are unmistakeable, the whooshes and the bleeps and the bladed synths entirely characteristic and warmly welcomed. Nothing alien here – which might be an odd thing to write given this man’s previous propensity for exploding wildly from conventions. But years have dulled the impact: what was once the other is now the accepted.
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‘minipops 67 [120.2] (source field mix)’
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And so, as ‘SYRO’ plays, glimpses of those he has inspired emerge: Squarepusher, Rustie, even Chromeo. But this isn’t James taking cues from them, rather confirmation that his own shifting styles will be plundered for their riches for some years to come. ‘CIRCLONT6A [141.98] (syrobonkus mix)’ is ‘the Rustie’, but in its own articulation of comparably sugar-rushed expression it remembers not to upset anyone’s stomach: this is hyper-action satisfaction without the motion sickness. ‘syro v473t8+e+3 [141.98] (piezoluminescence mix)’ is streamlined funk which recalls the ‘Business Casual’ boys in essence, if not wobbly low ends, its higher-pitched progression keeping the overall impression dominantly Aphex-ian.
More than a recollection of constituents from his own catalogue, the later stages of ‘SYRO’ resemble a love letter to decades-distant dance tropes. James mines for seams as yet uncovered by the mainstream’s revivalist tendencies, so house motifs are at a premium as ‘PAPAT4 [155] (pineal mix)’ heads into the jungle – okay, into some sort of orbiting bio-dome, overgrown and crawling into the engineering quarters of a derelict spaceship – and ‘s950tx16wasr10 [163.97] (earth portal mix)’ manifests from silence with massive breakbeats. Listen through the closed passenger window of a lowered Vauxhall Nova and you might mistake it for early Prodigy, at least initially. My notes for ‘180db_ [130]’ read, simply: “The rave has begun – albeit a rave in the Resident Evil mansion.” Make of that whatever you want.
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'SYRO' cover art
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For a full track-by-track breakdown you can, of course, sniff about elsewhere on the internet. I won’t take up much more of your time (thanks, really, for stopping by). What I will say in closing is that the final track here, ‘aisatsana’ – ‘anastasia’ backwards, which may or may not refer to Anastasia Rybina, who’s toured with James and taken many a photograph of/for him – feels like a cop-out. After so much energy, the album’s ending is a slow, overly long piano number which, while great for sync use I’m sure, is an incongruous addition to an album that otherwise hangs together, tonally, pretty consistently. That aside, ‘SYRO’ impresses enough to sit the doubters down and confirm – if conformation was needed – that even when playing by the rulebook of his own writing, Richard D James can’t half create some compelling concoctions.
The zeitgeist moved on long ago, but that only benefits an album that’s both timely and out of time, on first impressions – indebted to a past that many of today’s listeners never properly lived through, but as current-sounding as it needs to be to stand out beside the competition of 2014.
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Words: Mike Diver
‘SYRO’, released September 22nd by Warp, is reviewed in issue 98 of Clash magazine, coming soon.
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