Aphex Twin - Xylem Tube E.P.

thacidisaster, Jul 17, 2008

Xylem Tube is a truly superb piece of electronic music history. It came at a time when I used to ask if Aphex Twin had any new tracks out yet. As soon as he pulled it out from behind the counter, I knew it was something special. That logo (the first time i had seen it) and that sleeve. I loved R records as they always had the best tracks. The sleeves ALWAYS had a mistake on them (check out the starfish with the line running through the middle of the bottom left arm) but they got the track names correct this time. From the second the needle hit the firstv note of Polynomia, I thought YES! and new I had just bought my favourite record that year. Didgeridoo had blown me away but Xylem tube had something else. Its 150 fathoms deep sound (not just Polynomia) and rhythms were so organic. It has a life of its own . So hard and beautiful at the same time. If there was a long dark corridoor with a ceiling as high as St. Pauls Cathederal which led to the gates of hell, Its soundtrack would be Dodeccahedron (on the vinyl, the sleeve has it wrong as usual). It is dark and brooding with sounds that can only be described as a demented human voice sampled from an insane asylum. The strings are very beautiful and give the track a classical music feel. It shows you the skill and musical knowledge of Mr. James, not just blown away by PCP fuelled, turbo thrusting, mach10, M60 sub-machine gun warped mindfu*k. Probably my favourite EP by AFX of all time. I was there at the start and to this day, as written by somebody else reviewing this record, this is RDJ in a moment of pure unadulterated genius and i recommend this record whole heartedly. If you dont like it, you should go and buy a Take That tribute album.

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