No Filler Music Podcast - Sidetrack: Aphex Twin

Episode Date: December 10, 2018

Fresh off the heels of our Kid A episode from last week, we take a look at the music of Richard D. James, better known as Aphex Twin, one of the artists responsible for pulling Thom Yorke out of his musical funk. Aphex Twin, along with countless other artists under the Warp record label umbrella, breathed in new life to electronic music, with a long lasting influence on the ambient, IDM, & downtempo genres. For more info, check out our show notes: https://www.nofillerpodcast.com/episode/ep-24-radiohead-kid-a#sidetrack Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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that fill the space between the singles on our favorite records. This is our sidetrack episode for the week. My name is Quentin, and I've got my brother Travis with me. In spirit. Right? What? You're here in spirit, brother. I always feel like I should bring that up every now and then.

I mean, you're not really here. But, dude, because we're twins, we're always connected. Oh. Take that out of the fucking chat. You're the one who's editing this one, brother. Fine, fine, point, point. I'm going to chop it out anyway. Might as well do some stupid cheer.

I ain't got to worry about it. All right. So we're going to talk a little bit about A-Fex Twin today. So last week we talked about Radiohead. We covered their 2000 release kid A. And we talked about Tom York's deep dive into depression and writer's block. all that stuff that happened in between okay computer and kid a apparently he got over the funk when he started listening to electronic music um and specifically uh he said he basically just

went through the entire warp catalog warp is a record label that started back in 1989 um and had a huge, huge influence on these experimental electronic styles that are now just, you know, common names. So intelligent dance music, that came about through this record label and through the artists that they were signing. So bands like AFX Twin, Bores of Canada, LFO, and now I don't know how to say this next one. Art secure. God, that's... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. How do you say that, bro?

Arter? Artter? I don't know. Yeah, I've heard of them. Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at the list, too. There's a lot of great nightmare on wax. Let's see, what else do I have fucking here? Brian Eno, dude? Grizzly bears on there.

They don't belong in electronic music record label. How did they get on there? Bibio's on there, man. Nice. Bords of Canada. Yeah, boards of Canada are, you know, we talk about them. They're kind of the forefathers of IDM and hypnagogic pop. Yep.

Yeah. Yeah, so specifically, Radio, specifically Tom York mentions Affect Twin and Articure. I don't know how to say that, dude. Yeah. Let's, dude, let's figure it out, man. pronunciations articure articur

you were you were pretty you were close cool all right um and you know

after listening to KDA last week you can see the huge influence that that this kind of music had on Tom York going forward and his writing styles and all that good stuff

because listening to kid A and a lot of Radiohead's music post Kid A, it is very, very heavy on the electronic side and on the rhythms, you know? Definitely, definitely. And I think you had mentioned that he had specifically said that he was experimenting and interested in how electronic music can move you sometimes more than words. lyrics. More than, yeah, more than guitar music is what he said.

Yeah, and I can definitely, definitely see that. Absolutely, man. I can definitely, like, listening, so, I don't know about you, but I never got into AFX Twin. I don't know if it's because, I think his, his, like, the height of his commercial success was mid to late 90s. And, you know, and his early career and all that, 1989 through the 90s.

We were just too young to care about that kind of music. I think we had mentioned in other episodes before. We never really got into electronic music until later on in our life. Yeah, really it was... So we just missed the whole IDM scene from the 90s. Interestingly enough, though, for me at least, I think IDM was sort of to the first type of electronic music that I really got into. Or IDM and down tempo.

That's kind of when I got my foot in the door with electronic music. Because there was more laid back, you know, I didn't, it's not like I went straight into, you know, techno or dubstep, you know, which I've never really gotten into. But IDM, down tempo, like I've always been into that kind of music. Yeah. As far as, you know, once we start, once I got into electronic music, that's what I started with. Bands like, you know, we've talked about before, Tosca, Tyco. Right, right, right.

So I think it's kind of cool that if you think about Tom York and being in Radiohead in the late, you know, in 99, 2000. seeing that success as just a rock and roll band, and then discovering and really enjoying electronic music, and then almost pulling a 180, almost, and just completely changing your sound because of that. I think that's really cool, because, you know, for us, we're just such big fans of electronic music. I just think it's cool to see the change in radio hits sound after this, you know.

