Can someone explain to me why Aphex Twin is considered so influential?

He invented MEMEDM.

>>51555978
Complex rhythms, unusual time signatures, polyrhythms but the distinguishing factor is artful SUBTLETY unlike most of breakcore for instance which is IN YOUR FACE more often than not.

>>51556040
But LFO came before him

>>51555978

He was the Neckbeard producer: He was making (great) music for kids that weren't cool or old enough to go to raves, loners and like. He also made ambient music that wasn't new age trash, and his production techniques were incredible

Having said that, his influence is hugely overrated on /mu/. Other than acid and the electronic music scene in the UK, he wasn't THAT influential. Ambient techno is a dead genre. Entire electronic music scenes happened in Germany and the rest of Yurop that didn't really favour the type of stuff he was producing.

>>51556092
>his production techniques were incredible
Can you please point out one or two of his techniques?

>>51555978
I don't he just makes good music and has his own distinct style. Even SAW II sounds distinctly like him, though time has probably attributed to that as well

a) weird persona and imagery
b) cleverly constructed albums that weren't the first of it's kind but VERY well executed
c) incredible knack for melody
d) windowlicker

>modern day electronica is based off of pop/hip-hop beats
nah, most people cite Aphex Twin and all that early Warp stuff as influences

>>51556141
>cleverly constructed albums
What was clever about them?

>>51556118
bouncing ball effect
ubercomplexed layered drums (triplet glitches)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j2ykeF-n8g

>this was made in 1987

>>51556118

see

>>51556050

"Production techniques" is the wrong term, and come to think of it, he wasn't that great at production techniques. Sasu Ripatti can walk circles around him on that

I don't really like his music but I admit, he can write really catchy stuff.

>>51556200
>he wasn't that great at production techniques
What wasn't great? What criteria do you recognize and judge? Genuinely curious.

>>51556200
no, RDJ is defo a genius producer. comparing him to Ripatti is like comparing tomatoes to pears.

read up on some technical analysis of drukqs and the Analords.

>>51556050
>Complex rhythms
sure
> unusual time signatures
what? no.
> polyrhythms
ehhhhhhhhh you're misapplying that word
> but the distinguishing factor is artful SUBTLETY unlike most of breakcore for instance which is IN YOUR FACE more often than not.
absolutely

>>51556183
god thats fucking amazing

>>51556248
link pls, im curious

For me it's just how much emotion he can pull out of his machines

>>51556118
Running drums through a MS-20 was a pretty original trick

the only thing AFX did that was any good was SAW1 & SAWII. everything else he has done has been complete IDM shite

>>51556248
Analord is pretty basic tbh. I've heard better techno/acid house

>>51556228

>What wasn't great? What criteria do you recognize and judge? Genuinely curious.

He relies too much on muh breaks/acid basslines. And I feel when he realizes this, he drowns his sound on layer after layer to make up for it. Stuff like SAW is definitely GOAT. His other stuff is hit and miss

I'm a bleepsfag though, so I've never been a fan of acid, or most of the music that came out of the UK for that matter. Having said that, Sasu suffers from the same thing, but nowhere near the same level

>>51556248
>read up on some technical analysis of drukqs and the Analords.

Maybe he is, but like I said, I find Sasu's restrain a much better choice than AFX's stuff.

Xtal is one of my fav tracks of all time.

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>>51556092
>weren't cool or old enough to go to raves
>raves
>cool

>>51556299
http://forum.watmm.com/topic/77098-various-artists-edm-a2/?p=2040693

>>51556349
always easy to spot a /bleep/ shitter

>>51556370
It's kinda funny how rappers used to talk shit about molly while sipping lean now all the rappers pop molly. Raves are still gay though.

>>51556370

they were before '91 or so. that kandi kid crap came after

>>51556392

worse than bleepfags are the AFX fanbois who think he's the Messiah.

Syro was a bland album that sounded like rejected tracks from when he was relevant. And admit it, he is hands down the most overrated autistic producer in /mu/

Aphex Twin used to make bangers and I wish he still did tbh

>>51556352
Analord is impressive vintage synth fetishism.

>>51556392
Im very into electronic music and dance, but AFX is shit other than SAWI & SAWII

Drukqs is his best album. I can't wait for more electromechanical sounds.

he pretty much spearheaded the whole DIY + take elements of dance music and morph it more into 'listening at home' music thing. no he wasn't the only one doing it, but he was one of the few people out there who were putting out lps like ICBYD and RDJA.

