Pros: The CD case is made of hard-wearing, durable plastic.
Cons: An album with a personality factor of zero.
The Bottom Line: Forget "Drukqs". Try instead anything by Tod Dockstader for that Aphex-like high. And try to remember Richard how he was (perhaps minus the smelly beard).
FilboidStudge's Full Review: Drukqs [PA] by Aphex Twin
Remember those school essays you used to dash off ten minutes before they were due to be collected? Well, here's a double album containing thirty of them, in song.
"Drukqs" has 'Will this do?' written all over it, and NO, it bloody won't. It's all very well giving the tracks names like "Beskhu3epnm" and "Petiatil Cx Htdui" if the message is that names are meaningless and you should concentrate on the music, but quite frankly, the noise made removing these two CDs from their case spoke to me more than any of the music they contained.
The tracks themselves are of two distinct sorts: firstly, there's the runaway-train tumble of electronic squalls and mashed, slithery beats. All of theses tracks are a vomity spew of half-realised ideas. It's as if the lightbulb had come on in Richard's head, but by the time he'd plugged in all his leads, all the magical notions had fled from his head. A smaller proportion of tracks follow the other route: slight, fey prepared piano sketches, which, held up against hundreds of years of classical experimentation, hold so little water that they crumble into a miasma of powdery, dusty nothingness.
How the mighty are fallen! Listen to past Aphex masterpieces like "Selected Ambient Works Volume II" or the first "Hangable Autobulb" EP, and then listen to "Drukqs." It's quickly apparent that this new double album is a most definite regression. The main complaint is that there is no 'step forward' as witnessed on almost every successive Richard James project. You've heard this all before, only done far, far better.
The second maggot in the apple is that there's no continuity; no thread; no masterplan. This is a deeply random assortment of old tunes which have been in storage. Some things are better left uncovered: these are failures; outtakes of outtakes, with no unifying strand whatsoever. Perhaps realising how bad his latest release was, Richard James claimed to have left his 'real' new album on an aeroplane. Hmmmmm.
Let's look at a couple of possibilities:
SCENARIO ONE
Aphex has been hard at work, toiling on the definitive blueprint for music in the 21st Century. He has broken through into realms of sound so cutting-edge that they can circumsise a man from twenty paces. Then he has left this work of genius on an aeroplane and it's been forever lost to the world, thrown out with all the half-eaten mushroom omelettes and moist Qantas towelettes. "Damnation!" he has ruminated, "now I won't be able to give Warp Records a fitting final album before I scoot off and start my own label. I'd better just look in the cupboard and give them any old tat, like I did with the Lemonheads."
SCENARIO TWO
Aphex has been hard at play. He almost beat Squarepusher at Tekken 2 but failed due to fingers greasy from Kentucky Fried Chicken. "Christ!" he has ruminated, "is it October already? I seem to be contractually obligated to Warp Records for another album. I'd better just look in the cupboard and give them any old tat. That cupboard needs a good clean out, anyway. I haven't even opened it since Mike Paradinas puked Skittles and bacon all over it back in 1997. Ah yes, 1997. When I used to make music. Oh well, back to Lara Croft..."
So which is it, Aphex? I think we should be told. Drukqs? Pants. Not even another clever-clever video from Chris Cunningham's going to dig you out of this one. One thing's for sure - tomorrow I'm taking this cack straight back to the record store to exchange it for something more worthwhile. Like feckin' Abba.
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