The third album on Warp Records as Aphex Twin sees James carve out even more territory in electronica’s dark hinterland, with a record that sounds little like anyone or anything else.
The dates appended to each track suggest this is a compilation of material that in some cases was up to 5 years old. But I Care Because You Do sounds so fully realised and contained in its own weird sound world, I find it hard to believe it was put together in that way. More Aphex mind games perhaps?
It’s also the first release to feature that grinning physog, which in all its mutated twisted forms would become Aphex’s emblem and calling card, along with the logo.
There’s so much to get into on this record, which for my money, was his best by this point. Everything is permeated with a deeply organic, earthy tone, like the texture of lichen-speckled rocks, gritty soil and rusted metal, as if he recorded these tracks and then buried them down a Cornish mine for a few decades.
The album’s beauty lies in the counterpoint between the hard and soft edges, jagged percussion and soothing melodies, screeching clamour and woozy respite. Icct Hedral is a gothic masterpiece of seething tension, that belongs on a horror soundtrack, as does Wax the Nip which wields a fearsome doubled kick drum beneath ethereal chords and feels like being pursued across Dartmoor by the Hound of the Baskervilles.
Avid Acrid Jam Shred opens proceedings and features some of James’ most mature and rich melodic work to date, over a subtly evolving beat and is the kind of track you never want to end.
Alberto Balsam is rightly a well-loved track, with its delicate melody underscored by the clang of metal pipes and a chair sliding across floorboards. But Wet Tip Hen Axe and Mookid are both as startlingly original, composed of sounds that seem wrought from familiar objects manipulated in unexpected ways.
It’s like the dreamscape of Selected Ambient Works Volume 2 that James tapped into via synesthesia has been brought to life in the form of household objects, or the rugged landscape of Cornwall. Truly, a masterpiece.
5/5
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