+ innovative production techniques. people forget how laborious electronic music production was back then. there's a reason there's so little 90s electronic music that sounds like flim and 4 -- you really had to nerd out to achieve shit like that. even today with modern daws I think people would have trouble constructing tracks like the above and have them sound so effortless and natural as afx was able to do.

his tracks have a sense of personality to them that you typically didn't find elsewhere.

and finally songwriting talent. his melodies+harmony have a strong earwormy quality to them, and he strayed away from structuring tracks around looping 8/16bars. i usually point to arched maid via rdj as an example. tone down the ~IDM~ FX and you have a pop radio hit for sure. there's a reason you see bands (from nobodies on youtube all the way up to Alarm Will Sound orchestra) covering his tracks, because there's enough inherent musical quality there to be reinterpreted by someone else. music by most other producers at the time didn't hold this quality

>>51556485
drukqs sounds very digital to me, like afx went "oh this computer editing is so nice"

>>51556473
Even from a vintage synth standpoint a lot of the tracks are really hit or miss. There are a ton of people putting out better stuff with the old roland gear. You have to wade through loads of shit to find it though.

>>51555978
No I can't. I know he did a track where he sampled a bouncing metal ball and made it into some crazy shit. People liked that. Maybe some electronic music geeks can elaborate on this but I cannot.

>>51556605
>There are a ton of people putting out better stuff with the old roland gear

*citation needed*

Flatland was everything Syro should have been. too bad AFX is shite

personally I'm not a huge fan of his music or "IDM" (outside of autechre), but I appreciate the fact that he brought the more experimental side of electronic music to a wider audience. Before him experimental electronic music was pretty fucking academic. Stockhausen had a point with the whole "post-african repetitions" thing, tho

>>51556686
flatland was a compilation of autechre rejects lmao

>>51556681
Oneohtrix uses a juno 60 mainly

that synth is a beast though

>>51556634
I too would like to know what song this is. Sounds interesting.

>>51556681
Here you go. This channel has more vintage synth house/techno than you would ever want to listen to.
https://www.youtube.com/user/ballacid/videos
Tracks I liked:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKXjiHabxGU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snEvoovg8Os
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeL7GUykPO8

>>51556765
>>51556634

Not sure what's so special about this. Bleep producers sample just about anything.

>>51556703
Autechre hasnt made a good album since the 90s. Exai was garbage. Not to mention Warp is complete garbage anymore. They are irrelovant. At least, Flatland actually did something with boring ass, stale washed up genre that IDM has become

>>51556788
>they're not good
>it's garbage
>label is garbage
Why are they bad?

>>51556768
That echo 106 track is making me sad because I want to make stuff like this but I suck real bad at composing stuff

it just sound fucking mental in a good, harmonic, emotional and nostalgic way

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Because this is the greatest album of all time

>>51556460
this

>>51556823
The gear in that pic makes me sad since I will probaly never own that much baller gear.

>>51556830
It has weak moments.

>>51556822

No him but

>label is garbage

I wouldn't call it "garbage" but they def don't have the edge they had during the 90's

In November 2013, Sean Booth of Autechre answered a question about "Drane2" and Aphex Twin's "Bucephalus Bouncing Ball":

yeah we did the track drane, which had that exponential speeding-up delay thing happening, and then [Richard D. James] did that bouncing ball track, and we answered it with drane2 which was the same delay trick but feeding percussion into it instead, as a kind of tease

he said he made a bouncing ball revenge track to it once but i guess he didn't release it, prob cos we all got better things to do than get into a tricks war[1]


>tfw no IDM beef war

>>51556882
I have a 106 and I could be recording neat sequences right now but I'm not

ugh

>>51556830
It's way too long and way too repetitive.

And this is coming from someone who likes Gas a lot so, you know, that says something.

>>51556908

huh I thought Aspies were the type of people that avoided beefs and fights

>>51556822
The sound is outdated as fuck, not to mention boring as fuck. Moreover, theres a billion other IDM shit that sounds just like it. The last Warp album that had any merit that I can recall was Broadcast & The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age. Warp is just like any other small indie label. They release safe bets from popular artists that they are guaranteed to make money from. They never put out anything innovated or risky that they may lose money or god forbid, break even

>>51556830
unfortunately the last good thing AFX did which was way back in 94. hes completely irrelevant

>>51556886
Hmm, you seem to be confused. The album I posted is called "Selected Ambient Works Volume II" by Aphex Twin.

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>YOU WILL NEVER WRITE TRACKS ON AN AMIGA 600

>>51556948

>this fanboyism

>>51556904
The point is that he said a bunch of "they're bad" but no actual reasons.
>>51556943
>The sound is outdated as fuck
Exai is not fucking dated, try listening to it.
>boring as fuck
2deep4u
>Moreover, theres a billion other IDM shit that sounds just like it.
Post them because I would love to listen to it.

The rest about Warp I don't really care about.