Yeah, I mean, it sounds. like he needed some sort of a change of pace, not just in like, you know, the excessive, like, touring schedule and, like, and all that kind of stuff, but, like, he needed to change the way he was approaching music, because from what you were saying, he was, like, sort of becoming turned up by, by the stereotype of a rock star, quote, unquote. And if, you know, right, if he's associating guitar music with, like, rock and roll, you know, it's no surprise that he, like, went toward found inspiration from electronic music. Yeah, and we didn't, I didn't really mention this last week, but the song,

Everything in its Right Place, which is the first track on Kid A, it's the song that we introed the podcast with. So that song was the first complete idea that they had, like the first song that they saw all the way through when recording. And, you know, I just love, it's not ironic, but I just love that the song, you know, the lyrics, the words, everything is in its right place. It just fits so well with that, you know.

He has this depression, writer's block. And then Kid A comes out, the first song, the first words that you hear is, all right, everything's in its right place now, you know? Yeah. Like, this is it. That might be, that might be what he was talking about. It could be why they decided to have that be the first track on the album, you know? You might be right.

So, one thing about A-Fix Twin. Okay, so his name is Richard D. James. A-Fix Twin is one guy. And honestly, for me, I'm not a big fan of most. of his stuff. You know, I've got... It's really out there. I've gotten it, I think the one,

the one or two albums that I've listened to from his are the, sort of the ambient stuff. Like, he's put out some ambient works. So actually, that's the, those are actually his first legit releases. Like, I thought, oh, these are just some compilation albums that,

that, you know, that we can listen to on Spotify or whatever. Those are the first, the first work, you know, the first music of his that that was released to the public were those compilation albums. That's interesting because, you know, coming from the record label with Brian Eno on it, you know, Brian Eno had had also done a lot of ambient works, quote-unquote, albums that were, you know, just called like Ambient Works 1, ambient Works 2, where he collaborated with,

with other musicians, but like, that's interesting that, you know, it makes you wonder if, what's the guy's name, Apex 1? Richard D. James Yeah, it makes you wonder if Richard was sort of inspired and following in the footsteps of a musician like Brian Eno before he broke off and started doing more heavy electronics. It also could just be how Warp

decided to introduce a fixed twin and, you know, how to introduce Brian Eno to their audience. You know, all right, here's what he's been doing for the last seven years. But yeah, so did you like his ambient stuff? How ambient are we talking? Should we listen to one, dude? I didn't have that in mind.

I don't have like one off the top of my head. Let's just listen to a random one. Yeah, we could pop in there, see what's going on. All right, so let's do, so pulling from, so this was released in 92. Spans from 85 to 92. Let's listen to, we are the music makers just because I like the name. And we are the dreamers of the dreams. That was great, man.

You know what that made me, like, I desperately want to go find a website that has a download. I just want to reinstall SimCity. That made you think of SimCity. That's funny, dude, because I feel like the soundtrack was sort of like that, the music on SimCity. Yeah, exactly. It kind of brought me back to, like, video, computer games from the 90s. Dude, nothing beats. Roller Coaster Tycoon, dude.

You remember that game? Yeah. Did they have good music? No, not really. But I mean... Oh, okay. Yeah, dude, you were way into that. That's because it was the fucking...

That game for a while, dude. It was the fucking bees' knees, dude. Especially the, uh, the isometric one where like... You're only seeing like four angles of it. Like, you can rotate the map and shit, but... Because then they came out with Roller Coaster Tycoon 3. It was fully 3D. You could, like, walk through the park and, like, ride the roller coasters

which was cool but the isometric one was awesome too I'm gonna have to fucking play that again I've got an old PC I'll have to fucking cue it up and get it going well I enjoyed that

I'm definitely gonna listen to more of this that was cool and you know what let's just go back I just like to think about Tom York you know

just frustrated beyond reason you know with himself and with his career path and then discovering this music. I don't know why I just I just like this idea,

you know, because for me, it's because, and like I had said last week, and I'm still on the fence about this, and I'm excited that we're going to cover all the way up to in rainbows because I'm on the fence about this, but Kid A is up there for me for Radiohead albums as far as my favorites. And I love that it took, I mean, I don't like the fact that Tom York, pretty much hit rock bottom became completely unhinged for this to happen. But I love that the radio head that we know today was brought about by Tom York and probably the other members of the band getting into IDM, you know, and down tempo. And this all happened in the late 90s, you know, when this stuff was kind of exploding.

