Wednesday's Emotional Setup: The Waxen Pith
I'm in a spectacularly pissy mood tonight. I've also been listening to Aphex Twin's great ...I Care Because You Do LP a lot recently, but those two things have nothing to do with each other.
Actually, I've been listening to it a lot because more and more of the techno albums I've gotten from Stylus as promos have seemed like sad shadows of it. Many of the ingredients are the same, but it seems like Richard D. James just puts them together better. Is it because I've owned it for so long (bought itin high school)? I only started appreciating it recently, so maybe this sort of music takes longer to gestate before I love it.
In any case, got home and sealed myself in my room; lots of stuff to get done still tonight, and K. and I are having a wee spat. Nothing big or particularly enduring, believe me (we're a couple; we argue occasionally), but I don't really want to talk to people right now.
And all the way home, an Aphex Twin song was stuck in my head. Do you have any idea how weird that is? It wasn't one of the ones I instantly recognize from this album, not 'Come On You Slags!' or 'Ventolin' or even 'Next Heap With' or 'Icct Hedral'.
Careful playlist perusal once I sat down to get some work done revealed it was instead 'The Waxen Pith'. Fairly standard in construction; alternately blobby and crisply staticky beats, a Nyman-esque string melody haunting the next room over, and those lovely keyboards Aphex has always been so good at.
I think it's those airless strings that may have gotten caught in my head. Lovely, but such a small melody repeated endlessly comes off as tense, and their distance back in the mix doesn't help things.
I put on the album and instantly I feel... not better per se, but as if this is the music to perfectly match my mood right now. Tension, aggression, and melancholy.
Still, at least my papers are done, eh?
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Actually, I've been listening to it a lot because more and more of the techno albums I've gotten from Stylus as promos have seemed like sad shadows of it. Many of the ingredients are the same, but it seems like Richard D. James just puts them together better. Is it because I've owned it for so long (bought itin high school)? I only started appreciating it recently, so maybe this sort of music takes longer to gestate before I love it.
In any case, got home and sealed myself in my room; lots of stuff to get done still tonight, and K. and I are having a wee spat. Nothing big or particularly enduring, believe me (we're a couple; we argue occasionally), but I don't really want to talk to people right now.
And all the way home, an Aphex Twin song was stuck in my head. Do you have any idea how weird that is? It wasn't one of the ones I instantly recognize from this album, not 'Come On You Slags!' or 'Ventolin' or even 'Next Heap With' or 'Icct Hedral'.
Careful playlist perusal once I sat down to get some work done revealed it was instead 'The Waxen Pith'. Fairly standard in construction; alternately blobby and crisply staticky beats, a Nyman-esque string melody haunting the next room over, and those lovely keyboards Aphex has always been so good at.
I think it's those airless strings that may have gotten caught in my head. Lovely, but such a small melody repeated endlessly comes off as tense, and their distance back in the mix doesn't help things.
I put on the album and instantly I feel... not better per se, but as if this is the music to perfectly match my mood right now. Tension, aggression, and melancholy.
Still, at least my papers are done, eh?
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