Pitchfork released some juicy tidbits from a recent interview with Richard D. James, aka Aphex Twin, that will run in full in coming weeks. The rare interview sees a rather candid James discuss the release of his first album in thirteen years, SYRO, getting ripped off by Kanye West, the various musical instruments he is using, the occasional anonymous DJ gig, and more. Here is a few choice words taken from the interview:
– Album Title: The title SYRO is pronounced “sigh-ro” and it is a made-up word one of James’ children came up with. Of the several albums he’s been working on, SYRO is the “most accessible one.”
– On Kanye sampling Drukqs’ “Avril 14th” on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’s “Blame Game”: “Is it a sample? I actually don’t know what it ended up being in the end, I’m so slack. I know that he tried to fucking rip me off and claim that he’d written it, and they tried to get away with not paying. I was really helpful, and when they first sent it to me, I was like, ‘Oh, I can re-do that for you, if you like,’ because they’d sampled it really badly and time-stretched it and there was loads of artifacts. I was like, ‘I’ll just replay it for you at that speed if you want.’ And they totally didn’t even say ‘hello’ or ‘thanks,’ they just replied with, ‘It’s not yours, it’s ours, and we’re not even asking you any more.’” [laughs] —- Side Note: Kanye West does give credit to James for his use of the song.
– Current musical instruments of choice: He’s currently making new music with electro-mechanical instruments including MIDI pipe organs, a Disklavier controlled piano, and computer-controlled percussion.
– He still DJs anonymously: “The good gigs are always the smaller gigs. The few I’ve done recently, just for fun, totally anonymously, were so much better than a normal gig. The soundsystem’s usually shit, but it’s really nice when nobody knows who you are.”
Compare songs for yourself:
[via Pitchfork & Consequence of Sound]