4 out of 5

Label: Warp

Produced by: Richard D. James

Someone on discogs quoted a helpful tidbit from James’ soundcloud which explains that pt. 1 is Drukqs, as that was the first album to employ the instruments named in the title.  Which should tell us right away that this EP will have a dash of Drukqs, as well as – bearing a name dedicated to it – a sound defined by something more ‘live’ vs. electronic.  Both of these things are true.  The EP is also one of the most grabbing things AT has done in recent past, with Syro being a lot of fun but requiring the listener to accept it more as a pop record and thus a slight shift of expectations.

Although shifty expectations should be a requirement for any new James project, and so I judgmentally blame the poor Allmusic review of this disc on a reviewer who maybe just floated along on latter day Aphex, not exploring the history of Richard’s work and the way its consistently said fuck-off to sinking into a key ‘Aphex Twin sound’ along the way.  Some instruments and breakdowns are hallmarks, but RDJ is just one of those guys with a brain that runs on music, and we’re lucky enough to have gotten a fair share of its output, skittering off in various techno-oriented directions.l

But my haughty fanboy suspicions aside, there are a couple of ways to break down this EP.  One – which is the first that occurred to my ears – is that the semi-appropriately named ‘diskhat ALL prepared1mixed’ opening track is the basis for all that follows, with remaining tracks representing either elements – as limited as a drumroll or some piano – or rearrangements on themes from this track.  While this does suggest we only have one complete song and then 12 pieces, if you’ve listened to an Aphex ‘remix’ before and laughed at how little it initially seems to share with whatever it’s remixing, you can imagine the amount of depth James can achieve from just mixing and matching sounds.  However, I can’t deny the description is somewhat accurate in that our base track is the longest track here, at 5+ minutes, and the only one that feels like it brings it all together – from groove to a bit of IDM to gloom – and has an appropriate lead-in and conclusion.  This doesn’t render the rest of the disc boring by any means, though, and the mostly sub-2 minutes tracks flow into one another and into those beat snippets that do extend and explore for a bit longer (‘diskhat1,’ ‘DISKPREPT1’) to keep CCAIpt2 a seamless and surging listen, wound down by a chill-out variation on things in ‘hat5c 0001 rec-4.’  The recording is crisp and clear and warm, as we’d expect from James, and the mash-up of groove beats with the organic aspects of Drukqs is pretty damn cool.

The other way to break things down would be to interpret some dash separations on the album art as isolating sets of tracks into sections.  To a finer ear this might be the case, but I obviously stuck with my interpretation because I didn’t hear it that way.

So maybe ‘Syro’ didn’t land for you because it was a bit too cheeky.  CCAIpt2 isn’t the Come to Daddy follow-up you may be wanting, but it is still a much more immediate and grabbing listen than the scattered Drukqs or the more house Analord releases.  If you’ve been around for a bit and hoping for James to release something compact and yet exciting, ignore the bad press and give the EP a shot.