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 massive screens had 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 file, 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), filled with goodies for the musically curious however not definitely worth the slog of listening to during.
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 gives no bonus materials or extras in any type. A handful of those information had been already repeats, selecting 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 also referred to 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, significantly the psychedelic acid odyssey “rfc pt8.” And the London 14.09.2019 12″, cherry-picking tracks from the online-only EP Orphans, has essentially the most practical AFX work in many years. 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 traces and feverish vocal loops, imagines what early AFX may need seemed like if he was steeped within the breakbeat hardcore scene of London quite 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 hardly ever lets free from his vault.
Tunes like these are price coming again to, however most of Music From the Merch Desk feels like listening to James determine his gear in actual time, stopping and beginning sketches with no discernible rhyme or cause. You is perhaps considering, “That simply feels like Aphex Twin,” however the materials right here is extra disparate and scattershot than standard—particularly sequenced as it’s, chronologically in response to the discharge date of every tour EP, with no movement or build-up to talk of. College students of James will discover it fascinating, however they’ve most likely heard it already. For everybody else, it’s a warts-and-all take 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.
