4 out of 5

Label Analogical Force

Produced by: Yaporigami

Yaporigami pulls right from the Aphex Twin playbook, not only on their Analogical Force release, Chaos Swallower – and a description like that isn’t a surprise for the label – but also on their other releases, making the eventual appearance on AF some kind of inevitability.

But: that comparison can cut a few different ways, and in Yap’s case, it’s one that’s complimentary, as the artist doesn’t pull from the Windowlicker style of breakbeats and blipped-out chopped up IDM many listeners associate with Aphex, but rather from his slightly more chill, ambient-touched vibes, then splashed with all that percussive goodness. While the core of some tracks sounds almost complete comprised of familiar touches, Yaporigami firstly does an excellent imitation – these could be new Aphex tracks at points – and then also does splash songs with inspired bits of their own design, from the funky drumming on opener Hello World, to the video game-y build on Damn It, Demon. And later tracks do bring in some other reference points, such as an Astrobotnia spacey looseness on closers Wheel Of Fire and Before Its Meanings, with both including odd, slightly menacing flourishes of effects or melody which, again, help to carve out a more original sound.

Several tracks do repeat a similar move of stopping almost completely, and then picking the beat back up a few second later, and it only really sticks the landing about half the time, the other half rather disruptive. Thankfully, this is always quite past the point of Yaporigami getting us bobbing and swooning with slick beats and synths, so it’s more of an oddity than anything close to a deal breaker.