Product description

APHEX TWIN Drukqs (2001 UK 30-track double CD album from the West Country Techno genius featuring a deep and dark mixture of ambient lushness with a smothering of aggressive noise. Both discs are housed within the slim-double jewel case with picture sleeve inlay WARPCD92)

.co.uk

Drukqs is the 2001 release from Cornish Techno wizard Richard D James aka the Aphex Twin. Deified in the sphere of experimental dance--partly for his indisputable sporadic genius, but partly, it must be said, for his bullish refusal to play the whole "releasing records" game, and the subsequent mythology that such contrariness invariably prompts--every new release is greeted like it's the future of music on plastic. Drukqs is not that album, at least not quite: a 30-track double CD set that runs to over 100 minutes in length, it reads like a hastily-compiled joy-ride through the old Aphex countryside, full-on acid junglist scorchers like "Vord Hosbn" barrelling madly past serene, oddly beautiful ambient piano curiosities like "Avril 14th" and sometimes the two disparate disciplines blending, as in the truly surreal wreckage of "Mt Saint Michel + St Michaels Mount". It's a minor disappointment when you realise there's nothing here as epochal as "Come To Daddy" or "Windowlicker", two late-period Aphex singles so startlingly revolutionary that, on their release, they sounded like nothing else on God's good earth. But once that's out the way, and you're free to immerse yourself in the tangled depths of Drukqs, it's simply a relief to know that Aphex is still making music: fiendishly complex, lovably dumb, and still aeons ahead of the legion of imitators. --Louis Pattison

Review

Disappointment.

I didnt want to say it but there it is. After waiting what seems like ages after Richards previous work of Miami-bass meets Depeche Mode on acid genius, Windowlicker, we have finally been able to get our greedy hands on some new Aphex Twin material.

So whats it like? Well, Druqks sounds exactly like a mix tape made from various unreleased Caustic Window, Richard D. James and Ambient Works 2 sessions with a few new John Cage-esque pieces of minimal piano thrown in for good measure. Therein lies the problem, you see, as there is very little new and or overly exciting on this record. True, there are some amazing moments - Mt Saint Michel + Saint Michaels Mount is inspired, but then again, the first two minutes could easily just have been released on the last Squarepusher CD. 56 Cymru Beats again, is technically impressive - but again could have easily been released in 1994. Being nostalgic is one thing but was that Stakker Humanoid sample really necessary...again?

Druqks simply copies and pastes its loops and ideas from previous releases and rehashes them into something weve heard a million times before, albeit in a slightly different sequence. It isnt until we come to disc two that we see some of the more interesting material come to light. Here we find treated pianos and bells submerged in an 8 voice chorus but just as it starts to draw you in, it stops. It seems like hes run out of ideas a minute and a half into it and has to revert to remixing his old hardcore tracks to get the momentum flowing again. Its not until the last track Nanou 2 that we begin to hear James true colours come out and see what kind of mind blowing beauty hes capable of creating.

I think Druqks probably would have worked better as two separate releases with a lot more time and effort put into it. Dont get me wrong, I love Richard's work as much as the next guy, but for the all too brief moments of joy and beauty on this release, there is still far too much laziness for the truly awe-inspiring work to shine through.

He's still on top...but for how much longer remains to be seen.

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Akufen - My Way --Olli Siebelt

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