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| Music,
Richard Young,
31 October 2001 |
Rating: F3
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If there is one artist who has remained both successful and innovative, while continuing to keep the commercial music sector consistently at arms length, it would have to be Richard D. James and his one man band Aphex Twin. His latest double-album release “Drukqs”, apart from guaranteeing frustrated shoppers with its pronunciation, re-enforces his status as the master of million beats-per-minute breaks and explorations of aural chaos. But is it a case of overkill for the mad scientist of electronica?
Drukqs opens with “jynweythek”; a truly beautiful prepared piano piece, which, much like “Nannou” from the excellent Windowlicker CD, merges engaging harmonies with all the clicks and buzz of a broken clockwork piano. From thereon, James roughly alternates the 30 tracks between this and his patented turbo-charged drum and bass, for example the aggressive “afx237v.7”, with its polyrhythmic percussion patterns and fractured white noise that snips at one’s ears like swarms of angry scissors.
There are moments of almost Stockhausenesque noise experimentation, as with “gwarek2” which includes bicycle spokes, squawking budgerigars and some pretty disturbing human cries in its musique concrète. Drukqs manages to fascinate, despite suffering from a little over-indulgence. It would be nice to have had Mr. James draw from a slightly broader palette of sounds, to add some extra textures to bolster what could risk sounding monotonous, but when the combination of sound and structure work, they do so very well. Also, you can’t help feeling that even over 2 CD’s worth of music, much of it feels a bit unfinished, almost as if this is a collection of left-out ideas – overspill from previous releases. On the other hand, the apparent randomness seen in the freeform track titling and CD insert layout is a good format for such an idiosyncratic artist for whom sound is everything.
Those willing to exercise those listening faculties that are rarely put into use will no doubt find moments of beauty and intrigue within Drukqs. Others may find it all a bit overwhelming.
Warp Records
Published by Chrysalis Music
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