Hello everyone out there in that
series of tubes that we call the internet! Welcome to my blog that for now I
will call stream of consciousness/introversion/procrastination. I just drank a
bunch of coffee and thought I’d give this new fangled blogging thing everyone’s
been talking about a shot. This is an experiment to see if there are people out
there who share the same tastes in pop culture and want to read an open journal
of my thoughts on subjects ranging from politics to books/music/movies whatever.
For a start I’m going to be talking about one of my favorite music artists: The
legendary Richard David James, otherwise known as Aphex Twin or earlier on in
his career as AFX.
I discovered Aphex Twin in a rather
random and indirect way. I was watching the movie grandmas boy and like the
nerd/electronic fan that I am really dug the beat in the part of the movie shown above. After hoping on IMDB and looking it up I found out that it was the song
Windowlicker, to say the least it was love at first sight (hearing?). After
listening this song into the ground I dug deeper and gave his ambient album
Selected ambient works 85-92 a listen (I’m listening to it as I write this) and
was further hooked. This album is very different from Windowlicker, obviously
because it is ambient and it is really a different sound altogether. My
favorite song(s) of this album would have to be pulsewidth and we are the music
makers. It is an awesome album to relax to or do homework to. I highly
recommend his other albums “I care because you do” and “Richard D. James album”.
They are an awesome mix of madness and soothing ambience, Below is an example of this.
The reason I have so much respect
for Richard is partly because of his huge influence on electronic music today
and how far ahead of his time he was. Ask any successful DJ or Producer and
they will know and respect Richard. It’s also important to know your history,
for example:
This made me chuckle because dub step, or as I like to call it
brostep, would not be as far along if it weren’t for innovators like Aphex
twin. Not hating on dubstep, just saying the more you know.
He is definitely a required taste.
His kind of songs and albums are the kind that you have to listen through a few
times and let grow on you, If you can get past this stage you will be
thoroughly hooked. I love the term “Braindance” that was coined in1991 to
describe his original type of electronic music “that can appeal to the mind as
well as the desire to dance and party”. Aphex twin is now one of those go to artists
for me when I don’t know what to listen to or am not feeling sonically
adventurous.
If I have gotten one person to step
out of their comfort zone and give Aphex Twin a listen that would be incredible!
I love recommending things to friends and getting them into various music or
books or whatever it may be.
Something that I want to add is
please comment! This is my first time doing this. Let me know what you guys think,
whether it be my writing style, tastes, what you like/dislike. I’m strong, give
me some harsh yet constructive criticisims. Thanks for reading.
PS. Other topics I was thinking
about writing were Hiyao Miyazaki and his films, books to recommend like
Bukowski, Vonnegut, Awsome sci-fi novels, graphic novels etc etc… let me know.
