4 out of 5

Label: Warp

Producer: Richard D. James

In the world of electronica, remixes might just mean house mixes of something, but for most of the non-house guys, a remix is something quite other than just adding a beat to a song.  I’m not sure what defines “oh, that’s my track” to someone like Richard D. James, but his style of remix can be a wholly unique beast from the original song, just grabbing the sparsest element or sequence of noise and turning it into something new.  Other times, a whole vocal track or recognizable section of a song will be maintained, pushed into a realm of echoes or other weirdness.

And so, although it seemed to be a delay before releasing brand new material, when Aphex’s 2-disc “26 Mixes” came out, it still feels like a new listen, as these tracks have been rearranged in such a fashion that, mostly, you won’t recognize them.  At least on disc 1.  Disc 2 I felt like I had partial versions of some of these tracks on other AFX / Aphex releases, but regardless, on the whole there’s enough original material here to make it absolutely worthwhile.  What also is a major boon – and something that Richard D. James seems very mindful of, even on his ambient albums – is sequencing.  Some of these are more subtle mixes, some are big beat, some are definite IDM, but its all structured in such a way that your ears never get bored or, alternately, start to bleed.  Disc 1 is generally more subtle than 2, which includes the dancier elements, but both discs have a good mix.

Despite these praises, it still doesn’t have the ring or cohesion of a brand new album, which (at this point) we’re still awaiting, and due to the fact that at least some of these tracks (if not all, I’m not sure) were culled from previous releases.  When James was semi-consistently putting out new stuff, it was always pretty cool to see what direction he’d taken.  Soon after this we’d get his Analord mixes, which were a compelling blend of his older and newer styles, but 26 Mixes feels like the compilation it is, even though it’s a pretty awesome one.  (The title didn’t really help make us feel good about it either.)