Review Summary: Needles in the haystack? More like small fragments of diamonds in a needlestack.
Before I say anything, just take a look at the album cover. It has basically all you need to know about this half-hour musical endeavor and so much more. Everything is a dull, golden, nigh-sepia tone. The picture establishes its focal point with a man rushing down a set of stairs at such a pace that the single frame depicted on the cover shows him as a subtle blur. But, of course, that's not any man -- that's Richard David James, who for this EP is going under the stage name of Polygon Window, although amongst his plethora of pseudonyms, there's one that the world knows him by the most: Aphex Twin. Furthermore, as your eyes scan the rest of the photo, you start trying to wrap your head around the bizarre architectural atmosphere that James is inside, with the warped walls and the ceiling that looks like a floor or vice versa.
The EP's opening title track, "Quoth", had already been published by James a few months earlier on the first Polygon Window LP, "Surfing on Sine Waves". As a standalone, it's a fair song. The intense, clanging percussion accentuated by deep, guttural bass hits makes this song an easy fit on a soundtrack to a chase scene, reflecting the cover. However, there's one big problem with the song: it doesn't really build up to anything, and its 5:40 runtime feels extremely unjustified due to the song's repetition and straining of its established rhythms. Some bits of the song don't have the bass hits in them; whoop dee doo. (3/5)
This track is followed by "Iketa", which is a much more musically textured song not based around mindless loops, introducing more instrumentation as the song progresses, making a sense of compelling freshness that keeps listeners on the balls of their feet. In fact, it almost sounds like it was an outtake for "Selected Ambient Works 85-92", and I can easily see this track fitting alongside "Heliosphan" and "Green Calx". A great showcase of the algorithm that Mr. James has carved out for himself. (5/5)
As with many of Aphex's singles/EPs to come, there come the mixes. Our first mix on "Quoth EP" is the Wooden Thump mix of the title track, which takes just six seconds to justify its name. This song is more heavy-hitting, abrasive, and overall aggressive than the original version, with industrial tinges that sound less like clunky drum machine compositions and more like the sounds produced from Mr. James taking an audio recorder, pressing record, and tossing it down a flight of metallic stairs. I couldn't listen to this mix without thinking of comparisons to "Ventolin" (minus all the earsplitting ringing and less aggressive beats). Unfortunately, like its source material, the Wooden Thump mix falls victim to an overlong runtime, this time of almost EIGHT MINUTES. Had it been shaved to 4 or 5, this would've made for a better track. (4/5)
This gets followed by what I dare say is Mr. James' grooviest IDM track in his discography: "Bike Pump Meets Bucket". Once you get past its nonsensical and nonindicative name, you find a far more calmed-down and laidback song with gentler percussion layered on top of a serene keyboard riff that even gets a brief solo midway through the song. Probably my favorite song on the EP. (5/5)
The EP's finale isn't really much of a finale, considering it's not even on all issuings of the record: it's only on American CD and the first issue of British CD. Is not having this last track (the aptly-titled "hidden mix" of "Quoth") on your issuing of the EP much of a loss? Not really: this track merely sounds like a remastered version of the title track and has the audacity to go on for 1.5 minutes longer than the original version. A track best missed. (2.5/5)
This is an EP that isn't really that much of a gem to listen to, but at the same time it's worth a listen just to find the golden nuggets of purified sonic brilliance that are unfortunately outweighed by the "fat" that drags this EP down from what it could've been, had the EP's collective runtime been a collective 6 to 9 minutes shorter.
