Aphex Twin

I felt certain that I'd strung together some shit words about this funny looking bastard already.  Never mind, now's as good a time as any.

Except that I really don't have much to say about this weird fractured drum 'n' bass 'n' ambience 'n' contempt, other than I like the contrasting mix of fractured drum 'n' bass, ambience and contempt.  I like that everything by Aphex Twin sounds like Aphex Twin without being formulaic or predictable.   I like that Mr Aphex Twin (Richard D James) is either a funny looking bastard possessed of sublime musical genius that transcends all mortal comprehension; or a funny looking bastard possessed of that special kind of genius that compels people to handcraft aluminium foil headwear, shout at clouds and collect toenail clippings.

And I like Chris Cunningham's disturbing video accompaniments.

Get startled, yeah?







Website: http://warp.net/records/aphex-twin
Myspace: nope
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aphextwinafx
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphex_Twin

Ted Maul

A little while back my good friend Smith was asking about bands that combined metal with drum 'n' bass.  I thought about it for a short while, and then dug out some mid-nineties Pitchshifter and Earache's Hellspawn compilation.  It was only a couple of weeks later that I remembered about Ted Maul, the London band that takes their name from a fictional news reporter and whose entire USP is that they play drum 'n' bass 'n' death metal.


There's generally a lot more death metal than drum 'n' bass going on, so it's perhaps not as foolish an omission as it might at first seem.  The electronic element is definitely there, but is frequently drowned out by noisy metal bastards with exploding guitars and a throat full of evil.


Except for on 200dbs Down, which is a full-on drum 'n' bass bludgeon with a fuckload of shredding.


Ted Maul disturbs.











Website: nope
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/tedmaul666
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/TED-MAUL/6782749959
Wikipedia: nope

Amon Tobin

The earlier records from this Brazilian lunatic had titles like "Permutations" and "Supermodified", because the songs were composed of many bits of other songs - like a great audio collage. His most recent work, "Foley Room", is the first where he feels (in his own words) as though he has actually created the music, instead of chopping other bits together.

Thing is, the way he created this music was to go out with teams of people and a billion microphones, make field recordings of anything and everything - insects, radio telescopes, that sort of thing - and then chopping it all together with original compositions recorded in the studio.

As far as I can tell, there's not much of a difference in approach; it's still the same glorious mosaic of odd noises and found sounds, and you would still need to be some kind of insane genius to produce the oddly stuttering works of art that fall out the other end. Amon Tobin is that insane genius.

Website: http://www.amontobin.com/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/tobinamon

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amon_Tobin

Goldie

What do I know about Goldie?

About as much as I know about drum 'n' bass in general. Which is to say, not an awful lot. But for some reason Saturnz Return is really doing it for me right now. Not the first disc, obviously; that consists of little more than a single hour-long track called Mother, that could well be the result of Goldie falling asleep at the mixing desk. But the second disc is full of this sort of thing.

Better still are his collaborations with other artists, such as this; the Toasted Both Sides Please mix of Swallowed by Bush, from their ill-conceived late nineties bandwagon-jumping remix album...

...and better still, this effort from the Spawn Soundtrack. Goldie + Rollins = Win.

I don't know much about drum 'n' bass, but I know what I like.

Website: http://www.metalheadz.co.uk/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/metalheadzltd

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldie