4 out of 5

Label: Warp Records

Produced by: Richard D. James

Let’s do our duty of over-analyzing an Aphex release:

The Collapse EP came out in a line of experimental EPs that consistently dropped in the actually-releasing-music-for-sale era that followed Syro, remuxing the very idea of how those preceding EPs tended to focus on and reattack a particular electro or Aphex style. Collapse, instead, mushes several eras together – collapsing them together, let’s say – often cutting them up rather extremely, while also somehow playing as one of the more restrained and subdued non-ambient releases in RDJ’s catalogue. There are some brutal left turns here; absurd twists that take playfully reverbed BPMs and light keys and glitch the rhythm out of them, though never quite losing the rhythm – which is that special RDJ sauce.

Circling back on that title and combining it with the album artwork, we can play around with what the collapse applies to: our expectations; or perhaps even playfully reversing the idea – “collapsing” chaos into structure. Yeah, I’m going too deep, but I dig that one cover is this very digital, chaotic, smushed spiral fractaling out from the Aphex logo, lain over a quartz-ish pattern; the other cover is reflective silver, and is all rigid lines and structure around that same logo. Lots of opposites to work with there.

Content-wise, Richard calls back to Come to Daddy chaos on opener T69 Collapse, and Richard D. James Album peaceful buzz on MT1 t29r2, but he’s also reaching back to 80s / 90s dub and house on 1st 44 and Abundance10edit [2 R8’s, FZ20m + A 909], with digital- / CD-only Pthex a paced comedown track. But seeded into this is the percussion perfection achieved on Drukqs; the melodies of Syro. As mentioned, a lot of these references break in what would otherwise be a track’s coda – both a plus and minus. Repeated listens where this is expected make it work, but some of these drag on too long and stray too far; the best tracks are where RDJ doesn’t totally toss an initial m.o. out the window – 1st 44 and MT1 are incredibly successful in this regard.

The production is quite interesting, and almost where things feel the most experimental, as all of the breaks and glitch have an almost muted quality: there’s no squelch; no speaker rattling. The duality of structure and noise from the covers is present there, overlaying a sheen of accessibility to some otherwise wild IDM.

Collapse EP is thus also two kinds of experiences: it’s maybe a bit too nostalgic, but it’s also a masterful reworking of that nostalgia, proving how an artist like RDJ remains vital after decades of putting out tons and tons of tracks, and occasionally emerges to package some of those tracks into something that allows us to reevaluate his work, yet again. (Or just appreciate the new stuff, without all this navel gazing!)