tankt

I am almost embarrassed to have done 12 songs of the day before including my first Aphex Twin track, but fortunately what I lack in quantity can be quickly made up in quality. “Ziggomatic V17” comes at the tail end of 2001’s massive double album Drukqs — say it out loud, sounds a lot like drug use, huh? — so it’s easy to overlook amongst all of the other gems.

This track is dense and sprawling, seemingly random, but each and every sound is perfectly placed and pinpoint precise. Believe me, nothing is accidental and nothing is left to chance with Richard D. James. It has all of the Aphex trademarks: impossibly intricate rhythms and rapid-fire fills, familiar sounds tweaked just enough to render them wholly unique, distinctly warm and emotionally evocative melodies, countless twists and turns that expose different combinations of sounds and create entirely new songs within the song itself…

It is virtually impossible to point to any particular moment in a song full of them, but my three personal favorites are the breakdown that begins just before the two minute mark and the lull that follows for the next 75 seconds, the rush that takes off at roughly the five minute mark and continues while the bottom end completely falls out a minute later, and that beautiful little pause at 7:11. I don’t smoke, but damn if this track doesn’t make me want a cigarette when it ends, instead I usually just press rewind and take another spin:

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“Thank you for your attention, bye.”