13.
Aphex Twin – Drukqs (CD1)
This is an interesting one. I used to have this – ritual would be far too strong a way of putting it – but something I used to do a lot when I was a student was, at the end of the day, I’d roll a ridiculously strong spliff, get on the headphones, smoke the spliff, turn the lights out and listen to an album. I used to just love doing that. And Drukqs, I became hooked on it like crack cocaine or something, because it was just such a psychedelic experience. I challenge anyone to do that, if you smoke weed – if you don’t I’m not endorsing it or whatever, blah, blah – but if you like your weed, make it twice as strong as you’d normally smoke, really good headphones on, turn the lights out, lie back, and after you smoke that spliff, listen to Drukqs CD1. It fucking bends your mind, sends you to another dimension and then posts the crumpled parts back to yourself.
There’s a lot of albums, for instance Basic Channel stuff, I love it – [but] you stick it on and you do that, and you’re out, asleep by halfway through track two. That’d send you off in a nice way, but there’s something about Drukqs, it’s like a constant fight between being taken to the brink of torture then being placated with a nice bit. That’s what I love about this album. I don’t think any of the track names are even pronounceable anyway, but it was always about the complete experience. Really, what albums should be about is listening to the whole thing start to finish, not just cherry picking tracks like people do now – and that is a fully blown, highly charged psychedelic experience, that one. You have moments when your heart feels like it’s going to pop out of your chest! [laughs] It takes you half off into dreamland but keeps kicking you in the stomach the whole time, so you can’t actually fall asleep into it. I haven’t done it for years actually, but I used to love it so much.
