Music review: Aphex Twin -
Music From The Merch Desk

Aphex Twin - Music From The Merch Desk (2016-2023)
(2024)
8/10

I was stunned to find out that not only was there a new Aphex Twin compilation album, it was THIRTY EIGHT SONGS clocking in at about 2.5 hours, absolutely insane. And there was no shortage of amazing new tracks.

While it isn’t exactly a new Aphex Twin album, since it is just a collection of songs he made over the last 8 years for merch table releases, it still is exciting to hear so much new Aphex music.

Although Richard has dabbled in several different sounds and styles, this album felt very heavy on the acid-house sound. There were several exceptions for sure, with some feeling like the more ambient tracks from Selected Ambient Works II, such as “T17 Phase Out+3”. There were also some tracks that reminded me of 80s style synthwave, such as “T16.5 MADMA with nastya”. There were even some songs more in the style of his piano ballads on Drukqs or Syro, such as “em2500 M253X”. The Rhodes piano sound was a very nice touch.

That all said though, it very much felt heavy in the acid house realm, and if not that, the breakcore realm. I can’t complain, as I do enjoy these sounds, but for an album with 38 songs, I did feel like it could have used just a bit more variety of styles. I didn’t dislike a single song though, which is insane for an album this size. I am very impressed. It just wasn’t his most diverse release I guess, which is the main thing holding this back from a ten.

Some other good things I can say though: several of the songs kinda “scratched my brain” if that makes sense, like in an ASMR kinda way. The songs with more quick-paced sounds and heavy use of delay just had a satisfying sound to me. There was also a lot of really cool syncopation in this album, across all “instruments”. It kept the album interesting, I don’t think any song really sounded “static”.

Some other notes:

I wasn’t crazy about the first two songs compared to the others. They felt a lot more drawn out than they needed to be, and maybe I just don’t have the right ear for this, but the two mixes sounded nearly indistinguishable to me.

Lot’s of microtonal music, which isn’t a new thing for Aphex, but was a lot of fun and kept this album interesting.

Track 17 sounded very silly and I like that.

I am very jealous of track 19, because it sounds like the kind of music I try to make only way more interesting and way better. I hope to make music like that one day.

Track 34 reminded me of Otto Benson music.

Track 36 had an awesome electronic vocal sample.

Track 38 had drums that reminded me very much of old SOPHIE tracks. Took me right back to 2015/2016, I loved it.

Overall, even though the album has not enough diversity in terms of style compared to the track count, it still is an amazing album with no songs I dislike. Solid 8.

2024/12/17