In the epicentre of Aphex Twin's nuclear reaction
Does it mean that when we reach the sufficiency in means, tools, and technologies there is no more room for discoveries and inventions?
He’s alive icon of the electronic scene and the most prominent musical innovator of the 90s who still gathers thousands on the fields and indoor venues. Usually hidden beyond the huge stage screens Aphex Twin prefers to express himself with the sound, not with his personality which remains mysterious and far from being obsessive. The opposite is to his music and live performances which sometimes seem like the sequence stages of the nuclear explosion. The latest Twin’s gig at the Dour Festival reminded me of this process: the initial interior explosions activate the bullet that with its strike initiates the fission reaction that in its turn leads to the bomb’s explosion.
I don’t know if Richard D. James aka Aphex Twin is familiar with this actuation principle but indeed it’s possible to experience this deployment musically for a bit more than one hour and a half at his show. Exactly, the feelings will be fully dependent on the spot that you took for watching the show. You can distance yourself from the affected area or jump into the core of the explosion together with the devotees who are ready to risk their health and sobriety standing right in front of the stage, massive screens and powerful sound equipment. If you are the epicentre, it's impossible to resist. You are fated to be dissolved in this reaction and to love the bomb, and you are not in a Kubrick movie. You are in a reality that is completely distorted by sounds, lasers, visuals and lights.
Well, somewhere between the fission reaction and the explosion I realised why Aphex Twin is so unique. Not only because the crowd on the pitch consists of people from 18 to more or less 60 years old and all of them are equally ecstatic. That’s a substantial argument, but it’s possible to find dozens of similar ones to distinguish his genius. What is much more meaningful is that Aphex is a music revolutionary who determined the nature of experimental electronic music, its heart and soul, but at the end of the day, he turned out as not only the light for thousands of electronic musicians but their darkness, as well as a sentence. Once determined the path for electronic music and particularly for its IDM brunch, he constructed a concrete tunnel where several generations of innovators lost themselves without making any revolution: just being the epigones of Aphex with mixed success and achievements.
That’s the question of my almost scientific interest how the guy from Cornwall, who will soon turn 60, still makes the electronic shows that no one can surpass, or at least reach out. The new material sounds so promising that it seems he will never retire. And the second question – what kind of efforts and forces should use another talented young man, let’s say, from Sheffield, or even not from the UK, to make himself an equally significant electronic innovator and revolutionary of the first half of the XIX century? Is everything already so exhausted in electronic music that there is no room for significant discoveries? Is there any successor on the horizon who will present the same cocktail of strengths: unique music material, outstanding immersive live shows, and of course no less unique marketing than the music itself?
I fully agree that Richard D. James’ rise was heavily linked to the intensive development of technical means which now, in fact, stopped and is being converted into a much smoother evolution. There is a case to be made: somebody should be a pioneer and the first who enters the room when the throne is vacant, so Aphex Twin was the one who was enthroned by the audience and professionals and got his power. Does it mean that when we reach the sufficiency in means, tools, and technologies there is no more room for discoveries and inventions?
So many talented young individuals all around the world now can assemble Richard’s studio with which he created his works just in one Mac. All right, not only with Mac but also with some extra analogue synthesizers. And on what do many of them spend their time and use all these means? To make a better replica of AFX or other guys from the WARP catalogue? With all these crackles, taps, broken aggressive beats against the backdrop of melancholic melodies, flows of cacophonous sound with its decomposition and assembly, and so on. Succession doesn’t mean a pattern replay, and even more – roaming in the tunnel once constructed by the prominent genius. Leave this cage to him. Aphex Twin’s ecosystem is coherent and attractive, but is there a space for growth for coming generations of electronic enthusiasts and inventors inside of it?
In past times it would be a great task for labels and agencies, who on the one hand were extremely interested to make as many releases as possible with “similar to your favourite artist” stickers on them, but on the other, could help the new musicians together with the producers determine their own direction. This interest in discovering new names and phenomena sometimes gave fruit, and we don’t know if Aphex Twin would have ever emerged if this system didn’t work. From where the new IDM phenomenon and electronic revolutionary will sprout? Definitely not from Tik-Tok where Aphex Twin, by the way, already deepened his roots. From YouTube? From the Festivals? First and foremost, not from the platforms which are just a means. Technical tools also don’t give birth to new creatures.
Don’t know why instead of fully being dissolved in the nuclear reaction of Richard D. James' gig at the Dour festival I stood three rows out off the stage and thought about how massive his influence is to become the greatest reference of the electronic scene, and at the same time how his prominence and innovations have charmed and misled other musicians. Indeed, the only light beam in the dark tunnel of Aphex Twin’s musical legacy (for musicians, not for fans) is the instance of total neglect of any standards. The creation in its pure without any disciplinary rules and restrictions. The own DNA and own sensations multiplied with the profound knowledge of the tools and technology.
What is not a formula for those who want to bring their own revolution to the genre?