5 out of 5

Label: Rephlex

Producer: Richard D. James

Between the pretty straight-forward club beats of early pseudonyms like Universal Indicator and his more exploratory beat-based work on the early AFX albums, it seemed like there should be a middle-ground, marrying the faster-paced hard-edge with IDM elements in a less playful capacity than we would hear during the ‘classic’ era of Aphex Twin…  And that between is the Caustic Window stuff, all happily collected on the Rephlex-released ‘Compilation.’

The majority of the album is intense, distorted breakbeats, kicking right off with the hard-hitting Joyrex J4, but heightened with the awareness James has brought to almost all of his work: eye not just on the immediate hit of the beat, but the overall pace of the song.  Meaning that behind the pummeling (and mostly constant) low-end, you’ll find snippets of Aphex sounds swooshing in and out, or minute pauses and redirections of the beat.  Still, that leaves room for some playfulness – the 30-second ‘Pigeon Street’ jaunt – or something a bit more swooning (‘On the Romance Trip’) or grooving (‘Clayhill Dub’).  Interestingly, even though the name ‘Caustic’ is fitting and this is, definitely, one of James’ most persistently heavy releases, it doesn’t require the breather that the more brittle albums like ‘…I Care’ do; the focus here is definitely on getting you moving, so while the volume is up, the warmth of the production and relative pacing built into the sequencing allow the disc to stay on repeat without becoming noise.  And as this is a compilation of singles released in sequence (as opposed to across years and between other releases), all of the tracks have a similar feel to them: It absolutely works as an album.

So I’d like to hit you up with a longer analysis, but that’s what it amounts to.  When I purchased this disc after jumping on board with the ‘Come to Daddy’ crowd, it definitely was a bit too bombastic for my taste, and without all the experimental clatter that caught a new-to-techno kid’s ear.  But with more of the genre in ma’ listening bucket now, this disc is an immediate win: creative but accessible; definitely Richard D. James, but a version of him we don’t get to hear as fully fleshed out on any other release.