by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

New music from Aphex Twin always feels like something of an event, and although this EP has been out in the public domain for over a month the music is still well worth stopping to experience and contemplate.

What’s the music like?

This is Aphex Twin somewhere towards his best, writing music packed with incident but somehow finding time for inward-facing ambience. He achieves this balance perfectly on Blackbox Life Recorder 21f, where a particularly busy rhythm track plays pinball around the stereo picture, but a sonorous bass and overarching keyboard line give time and space.

zin2 test5 is a deeply intimate experience, one man and his machine – its introverted chords leaving their mark long after the active rhythm track is stopped. in a room7 F760 uses cowbells alongside the thick, woolly chords, the experience like a plane flying from sunshine into dense cloud and back out again.

The Parallax mix of Blackbox Life Recorder 21f brings out the fatter low notes, introducing more of a sci-fi feel.

Does it all work?

It does – and all easy on the ear for an Aphex Twin release. Or should that be uneasy? For beyond the ambience lurks a little dread.

Is it recommended?

It is – typically thought provoking work from one of Britain’s finest electronic music makers.

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