5 out of 5

Label: Warp

Produced by: Aphex Twin

So Aphex Twin for sure had a massive following prior to ‘Come to Daddy’ – critical acclaim, major label, folklore from his fanbase – but the title track off this EP (initially released as two singles, combined onto one disc when chitlins like me bought it) was certainly the tipping point for his fame.  While James’ music has followed a fairly steady arc from beat to experimental and then back again, meaning that ‘Daddy’ and its followup discs were logical progressions, the dearth of Aphex material after this point could, possibly, be attributed to that sudden attention.  Again, I realize he was a big deal before.  But suddenly, he was famous.  I can clearly recall trying to deny being creeped out by the video when I first saw it at like two in the morning on 120 Minutes, wanting to brush it off as some industrial nonsense but… but maybe sort of wanting to hear the song again again.  And that interest, one way or another, would blossom into my picking up that EP, and then the next one… and then digging up all the previous stuff, and then collecting UK editions and other ridiculous shit.  So if it happened to me, it certainly happened to others.  And all of that attention from a cut James would claim was something of a joke on the metal genre… so how to keep challenging oneself without fulling spurned by your new fanbase?  The Windowlicker EP pushed IDM to its breaking point (though short-attention span world had moved on by that point, leaving James back, mostly, with his core audience), and then years and years later, Drukqs was a jumble of ideas, no central feeling to it as with previous albums (yes, blah blah it wasn’t meant to be released as it was), and thus we eventually have RDJ going ‘back to basics’ with the Lords EPs

All supposition.  …That maybe Come to Daddy ruined the artist for a little bit.  But y’know what?  It opened me up to an entire new world of music.  I knew, abstractly, that not all electronic music was club beats, but I had no idea what that meant before Aphex Twin.  I didn’t understand that bleeps and bloops could sound like this, to the extent that smart ol’ me convinced himself that these were actually drums and guitars I was hearing, tuned / treated in such a way to sound so alien and chopped up.  Sure, David.  Sounds good.  Eventually I got the picture (somewhat), and then started hearing names like Squarepusher, and recognizing the Rephlex label, and… now I know I have an appreciation for a certain type of electronica.

Now key to this Come to Daddy phenomenon was… hey, the music.  That’s nice.  If you were an album shopper in the 90s, you’re familiar with the discs that you always saw (or would see) in used bins, and it was frequently because the single rocked and the album sucked.  ‘Come to Daddy’ (the opening mix) is the harshest song on the EP, the only one centered around such caustic drums and a guitar riff… and yet, you wouldn’t see this used to often.  Because the whole disc maintains the driving force of ‘Daddy’ – enthusiasm.  None of the tracks are lazy.  They’re also accessible beyond techno – something hinted at on the Richard D. James album – with six tracks featuring a recognizable vocal line (thus making it easier for a non-electro-er to get into) and every track having a core backbeat around which James does his cut-up dubbing and mixing.  This latter one is a more subtle shift – moving away from an experimental compositional whole to having a reliable layer for the listener to understand, then dancing around atop that – but I would definitely argue that that shift not only exists but, again, that it’s a logical progression toward which James had been building: a techno pop-rock album.  And it doesn’t detract from the quality: Iz-Us’s skittery jazz matches the slink from “I Care Because You Do,” Bucephalis Bouncing Ball has all the IDM you could need, ‘To Cure a Weakling Child’ is a work of patient beauty, rivaling Girl/Boy song, and ‘Funny Little Man’ is the silly track, an easy beat to tap along to and a reminder of the twisted humor James brings to the table.

Every song is good.  Every song is immediately identifiable.  The EP somehow acts as a gateway to this world (if you’re so inclined) but does not at all betray RDJ’s creativity, or seem out of place in his oeuvre.

(All of what I’m saying above is obviously ‘new’ based on returning to this disc after more than a decade of listening to Aphex’s available catalogue.  If I had given this ‘analysis’ upon first hearing the album, I hope someone would’ve slapped me.)