From Kent Williams Sent Wed, Feb 24th 1999, 15:14
From Kent Williams Sent Wed, Feb 24th 1999, 15:14
I hesitate to jump to Richard James' defense on this list. 1. Because fundamentally he ESPECIALLY doesn't care what a group of Internet mailing list dweebs with too much time on their hands think. 2. I am not and don't want to be seen as an Aphex Twin sycophant. But: There is a long tradition of music that both has intrinsic musical value and has the aspect of a piss-take: Bach's Coffee Cantata, Brahms' Academic Overture, Eric Satie, Charles Ives' two-colliding-marching-bands music, Sir Edward Elgar's Facade, etc. Aphex Twin music is occasionally brilliant, sometimes sloppy, a bit messy, and reflects a gnomish sense of humor that is either engaging or annoying. But whether or not you listen isn't really an issue to him, so if you don't like it, buy something else. He'll be judged with the rest of us, long after he's gone. And I don't think that he's "just messing around." Or rather, perhaps just messing around is something he hopes to raise to the level of an art form. Even some of the old tracks, that everyone who hates him now still likes, can be construed to be just messing around. If I can see any message to his music it would be "hey lighten up, enjoy life, take the piss out of pompous wankers, and isn't it amazing that a tosser from Cornwall can grow up to live in a bank vault in London." kent williams -- xxxx@xxxxxx.xxx