Control is a huge issue for some people. Without it, they not only feel isolated from power, they feel scared, vulnerable to the unexpected, and most of all they feel without purpose. Maintaining control has, for the human race, been somewhat of a huge issue for as long as it has existed. Those who don't really care for control seem to sit on the sidelines; rudderless and nonchalant about the chaos surrounding them of the modern world and life.
However, there are those for whom control is subversively an issue, the loss of it a liberating and often a mind bending experience. Of course drugs, alcohol and every day recreation are examples of this, some safer than others undoubtedly, but all forms of escapism, escape from the control and hectic nature of life and escape from the shackles placed on us from birth. This is where Richard D. James (known as, amongst other things, Aphex Twin) plies his trade, the very borderline between a terrified neurotic losing control, and a joyriding, drug snorting teen - always keen to immerse himself in a new vice or dangerous situation. The border between your humourous nonsensical dreams and your nightmarish visions which occasionally wake you and leave you shaken and sleepless.
His lack of control is in itself though, extremely controlled and restrained. On the opener, 4, the drums seem to knock Richard off his feet and dance around him, teasing, before running off to piss on the neighbors prize pagonias. It is fascinating then, to see a man with such a clear and single-minded vision and control over his music, the nature of which is absolutely astonishingly impossible to tame. The next track, Cornish Acid, cements this idea and ethos, Richard opens it's cage and the beast stomps out, flattening Richy and running off to pillage and destroy eardrums in a nearby town. Taken on face value, Richard D. James may have unwittingly wandered into a recording studio, pressed a few buttons and unleashed a terrible monster - which is of consequence to us all.
But we know he hasn't. The man is such a genius of technology, electronics and programming that the truly breathtaking thing about all his recorded work is how deliberate each stroke, however seemingly meaningless or bereft of consequence, plays a massive part in the grand scheme of everything he does. Peek 824545201 is the third track and it sounds like a child's spinning top soaked in a bathtub full of L.S.D., whirring along and rattling its way about until a delicious and ceiling shakingly pleasant synthesizer interjects and stops proceedings before it all gets a bit
too mad.
Carn Mouth, To Cure a Weakling Child, Girl/Boy Song and Yellow Calx are all similar tracks, buzzing along with a frenetic need to explode, seemingly like elements of the periodic table, James' faster tracks have a need to destroy themselves as quickly as possible, to burn out their natural life cycle and leave nothing more than a small, white fizzing rock, and in all honesty, he is powerless to stop them, they break the case and escape, only to be resurrected from the dead upon the inevitable repeated listens.
Some tracks are absolutely outrageous in a different way though, Goon Goompas, Logan Rock Witch and Beetles take a childlike dream approach to songwriting ('Beetles. Under my carpet. Under my feet. They come out when they eat.'), which at times becomes almost David Lynch-esque in it's powerful ability to convince you that the most mundane things can be absolutely horrifying. Logan Rock Witch is an excellent track, sprawling and dazed, it bumps it's way along, more menacing than a lot of the stuff on here for it's sample of Donkey Kong and Banjo Kazooie, yet utterly charming in a weird way.
Richard D. James may not be fully accepted into mainstream culture, actually if anything he is somewhat of a figure of fear (after his outrageous Come To Daddy video). But that's ok, a lot of people find his music unlistenable, overproduced, glitchy electronic nonsense. And they're right, it is all of that, but it is so much more. Arrangements that at times rival Mozart for beauty, ideas that rival the Velvet Underground for ingenuity, and a sound that will, until the day he dies, be absolutely unmatched and unbeaten anywhere.
