On Collapse, Aphex Twin's genre-bending techniques once again prove that electronic can be beautiful, playful and tantalising, if you can bear to sit outside your comfort zone.
It may feel like he is on cruise control a bit, but James’ coasting is any other artist’s magnum opus.
The renaissance of Richard D. James continues with his latest EP, a knotty, meticulous, and joyous collection that ranks among his best late-career albums.
Collapse is Richard D. James's best release since the return of Aphex Twin.
While Collapse won't go down as one of James's landmark Aphex Twin releases ... its consistency and striving ambition to keep moving the project forward, both as a familiar, welcome friend but one that challenges you incessantly is highly appreciated.
Collapse ... is instantly, unmistakably recognizable as an Aphex release. Here, he returns to the ultra-glitchy beats and childlike melodies of releases like Hangable Auto Bulb and Richard D. James Album, while sounding miles away from them.
On his latest EP, Aphex Twin abruptly pulls the rug from under your feet, turning his nostalgic IDM perspective into an etude on electronic music deconstruction.
Collapse isn’t accessible per se, but it is a release which perfectly reflects the finest elements of Richard James’ oeuvre. It is a record liberated from convention, unafraid of failure and confident in its depth.
This five-track EP is another excellent, deconstructionist addition to a musical canon like no other.
Collapse is full of neat tricks in the form of expertly layered flavors of sound that you come to expect from Aphex Twin and never signalling exactly where he’s going. If the ingredients are familiar, James still knows how to make one hell of a meal out of them.
Collapse is wildly unpredictable and compelling.
Collapse is a step away from James’s forays into ambient and jungle of the past, but the Aphex Twin identity still shines through in his inimitable take on IDM. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Aphex Twin's meticulously constructed EP Collapse runs the gamut from dense bursts of intricate glitch to expansive, ambient soundscapes, making it feel like a far more elaborate musical journey than its mere five tracks.
The electronic music innovator revisits some old tricks and falls down a dark dubby hole.
Sometimes I get the feeling that he downloads a bunch of drum packs and records himself randomly pressing every key.
The first electronic project I had ever heard, and I think I might have underrated it a tiny bit back then.
Coming back to this some months after, I am realizing again how fun this actually is.
It introduced me to a whole new world of music, and showed me that electronic can be more than just dumb bleep bloop or dumb punts punts punts and I am forever thankful for that.
For the actual review, hm maybe someday who knows I'll do one
1. T69 Collapse - 100
2. 1st 44 - 100
3. MT1 t29r2 - 100
4. abundance10edit[2 R8's, FZ20m & A 909] - 100
5. Pthex - 90
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#31 | / | Consequence of Sound |
#50 | / | ABC News |
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