>>51556925
my criticism of SAWII (which is a great ambient record btw) is that its not repetitive enough and has too much shitty electronic/IDM influence

>>51556922
I have a 106 too, but my vcf/vca combo chips are dead. I called up like 4 places to fix them, and nobody wanted to.

>>51556959
I mean you still can

>>51556959
Just buy one if you want to do it

>>51556996
Mine is still going. I hope mine dont go.

Aphex was so "ahead of his time" that I feel like no one has caught up with him. It's like, when he first came out, it seemed like this was the new direction electronic music was going to take, but it just never happened because it's way too hard, and no one was up for the challenge. It just wasn't really practical, or even possible, for him to be "influential" in the conventional sense.

It happens all the time, in fields from literature to mathematics, some new guy comes out, blows everyone out of the water, and then their influence gradually ceases to exist because no one can really follow them, or take their work any further.

>>51556980
I have listened to it when it came out and its boring as fuck. IDM is boring as fuck in general. IDM never goes deep at all

>>51556980

>Post them because I would love to listen to it

you know the reason IDM threads are "yes I like IDM, Aphex Twin, Autechre, Squarepusher, the list could go on" is because just about every other producer that tried their hand at IDM during the 90's sounded either boring or like a carbon copy of AFX right? and the few ones who had a decent EP/track simply dissapeared soon after

>>51557022
I agree with this. People compare Autechre and Squarepusher to the type of shit Aphex did but it honestly doesn't come close.

>>51556788
>Exai was garbage
your opinion --------> the trash.

>>51557022

>but it just never happened because it's way too hard,
>and no one was up for the challenge

AFX fanbois r cute

>>51557074
he said was, so I figure his opinion has changed at this point

>>51556904
Canfield came out in 2001 and that had more edge than anything Autechre did in the 90s

>>51557022
Four Tet and other Ambient artists are seen as derivative of him
>>51557052
It's only boring if you don't know how to listen critically to music, pleb.
>>51557054
I said post examples. If you can't you're just proving how wrong you are/were.

>>51557074
well in my opinion, you should go listen to some better electronic music. But your taste shows...Every pleb who is 'really' into electronic always is crazy for IDM...go hang out with all the other rave fags

>>51557054
I just second this

>>51557058
>>51557022

you guys have absolutely no fucking idea what you're talking about (typical among AFX fanbois) and you should pls leave the thread

>>51556943
>The sound is outdated as fuck
name 1 track that sounds like vekos or bladelores

>theres a billion other IDM shit that sounds just like it
name some

>Warp is just like any other small indie label. They release safe bets from popular artists that they are guaranteed to make money from
agreed on that though

not even a fanboy but this is really poor quality criticism

>>51557108
I said post examples. If you can't you're just proving how wrong you are/were.

Also, Exai only boring if you don't know how to listen critically to music, pleb.

>>51556925
It's only "too long" if you don't like ambient music.
Do you like ambient music? It's perfect length. More ambient records SHOULD be 25 tracks long and around 3 hours.
Unless you can't into minimalism, of course.

>>51557058
Autechre was doing way more interesting stuff than RDJ ever way imo.

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>mfw aphex occasionally slips up and goes full banger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=926fiS2kvt8

5:00-5:20

he should have done that more often

>>51556066
>implying any trendy fag here heard of LFO

>>51557019
It depends on how old your unit is. Some of the early ones don't get it. It's not the worst thing that can happen though since perfect replicas exist.

>>51557080
>>51557141
I get that it's not cool to have this type of opinion, but it's just how I feel. Aphex was one of the first electronic musicians I ever listened to, I was like 13 and Windowlicker and Come to Daddy came out, and it really did seem like electronic music was "opening up" into a whole new thing, but it just didn't happen.

>>51557108
you too show yourself as an edgy /bleep/ cunt that talks edgy shit without knowing what he's actually talking about.

tl;dr why argue?

>>51557197
what did you want to happen, exactly? electronic music has always been experimental and that experimentation still exists

>>51557058
>it honestly doesn't come close
lm@o

>>51557197

Cool, but you are falling into the fanboyism trap. You are looking at it after it happened 15-20 years later. There is nothing "hard" about AFX music, the hard part is to call yourself an IDM producer and not "copy" AFX's sound

>>51557197
To expand on what I mean by "hard", it's pretty clear that Aphex is from the era where mainly "nerds" used computers, and he obviously did a fair bit of DSP programming himself. All of that closed up as computers became easier to use and everyone forgot about the time when you had to actually be a bit of a tinkerer to use them, especially for anything complicated.

