Aphex Twin has been typically mysterious in the latest promo run for the release of Syro, his first album in 13 years, only granting a handful of interviews around the new record. But one recent such Q&A revealed some fascinating truths behind the myths and mystery of Aphex Twin.
Speaking to German magazine Groove, Aphex responded to a series of 25 thought-provoking questions from former Groove cover artists, in the process revealing the truth behind the fabled lost MP3 player. He claims that the story of the MP3 player he left on a plane is real, and that he “feels really bad about it” – particularly due to the fact that it had “80 unreleased Squarepusher tracks on it,”
Later in the interview, Aphex reveals that the “big face” on Come To Daddy track ‘IZ-US’ is actually his own (“It’s my nephew talking to me. He was about four years old or something at the time. I was following him around and trying to get samples and he wouldn’t say anything. So I started to make all this stupid faces and that’s what he said”).
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But perhaps most interestingly is that and he’s recently “hired a Chinese programmer to make a music software” for him, which implements “the concept of mutation into music software. You give the program some sounds you made and then it gives you six variations of it and then you choose the one you like most and then it makes another six and it kind of keeps trying to choosing the variations by itself.”
“It’s a bit like that, but more advanced,” he continues, “but basically it starts with a sound, analyzes it, then does different versions of variations. It randomizes, it compares all of them to the original and then it picks the best one. It sounds totally awesome, but it needs to be tweaked a little bit. I will continue with this. I have a whole book full of ideas for software and instruments.”
Who knows? Within a few generations we may have a whole new era of music made only by robots. Who needs soul, anyway?
