Aphex Twin
...I Care Because You Do

There are faces that seem made to be observed. Having no trust whatsoever in confidences or confessions because of the load of vanity they inevitably carry with them and considering actions with distrust due to the veil of ambiguity of which they are too often cloaked, I believe that one can understand a person better - or at least be less misled - by observing their face; especially when it is particularly distinctive. Let's return to the starting point: there are faces that almost naturally trigger deductive speculations and imaginative twists.

It was all very ritualistic.

While the plate was being heated, each of us worked with incisors - upper and lower - extracting the sponge and replacing it with the classic filter used for joints constructed in such a way that it perfectly plugged the hole created. I never quite understood the purpose of all this, but according to the friend with the most (alleged?) experience in these things, doing so avoided the risk of having a tool that was too shielding; after all, a ritual is celebrated, not discussed.

The substance was then placed on the plate, divided into strips and crushed much more finely than one would have done for a snort; this was because lumps that were too large wouldn't adhere too easily to the tool that - previously moistened with saliva along part of its length - gathered and held the powder in question and transformed a simple cigarette into a pucciotto.

Not that I've ever been so familiar with coke, but I have to say I always preferred smoking it over snorting it: its bitter taste is savored much more clearly and completely, one puff after another and, moreover, its effects spread gradually through the nervous centers allowing for firmer control of the helm of consciousness which never declines into snorting bulimia.

Cocaine was smoked according to everyone’s desires and talents, but the point is that after a while our face, at the night’s climax, took on the semblance of Master Aphex in "...I Care Because You Do": stone smile, glassy gaze and enveloping dark circles.

Yes, I have a theory: throughout his career Aphex Twin frequently changed his reference drugs and this album, in particular, was composed during a period marked by pucciotti. Don't believe me? You're thinking an album shouldn't be judged by its cover? Okay, then let's dance about architecture.

Let’s think about the first volume of "Selected Works", of that fusion between dance dynamism and soft transcendences, frenetic beats and acid digressions, driving loops and dives into the empyrean. Techno bangs that hit your head like hefty snorts, yet often diluted in ambient solipsisms that make your head spin like tabs dissolved under your tongue.

And the second volume? Well, here our artist definitely turns towards smoke. A two-and-a-half-hour monochrome that sails unperturbed with hashish astern, the compass set on Brian Eno, and the hull continuously led adrift on routes soaked with pure texture.

And then "...I Care Because You Do", which is Aphex Twin smoking cocaine.

Inserted into the modus vivendi of IDM, the album follows a path and describes a curve completely absent in previous works where - despite notable episodes - the pieces seemed to simply pile up on top of one another. A crescendo, a climax, and a diminuendo: what is lost in power or spontaneity is gained in the ballistic precision of senses polished (and not occluded) by drugs.

Master Aphex on the cover is the snapshot of the central triptych, of a man smoking one pucciotto after another and repelling the close combat assault of sharp squeals, techno spells, and drum'n'bass whirlpools with oblique sliding on the synthesizer. As I mentioned earlier, smoking is not snorting; the Talking Cricket is always on the alert and - unless you choose to twist its neck - you can always appeal to counterweights, alternatives, and counterpoints that balance the situation.

One might say that this happened before, that precisely Aphex Twin - along with the Autechre of "Incunabula" - was the initiator of ambient-techno.

Absolutely. The point, however, is that here he does not arrive with an album that goes straight in that direction, but with an ascent that ventures between new age divertissements, melodic house, and noir tensions on the cello and a descent where the beats slow into syncopations bordering on reggae, finally dissolving into the synthetic symphony of the final piece.

And moreover, there's that title: "I care because you do," preceded by the ellipsis that suggests ponderous thinking; Aphex Twin, far from abandoning drug use, does not want to indulge in the debauchery of the past. For this, he chooses to smoke cocaine to maintain control over the kinetics of the sound.

Perhaps this is the much-vaunted maturity: preferring the clarity of a "because yes!" compared to the delightful defiance and shapeless nebulosity of a "because why not?"

Yes, but what a drag!