When this came out in the summer, the first proper new Aphex material in five years, I had a weird mix of emotions: excitement, nervousness (in case it was shit), and an oddly conflicted feeling because I identify as an Aphex fan, but to be honest have been kind of ambivalent about everything since Syro, the best part of a decade ago. (That was also his first record in a long time, and I had a similar mix of anticipation and trepidation then.) I guess this is why it’s taken me six months to actually write this one up.
My verdict? This is really nice. It’s four tracks of the kind of analogue synth stuff he put out throughout the 2010s, a kind of acid IDM, touches of ambient techno, touches of breaks, you know the drill. It is a very pleasant listening experience. It doesn’t add much to the sum of total human happiness, but maybe it doesn’t have to.
This is also the first proper Aphex release since I stopped buying physical copies of things (mostly on environmental grounds, with a side-order of feeling silly about having loads of records I’ve played exactly once because it’s so much more convenient to listen digitally). I had a moment where I thought maybe I should indulge my inner completist and get this on vinyl. That was amplified when I saw the cool packaging, and deflated when I saw the price. In the end, my head won out over my heart, and I just bought it digitally, from his Bandcamp page.
dogrando writes about some records 