Aphex Twin ‎– ...I Care Because You Do

Aphex Twin's masterpiece. Filled with scary metallic clanking, wrenching high-pitched frequencies, and some of the most beautiful, washed out melodies ever committed to tape. Richard James shows off his prodigious talents at everything from IDM (Acrid Avid Jam Shred, Alberto Balsalm) to minimalist (Icct Hedral, Next Heap With) and everything in between, including some truly original flipped up soundscapes (Ventolin). And then there's Mookid, which is in a category of its own... has any techno artist ever managed to create a piece of music as heartbreaking and yearning as this?

If you're looking for where in Aphex Twin's catalogue to start, you'd do best to buy I CARE BECAUSE YOU DO last so as not to ruin the rest of his releases. Yeah, it's that good.

Probably the quintessential idm full length release of all time. In 1995 I just got this and I decided to play it in my friends car on the way to manhattan beach in California. My friend wasn't into electronic music and he just got Infiniti kappa set of mids and highs in his car which at the time were the most metallic sounding car speakers out at the moment. Probably not the ideal music for a trip to the sunny beach but my friend soaked up the ear piercing abrasiveness that is Richard d James and even though he didnt really probably understand what he was hearing he did not dare turn it off during the hour ride. His girlfriend i do remember had an ear ache while she sat in the back like a bitch.

Waxen Pith is probably my favorite track on the album. Mookid probobly my favorite also depending on my mood. Quiite a few excellent tracks and plenty of memorable melodies found throughout this cd. It's really hard to think of any electronic music cd that could really top this from a critics view. Perfect blend of meloncholly and aggressiveness. Richard D James became a legend and a well deserved genius during this time. Post this is another story. A cd that would excite and turn any non electronic music fan into one.

James seems to have a fascination with encoding information such that it becomes unintelligible without another key piece of knowledge.

Several track titles on this album are anagrams:

1) acrid avid jam shred = richard david james
2) the waxen pith = the aphex twin
3) wax the nip = aphex twin
8) wet tip hen ax = t(h)e aphex twin
11) cow cud is a twin = caustic window
12) next heap with = the aphex twin

The theme of encoding has run throughout James's career. For instance, he also used the anagram technique on the Hangable Auto Bulb EPs. Many of the track titles on the double-album Drukqs are written in Cornish, a language similar to Welsh in that it is all but gibberish to the uninitiated English speakers. For example, "Cymru" translates to "Wales". Another example is the track "Lornaderek" a concatenation of his parents' first names.

A very complete album, perhaps the most complete album by the TWIN and my personal favorite.

He somehow makes very bassy and distorted tracks like Start as you mean go, Come On You Slags, and Wax The Nip very relaxing to listen to. He does a fabulous job of combining his unique Surfing on Sine Waves/Selected Ambient Work 85-92 sound with his later developed Glitchyness. the IDM/Braindance is much more subtle here, and it doesn't over-whelm the listener like some tracks on Drukqs or the Richard D. James album.

He's never done anything quite like this, and this was his last record working with analogue gear, so it's the end of a style for him. And then came Hangable Auto Bulb and everything changed. Some say for the better, some say for the worse, but 100% twin all the way, no matter what!

Acrid Avid Jam Shred may be his greatest track. Perfectly combining emotionally layered drum beats with the most ooey gooey Synths and glitch pops you'll ever hear. The peak of the song comes at the 3 minute and 45 second mark and it's pure heaven. Some people can transcend tech-no, to make it not just sound like loops and programmed beats, and even a smaller amount of people have the gift to make a Synth and a Drum Machine sound like a whole orchestra; Aphex Twin is one of these people.

I hope he delivers a new album soon, my bones are shaking with complete joy for it!

Absolutely beautiful release by the master of the genre, not to mention the first item I ever purchased by him a decade ago.

I had listened to multiple other kinds of electronic music prior, but never heard anything close to this, and especially nothing with as many layers as this has.

This whole release is filled with a track for just about every mood, and while some parts are a bit loud compared to the rest, they fit well as a whole, regardless of how off they may be, especially Ventolin, which regardless of it's harsh high pitched meshing, beats are found.

Definitely an album I will never get bored with, and even after listening to just about every piece of AFX / Aphex Twin material out there, I can still honestly say this ranks up there in my personal top 5 releases by him, and is definitely one of the most overlooked releases, as both of the Selected Ambient Works releases seem to unfortunately overshadow this gem.

This album is beautiful in it's own ways. I find an elegant sound to some of it, "Alberto Balsalm" especially, utilizing rythms of things like tire spokes(?) and scissors. Many people dislike "Ventolin", though I like it. I don't blame them though, it is quite harsh.

Together with SAW, this is RDJ's most consistent album up to date. After this he continued making excellent and progressive music, but it did lose some of the magic you can hear on the previous mentioned albums. All in all one of Aphex Twin's finest moments. Each song on this release has a unique style/composition/..., whereas his later albums often contain some less ingenious tracks to fill the cd. Must have.

What can I say this was my first true love in the world of electronic music. This album pretty much started it all for me and I'm so thankful that Richard D. James gave this to the community. Acrid Avid Jam Shred is in the top five of best Aphex Twin songs along with Alberto Balsalm, Cow Cud Is A Twin, Ventolin, and Icct Hedral. So pretty much this album is James best effort in my opinion. Just look at the dates of some of the tracks on the back of your CD/LP case. Wax The Nip and Come On You Slags! were made all the way back in 1990 that’s amazing! This is definiatly a disc you need to own if you are listening to electronic music.

start as you mean to go on is one of the best techno tracks i´ve ever heard..
alberto balsalm is one of the best idm tracks i´ve ever heard..
next heap with also really kicks, that sound of string is just.. mm..
there are more fine tracks, but most of record contains that kind of primitivness and melodic simplicity typical for most of afx works.. but ´...i care because you´ do is the one where it doesn´t really irritate me, because it´s a classic album for me and when i hear it, it remindes me a lot of things.. huh, now i realised it´s the first idm music i´ve ever heard:).. so respect!

One of my obsolute favourite Aphex releases. Very pretty melodies over mellow beats. This release totally stands out to me over some of his other releases simply because it has a style all it own. I think this is a must have album for any Richard D James fan.