3 out of 5

Label: R&S Records

Produced by: Beau Thomas (remaster), Richard D. James

As it took me about an hour to even understand what this reissue was about, I’m leaning towards this being an audiophile / completist entry. At a high level, in Richard James’ wise attempts at documenting / storing his musical legacy, he maintained a well-stored set of recorded-to cassettes of his material; in wanting to show how good cassettes can sound if properly cared for, original Digeridoo tapes were encoded through a “Nakamichi CR7e cassette deck,” and that’s what’s tacked on to the C- and D- sides of this EP, which has additionally been remastered by Beau Thomas.

Okay!

So: as an avid Aphex listener, but maybe not one with an attuned ear, I can hear some differences – and certainly the slowed down version of Isoprophlex is almost worth the price of admission – but there’s not enough for me to make this a drastically different listen.

I was a collector of physical Aphex material at one point (before realizing that was a very expensive and likely endless pursuit) and had an original Digeridoo pressing, which was okay but I ended up preferring my CD copy of Classics which contained the same content. My Digeridoo was used, so possibly some degradation there, but the CD edition just felt sharper and brighter in complementary ways, and so that was the one I stuck with for years on end. Meaning that it’s the one I’m used to. The Beau Thomas remasters do add some warmth to the tracks, and bring out a more analog vibe without sacrificing fidelity. But – again, to me – it’s a subtle distinction, and I’m not sure I could tell you the difference if I wasn’t trying to listen for it. Additionally, my pressing has some sound blips on the A-side, and I can’t tell you if that’s me just hearing nuance I didn’t before or an actual issue, but I don’t see comments on Discogs about it, so either a one-off or the former.

For the C- and D- sides, it is… weird that R&S opted for a live track and the slowed version of Iso instead of the CR7e of all four songs from the EP, which are on the digital edition; this kinda sorta suggests to me the realization that this needed some “extras” to sell at a 2-LP price point. As to those extras, I did praise Iso, and I stand by that – it’s super fun run at slow speeds – but that’s also just kinda a trick, and not really a new song. The live cut of Digeridoo is helpful, in the sense that the song was designed to clear out dancefloors by being an extended experience of intense BPMs, so, sure, now you have a document of that, but as a listening experience, it doesn’t add much – it’s just a live (i.e. slightly muffled and flat) version of the song.

The CR7e recordings are otherwise just totally points of interest. As they were recorded at RDJ-decided upon speeds (hence the slow version), there’s some slight wiggle, but these are truly just the same songs from a different source. If you’re a gear head / audiophile, I’m sure you’re hearing something, but for me, I wholly respect the documentation, though how much that equates to this being a “worthwhile” purchase for a casual listener who owns classics (or the original EP!) is a question.