The Aphex Twin Mystery
26Nov08
via todayandtomorrow
Related Posts
- Guy Electrocutes His Face In Bizarre Music Video
- More Music From Old Computer Junk
- Art Work Uses Bone Conduction To Send You Back In Time
- The Bizarre Musical Art Of Kitty Clark
- This Video May Ruin Your Life
Tags: Aphex-Twin, strange music
Funnily enough, I was listening to Aphex Twin when I saw this on my feed reader. Seen the image before, though, and always loved it
The same saying is true of many awfully unlistenable “neo-classical” composers. I laughed so hard when I snuck into a classical snobs’ meeting and they were discussing their dissonant compositions. I requested to play and adopted a pained face, then proceeded to bang out some gorilla-aping agony on the ivories. They thought it was wonderful and went on to flatter me with so many highfalutin words. But really, it was just random clanging.
To be fair, Aphex Twin has composed many beautiful melodies amidst the skittery glitch and frenetic breakbeats, which is what sets him far apart from many lesser copycats — it takes a TRUE TALENT (tongue-in-cheek partially here) to combine the weird with the familiar.
I am unclear as to whether RDJ can read conventional staff notation. But for this age, one could just as well take a logjammed piano roll. This isn’t too far: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGK-EzEa45U
Anybody who thinks Aphex writes it out note-for-note is an idiot, and needs to be run out of the music world on a flaming stretcher.
“Anybody who thinks Aphex writes it out note-for-note is an idiot”
LOL.
No really. This is laughable. Of course he does. I mean, just listen to the music, count the notes. It’s not actually as complicated as that ridiculous picture makes.
Really, this mythology about how crazy and complicated is productions are is getting old. Awesome producer and I love his stuff to bits, but come on…
I hate to say I don’t find this funny, but I don’t. I think Aphex Twin is different from a lot of ‘IDM’ types in that his stuff is always musical, listenable, and the right blend of serious and silly. Maybe he’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but he’s the least arbitrary and random guy making that sort of music.
I think his Selected Ambient Works 2 is an album showcasing superior musicianship and a wonderful taste and knowledge of sounds.
I write sheet music and tab, and I believe that this is one of Richard
D. James’ humorous prankings. Look at the last measure of the
first Treble clef phrase and you will see that doodle of notes, those
notes cannot be played like that, try it. Also the note “like a dirigible”
is a pun, possibly referring to the old saying “going down like a lead zeppelin”. The fact is that Richard is not handicapped by conventional
practices or thought processes, his unrestrained creativity has produced some of the best in electronic music. His unconventional
approach has resulted in this quasi-sensical “signature”, and much like
H.P. Lovecrafts’ “Necronomicon” we musical peons will analyze & react
much to the amusement of Mr. James.