11. AFXOrphans
Aphex is one of my favourite producers of all times so I had to have one of his records on this list. It’s quite obvious in a way but then again, it’s one of those things where I’ll be kicking myself if I didn’t put something like Orphans on it. His body of work is so extensive that every time I read there’s something by him that’s popped up online there’s always something new to discover.
I know he’s known for the heavy stuff, ‘Window Licker’ and crazy video with the kids, but if anybody has a chance to pick this up, it’s such good album because it does have a different vibe to it. It’s a bit more mellow in parts, but of course it has some of the crazy structures. If you’re just chilling at home, you can listen to this record, whereas some of his other stuff can be a bit disturbing to listen to.
Like I said earlier, I’d always been quite interested in the whole industrial, distorted side of electronic music and he was one of the pioneers. Especially being a drummer, I was very interested in people who could push the limits of making drum sounds and chopping the drums. It was insane. At that time, with the limitations of technology, you had those producers chopping tapes, it was bizarre.
He’s almost become like Banksy, a lot of people try to dig deep into his persona. But that can only happen if it’s a natural thing. If anybody else tried to do the things he does, like give music away under a false name or put his logo somewhere as a clue to the next concert, it becomes fake. Somehow I think it’s really him, those things are a part of his personality and not just now, it’s been throughout his whole history. I watched him in Brazil 20 years ago and nobody knew where he was on stage. It was this jazz festival in Brazil and he was under the table with a laptop. The whole festival was talking about it. There were strobes and dry ice but once the smoke cleared out, there was nobody on stage. It was quite genius at the time because it was right at the beginning of worshipping the DJ.
