Sometimes it feels like Richard D James saw the shit that was coming this decade, stuck two fingers up at it, and then buggered off to do the things he actually cared about. He returned to his analog love with the hugely underrated Analord series of wonky acid vinyl released as AFX, and if you believe the rumour, the continuation of this sound that is the output of The Tuss (not to mention Rephlex of course). Half truths, grand in face statements, warped humour and self mythology was always a huge part of what made Richard James a major figure in popular culture, which in the nineties he really was (just think back to the ubiquity of the Windowlicker video or Come to Daddy hitting the top twenty), but this decade saw his refusal to play the game, and a movement to peripheral figure in popular culture and elder statesmen in the electronica scene. It’s easy to forget that his only release as Aphex in this decade was critically butchered, and universally panned. So what the hell is a piece of music by Richard James doing on this list?
Drukqs might have been panned, and it was a bit messy, but there were undoubtedly gems on there. Originally slated for being a retread over his career, a distinct lack of originality and invention, and the wayward track listing (in a time when sequencing still apparently mattered). Drukqs sounds very different from today’s standpoint; its sounds like he won. It’s disorganised sound is, for me, an endearing feature as much as it is with Wowee Zowee or The White Album (because Pavement are the Beatles to the Pitchfork generation) and in separating his usual clash of emotive and technical accomplishment a step in a different direction accomplished.
I once read that Richard James used to pre-age his beats, reserving his more progressive productions for his sole consumption to prevent people ‘ripping him off’, so it seems that in the often simple and shamelessly emotive piano compositions interspersed in between the usual electronica he created his greatest example of pre-aging yet. The criticism often voiced at the time is true, these pieces do have lot in common with their obvious influence Erik Satie, but that doesn’t make them any less effective. Avril 14th in particular stands out as the most rounded and complete; a composition strong enough to stand next to Satie or the minimalists, a moment of genuine heart wrenching beauty. It’s a fitting swansong for his Aphex persona precisely because it could have been written 100 years previous, it’s the fingers up to the corporate mainstream, to the very idea of breaking out into popular consciousness again, and a sign that everything was about to retreat into its niche market. It may have left the mainstream to a minority of heritage artists still able to command broad appeal based on their history rather than the present, but if more people held this attitude I can’t help but believe the musical and cultural output of the last decade would have been more rounded, because sometimes the only way to avoid soul sucking corporate bullshit and false reality is to say ‘fuck off’ to all of its trappings. In one context this is what Avril 14th is, but in another, it is simply an excellent piece of musical that can agitate memories and feelings like few others.
All that said the sound quality on the video below is fairly terrible, so apologies . . .