And we have people like AFX Twin and, ought to cure. Is that how you said it? Yeah, whatever. To think for radiohead, right? I mean, is that a stretch? I mean, yeah. I mean, you can definitely say that we have them to think for how Radiohead evolved, you know,

like what they went, I mean, they went from rock outfit to the experimental, like, electronic rock. There's no way to distract. Yeah, what makes Radiohead Radiohead to me is how they have blended, how they blend rock and electronic music. They do it in a way that nobody else does it, you know? Yeah. So, like I had said earlier,

a lot of the stuff from Apex Twin I don't really like. So to any AFC Twin fans that are listening to this episode, I apologize because the music that we're playing today, it's probably not a good representation of Aifex Twin as far as his music goes, his stylings. But Travis and I are more into, well, you know what, let's just play the song that I had in mind for our sidetrack. Because, so this is a song, this is track one off of his album called Richard D. James album. That's the name of the album. That's his name.

By Apex Twin. That's his real name. This came out in 96, and this is the first track on the album. It's called 4, as in the number 4. Let's hear it. Yeah, I don't know if I like that style of that drum track. I've heard that style before. He loves that stuff, man.

At least on this album, it pops up again in a few other songs. I like it, dude. So again, these two songs are different from the rest of this album and from the rest of other, I mean, for the most part, other songs of his that I've got, I've listened to. Actually, you know what, dude, I can't just keep talking about it without playing a little sample. So let's go two tracks down, track three. This one is called Peak 824-5-4-201. I mean, that's just like if, you know, back in the day with dial-up internet, that's like if AOL learned how to make beats as it was logging on.

You know what I mean? Yeah, I don't know, dude. I don't like it. Exactly. I don't like it. Exactly, dude. But think about this, though. I mean, think about the influence that he's had on so many different genres of electronic music since that time, right?

chip tunes dub step all that stuff yeah yeah no you definitely you can definitely see the influence or hear the influence and again I can see how this could be something

that would be appealing to Tom York after spending a decade in a rock band where it was all about melody you know verse chorus verse bridge verse chorus yeah I hear it

yeah yeah I mean you gotta you gotta mix it up you got to do something different, you know, every once in a while. To stay interested in your, I mean, that's true for any sort of industry or craft that you're involved in, you know. Yeah, I'm going to mix it up. So, yeah, I, hey, that's a sidetrack, huh? Sure.

It's called Night. So next week, we're going to talk about, I've decided, I've picked the album. Sweet. We are going to talk about REM. We're going to cover their fourth album. album, Life's Rich Pageant, came out in 1986. What's so interesting to me about REM is just how prolific they were in the 80s and into the, like, and how they just continued into the 90s, you know, and we'll talk about this

later, obviously, but I'm just kind of looking at their, because when I think of REM, I think, I associated them with the 90s, but really, they, they started in 83 and put out a an album almost every two years in the 80s. So, I mean, they just... Dude, and I really like their debut album. I love Murmur. Mirmar. Yeah, I thought about doing Mirmer, but I don't know.

Maybe we'll do that later. Life's Rich Pagent has some really special tracks on there. Well, I'm excited because I can honestly say, I mean, unless there's a single that I would know, I don't know any songs from that album, so. Yeah, I think there's two singles, and they, are, let's see. Yeah, the singles are fall on me and Superman. So yeah, you probably haven't heard those because I don't think they had very much radio play at all. Yeah. So, yeah, it's, it's good stuff, man. Cool. I'm excited about it. I'm soaked, dude. Yeah. Yeah. And then after that,

we're going to get into some, some more radio head and listen to Amnesiac. That's going to be great, too, man. So yeah, good stuff to look forward to in the next couple weeks. I guess we can fade out with that song that you liked so much, dude, that I introed in for this episode. So that one was called Finger Bib, which is track four on the Richard D. James album. Yeah, well, let's, we can fade out with that one. Cool. So as always, you can find more information on our website, no filler podcast.com. You can also listen to us on SoundCloud or pretty much any other podcast app. We should be up there. and that's going to do it for us today. Thank you, as always, for listening.

We love you all. And we will see you again. And by C, I mean, you will hear us in your buds next week. My name is Quentin. My name is Travis. Maryland sports fans. There's only one sports book in the great state of Maryland with over 50 years experience booking bats and supporting customers.

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And crystal glasses for just $14.99 for their brother Lee. A baking dish made in Portugal for Tom and Sue. And a nice $5.99 candle. Perfectly priced just for you. Happy holidays to all. And to all a good price. Home sense. Endless presents perfectly priced.