In December 2016, Aphex Twin performed within the U.S. for the primary time in virtually a decade, at a competition in Houston. By all accounts it was a memorable night time, full with a dramatic storm that hit throughout his set—the large screens have been lowered, revelers hid in porta-potties, and the rain appeared to drive Richard D. James to play tougher and tougher music. Eagle-eyed followers observed one thing else that night time: a brand new report, stamped with just a few logos and the straightforward title Houston, TX 12.17.16.
The music was ripped and on-line the following day. The EP—two 10-minute lengthy tracks of scuzzy damaged techno that switched gears as typically as Meshuggah change keys—was each awe-inspiring and befuddling. The identical goes for a lot of Music From the Merch Desk (2016 – 2023), a streaming compilation of the bodily releases he’s put out at his reveals around the globe since then. A few of his strangest and most difficult music is gathered right here, in a 38-track, two-and-a-half-hour package deal that feels each completist and incomplete (his really avant-garde Mt. Fuji cassette is lacking), stuffed with goodies for the musically curious however not definitely worth the slog of listening to all over.
Not one of the music right here is new. There are already numerous Reddit threads debating the deserves of every launch, and Music From the Merch Desk provides no bonus materials or extras in any type. A handful of those data have been already repeats, choosing out highlights from webstore-only releases, oddities like his inessential Korg demo 12″, and the well-known SoundCloud archive. One other good chunk of the compilation is taken from an LP often known as Area Day, after the UK competition James performed in 2017, that includes glimpses of brilliance overshadowed by fiddly noodling. For each spotlight just like the fuzzy, frantic “T20A ede 441”—as hyperactive as one thing off Drukqs—there’s an aimless experiment or a melody that doesn’t fairly land.
The remainder is hit and miss, with thrilling excessive factors. The Barcelona 12″, by no means formally launched on-line, is splendidly wiggly, notably the psychedelic acid odyssey “rfc pt8.” And the London 14.09.2019 12″, cherry-picking tracks from the online-only EP Orphans, has probably the most purposeful AFX work in a long time. Hardly ever since …I Care As a result of You Do has his music been as straightforwardly fairly as his remix of Luke Vibert’s “Spiral Staircase,” which he submitted anonymously to a remix contest—that he received, naturally—in 2004. “Nightmail,” all scorched acid strains and feverish vocal loops, imagines what early AFX might need appeared like if he was steeped within the breakbeat hardcore scene of London reasonably than tucked away in Cornwall. Better of all is “Soundlab20,” a retro electro monitor that conjures up James cruising down a beachside parkway in a convertible, with no facial distortions or bizarre imagery. It’s merely an ideal sunny-day jam, the likes of which he not often lets free from his vault.
Tunes like these are value coming again to, however most of Music From the Merch Desk feels like listening to James work out his tools in actual time, stopping and beginning sketches with no discernible rhyme or motive. You may be pondering, “That simply feels like Aphex Twin,” however the materials right here is extra disparate and scattershot than regular—particularly sequenced as it’s, chronologically in line with the discharge date of every tour EP, with no circulation or build-up to talk of. College students of James will discover it fascinating, however they’ve in all probability heard it already. For everybody else, it’s a warts-and-all have a look at a musical genius in low-pressure mode—one other bout of oversharing from an artist who as soon as held his playing cards near his chest.
