Aphex Twin
Drukqs

The world of music listeners who also have the habit of writing is largely composed of idiots. Electronic music is no exception: whether they boast the title of music critics or not, idiots particularly love to give their opinion when it comes to innovative music. And what better way in this regard than the vast genre responsible for many musical innovations over the past half-century? This is where idiots treat us to daring reviews, where they make ample use of clichés, expressions like "pushing the accelerator (sic) on experimentation" and "lacking excessive baroque attitude" (real examples), where the use of words longer than four syllables is a point of pride for the author, as if they needed a license to carry them, and where every term is chosen for the sound it evokes, with little or no regard for its meaning.

Aphex Twin seems to be, in Italy, a notable victim of this repeated crime by the idiots. And this is why I feel the obligation to write the fourth review of drukQs on this site.

drukQs is undoubtedly the best album released by Aphex Twin, alias of the British musician Richard David James.

A few months after its release on Warp in the fall of 2001, this work, available on double CD and quadruple vinyl, had already divided fans into two opposing factions: those fascinated and those disappointed.

The only point on which most listeners seem to agree, according to the opinions I have gathered over time, is that the tracks are of two very different types: there are those we can call "drill'n'bass" (the term was drafted specifically for the kind of frantic rhythms prevalent in Aphex's music at the end of the '90s, but it has little philological value and is quite fashionable, so I promise I won't use it anymore in the following) and the calmer ones, be they piano compositions or ambient tracks. But this is a comment one might make during the first few listens. Indeed, everywhere you read hastily written reviews denouncing an overall inconsistency of the album, for some a hodgepodge of what could have been two different albums.

Well, nothing could be further from the truth with respect to drukQs: by allowing oneself repeated and in-depth immersions, one realizes, for example, that although there is a rather marked alternation between complex, violent, and rapid rhythmic tracks (mostly around 180 BPM like the whirlwind Ziggomatic 17) and seemingly simpler, slower tracks, the latter are in turn well differentiated from one another. For the fast tracks, a huge number of listens is necessary to bring out the hidden order within the clamorous complexity, evidently born from hours and hours of work by what I would define as a genius in the art of writing rhythmic scores, known in electronic music as drum programming. Yet, distributed between these intervals, there is an equally interesting array of more or less manipulated piano pieces, some of which have been given sometimes simple percussive sounds (Beskhu3epnm), while other times, they include stylish details, such as the noise of mechanisms within the automated piano Yamaha Disklavier on which the recordings were made; and again, unsettling electro-acoustic soundtracks (Gwely Mernans, Gwarek 2) paying homage to the avant-garde pioneers of whom James has been a great admirer since he was a boy, scenes that seem to be the work of a percussion ensemble (Prep Gwarlek 3B) or perhaps the sound of a complicated music box (the exquisite Jynweythek). The presence of some brief recordings with no particular end (Aussois, Bit4, the birthday wishes from Richard's parents on the answering machine in Lornaderek) can indeed partially understand the objections of those who speak of an incoherent juxtaposition of well-crafted tracks and bland fillers. But if you keep reading, I'll explain why this is not the case at all.

One of the rarest talents, in my opinion, in today's musician is the ability to create an organic album whose tracks, listened to consecutively, give the impression of cooperating to convey an overall image: something that can lead the listener by the hand within a world purposefully designed by the artist.

In a market where the paradigm of the successful musician is the DJ pop star who lives by releasing singles and compilations disguised as albums (true in 2001 and even more so today), such a value is decidedly at risk of extinction.

From this point of view, drukQs is completely going against the trend. First of all, the same excellent sound quality is maintained throughout the album. The trained ear of the listener might notice that in every track, the same technology for reverb effect is consistently used. It is not possible to say whether it is sound processing performed on a computer, recordings passed through some analog effects unit, or who knows what else, and in any case, I do not want to give the impression that these details of interest to sound engineering enthusiasts should matter to the end user: however, it is clear the essential role that reverbs play both in characterizing the more ambient pieces and enriching the synths that emerge from the complexity of the more violent tracks. If it were not partially music coming from electronic instruments, one might say that this album was recorded entirely with the same microphones and in the same recording studio. The percussion sounds, having a primary role in most tracks, offer great variety and yet seem fundamentally to belong to a single large drum kit - this confirms the statement, made by James in an interview, on the fundamental role that a certain modular electronic drum kit (Concussor by Analogue Solutions) played in the making of drukQs.

Through the various techniques wisely interchanged throughout the 30 tracks, through the alternation of rhythmic complexity and only apparently simple melodies, the album thus has the ability to convey an overall feeling of an intangible entity but at the same time quite precise, like a dream that one no longer remembers except for a particular sense of happiness it left us with. Make fun of me if you want, but to me, drukQs has always seemed to have been recorded in a grand 19th-century theater haunted by some sort of "phantom of the opera," wandering between the wood and velvet of the elegant balconies, through infinitely repeating corridors much like the architectures in certain paintings by De Chirico. Or perhaps drukQs is the sound one might hear in an enchanted attic full of music boxes and animated toys with a steampunk air, just like the one that serves as the setting for the video of Nannou, a track released on the previous single Windowlicker and which, in my opinion, well anticipates the direction taken by drukQs (which, by the way, closes with a track that recalls its name: Nanou2). It's easy, listening to Strotha Tynhe, to imagine a piano playing alone in the dim light of an old attic, hit by a ray of sunshine penetrating between the ceiling boards and illuminating the dust particles suspended in the air.

In all honesty, the album does not lack some products of Aphex Twin's questionable surreal irony, like the schizophrenic voice editing in Afx237 V7, or the "Come on you cunt let's have some Aphex acid!" shouted in the middle of the track Cock/Ver 10. Trademarks of our hero to be accepted for what they are. On the other hand, tracks like Aussois (13 seconds of indecipherable dialogue between two eerie voices reminiscent of the children in the video of Come To Daddy) seem to me more than just filler; they are a great way to instill a certain fear in the listener, infusing them with the idea that, however absurd and inexplicable certain details may seem, they are there for a reason, they are part of the author's plan: the work deprived of them would not have the same meaning.

The titles written in an undecipherable Brittonic language (Welsh or perhaps Cornish) and the sparse but carefully crafted illustrations contribute to the idea that the album is the product of a far-off but very precise place and time, clues about which only listening can give us some indication.

I can imagine what happened to those who did not find meaning in this album, getting lost in details that a large number of further listens would have smoothed out in favor of the incredible overall design. Believe me when I say that it takes literally years to understand more.

It's clear that many are not willing to invest so much time in listening to an album, and I feel a bit sorry for them.