George’s Music Blog is returning to our deep dive into the Aphex Twin discography, and what a place to jump back in, as we enter imperial-phase Aphex with the Hangable Auto Bulb EP. Not a piece of kit you’ll find at Wickes, but an anagram of Analogue Bubble Bath. Whether because it came out under the AFX moniker or was initially unavailable on CD, Hangable Auto Bulb always seemed underrated to me. But it’s on par with the RDJ Album, a widely acknowledged classic, and essential listening for anyone with a passing interest.
The first change you notice from the earlier Aphex discography is the rhythm. HAB zips along on fidgety tempos in touching distance of jungle, which was exploding into myriad subgenres at the time. James mutates the bad-boy swagger of breakbeat into crazy ratchets and endlessly cascading snares, as he finds himself at another juncture where technology opened new avenues of experimentation. This is the first time he was using a computer to compose tracks, and manipulate percussion in this way, which gives it a sense of character as distinctive and rich as the melodic elements.
Children Talking begins with an almost militaristic drum roll, which builds under a vintage sample of a child recounting their dislike of mashed potatoes to an amused interviewer. As the sample becomes more warped and distorted and the beat more intense, everything breaks down into pure experimentalism, until finally an eerie melody – somewhere between playful and sinister – resolves the piece. It’d be easy to miss the melodic elements of the track among all freewheeling rhythmic experimentation, but this is archetypal of the whole release – rhythms and melodies combining in unexpected ways to tell a story.
The second thing to notice is how free-flowing these pieces are; how they end up in a completely different place from where they started. And everything is infused with this eerie sense of presence. Maybe I listened to this too much as an impressionable youngster, but there’s an inescapable feeling of personality to each track. Laughable Butane Bob is like an excited child, rushing around and bouncing off the walls; Custodian Discount is introverted and suspicious; Wabby Legs with its childlike voice la-la-ing deep in the mix is sinister, but playful with it – the whole piece is an exercise in play, with tempo, rhythm, cadence.
Final mention goes to to Arched Maid Via RDJ, which closes out the release and trades experimentation for pure epic-ness. The lead melody has the free-flowing feel of something shredded out on an electric guitar, though I suspect that’s not the case, and the endless cascades of drum hits pile themselves into a never ending staircase, which builds in grandeur until a sudden about-turn at 2:50, where everything transforms to an urgent climax.
As we’ll see from the next few releases, Aphex was a lightning rod for inspiration from here until the end of the decade. Every release shows a different and distinctive style, and we’d have happily taken a whole album’s worth of Hangable Auto Bulb style tracks, but in less than a year the Richard D James Album was out, changing the face (quite literally) of electronic music.
George's Music Blog 