>>51557229
not a bleep cunt. most of the shit here on bleep is vomit inducing. And no Im not going to namedrop a bunch of similar artists because then we get into a pointless arguingment where everyones namedropping shit and I dont want to speak in units. And before you state that since Im not namedropping means I have no idea what I am talking about, I am very into electronic music and a huge vinyl collector and boomkat fag. Im just not going to get into a namedroping arguement where we are speaking in units. If you like IDM, thats cool. But imo, its a boring, outdated genre and super plebby to like if thats the type of electronic music you think is best

Luke Vibert shits all over ApHACKs Twin.

>>51557332
Post what you believe is his best work.

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>>51557289
Compelling argument.

>>51557298
not really
most people would still struggle to recreate his tracks
and thats recreating, ie they already exist

and everyone thinks their generation is the most innovative, that's just the way it is

tl;dr - you had to be there

>>51557324
>And no Im not going to namedrop a bunch of similar artists
>I refuse to back up my arguments
alright we done here

>>51557362
On par with yours.

>>51557324
>even talking in genres

come on, you should know better than to make sweeping statements about whole scenes

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>>51557411

>>51557425
correct ill take back my statement. While most of IDM as a whole I think is boring and outdated, there have been really good IDM albums in the past and today. Honestly, Flatland restored my faith in the genre. Objekt's dancefloor ready stuff was pretty cool, however, I would have never bought the album simply because I read it was IDM. The only reason I bought it was that it was on PAN. Pan is my favorite label and own basically everything Kouligas has released in the past 5 years. Again, I hope Flatland is a general trend for IDM in the years to come

>>51557512
>Flatland restored my faith in the genre
holy pleb.

I like how the bullshit people claiming Autechre is derivative and boring couldn't come up with counterarguments.

Plebs will be plebs.

>>51557512
>I hope Flatland is a general trend for IDM in the years to come
I hope it isn't

>>51557559

theres no point arguing about it because if I say "I don't like Autechre because of X and Y" you either will call me a pleb or tell me I don't get it.

One can dislike something and not be able to explain why (or refrain to so because of above)

wow /mu/ there was actually some pretty good discussion in here, no one even spouted meme bullshit! I'm impressed!

OP, I think Aphex Twin is considered so influential because a lot of musicians have either claimed he has influenced them or you can trace their influences to him. I'm sure the list of artists that have been influenced by him is countless, but there are some big names that have cited him - Radiohead, Skrillex etc. Big names, with lots of fans. So his name becomes like a legend as "the thing that inspired x".

Or that's my guess, anyway. His music is pretty cool. And you can listen to contemporary producers and see how they've been inspired by him.

>>51557512
tbh there isn't a producer alive who likes or uses the term idm for their own stuff

ok maybe a few, but they're automatically shit

so on that basis, i agree with you that idm is shit as fuck

just don't bring my shit up, k

he inspired Kid A thats why

>>51557640
>One can dislike something and not be able to explain why
People only do this if they have no sophisticated knowledge of music.

>>51557653
tfw op in a successful thread

>>51557655
I honestly hate the term IDM. I am just using it because thats the 'norm' and what everyone else easily identifies with

>>51557679
Keep it up, this board could use more threads like this.

>>51557792
Tbh even Aphex Twin himself hates the term IDM.

>>51557180
this album was so fucking good

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techno interests me

>>51558098

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aix_NOp2DNk

"IDM" isn't even really a genre anymore. Or wasn't ever a genre in the first place.

Early 90s, "IDM" largely meant "intelligent techno", Artificial Intelligence, etc (Bola, B12, Autechre, etc)

Mid/late 90s "IDM" largely meant = breakbeat fuckery (u-Ziq, Squarepusher, Jega, etc)

Early/mid 2000s IDM largely meant = skittering glitchy beats with lush pads over the top (Arovane, Proem, Lusine, etc)

Later 2000s/Now = So much of what supposedly made "IDM" its own genre has been co-opted into other styles of music that to call "IDM" it's own separate genre is a sign that you're behind the times

What modern music would you call "IDM", anyway? What artists out there could you not safely categorise as something else?

VHS Head? Ametsub? Aleksi Perälä? A couple from the Warp roster? Some obscure high BPM dBlue glitch guy on Bandcamp?

Not really enough to hang a genre on.

>>51557512
>>51556686
>>51556788
Ganzfield was a phenomenal track by him, while Faltland was, as another guy called it in the past, a collection of unimpressive sound effects. It's legit funny seeing you complain about idem being stale and boring and then proceeding glorifying a stale and boring idem record and hoping that it becomes the future standard for all idem to come.

''compilation of Autechre rejects'' is a highly accurate title for Flatland. You should listen to the EP' Gescom put out in the late 90's and early 00's if you want actual idem that is ahead of it' time and doesn't sound too alien on the dancefloor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1LfoJHiCN4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl93h7eRHzg

>>51558175
*EP's