Aphex Twin: "minipops 67 [120.2][source field mix]"

Let’s give ourselves a moment to let this sink in… You are now listening to Aphex Twin music—new Aphex Twin music. Allow the shock to settle into your bones, curb your expectations, and acclimate to the mind of Richard D. James. This is all important for wrapping your head around “minipops 67 [120.2][source field mix]“. Because yeah, the lead track from the mythical electronic producer’s first studio album in 13 years may clearly sound like Aphex Twin, but it’s not the same Aphex Twin who left you with the impenetrable Drukqs. Nor is it the future-funk dictator from Chosen Lords or the prankster behind Rushup Edge‘s confrontational acid. Instead of sending a transmission from just one of his unforgettable, toothy visages, James has somehow coalesced 30 years of ideas into about five minutes of uncanny music.

This is analog maximalism, made possible by the plinky, translucent synths of Selected Ambient Works, AFX’s restless 303 sequences, Caustic Window’s brawny drum machines, vocal abstractions à la Richard D. James Album, and an excitable dissonance owing as much to Drukqs as it does Polygon Window’s Surfing on Sine Waves. Not one frequency in the spectrum is unaccounted for on “minipops 67 [120.2][source field mix]“, and yet James doesn’t sound like he’s overcompensating for his extended absence as he crams so much of himself into the limber, rigorous production work. The music world at large has spent the past 13 years trying to translate Aphex Twin’s unscalable discography into a language it can speak, so now the teacher has simply returned to give us all a whole new lesson in vocabulary.

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