Bleep

Over the decades, Aphex Twin’s music has trended towards the increasingly visceral and intricately layered, but his earlier releases remind of how equally mesmerising, singular, and ferocious it was at the beginning of his career too. Digeridoo built on the hype that his Analogue Bubblebath EPs had initiated, landing Richard D James his first charting song and cementing what would become a global phenomenon of no holds barred electronic mayhem. R&S Records dust off the DATs for this Expanded Edition, the EP’s first new release in almost twenty years.

‘Digeridoo’ was inspired by Cornwall clubbers playing the titular Indigenous Australian instrument, and born out of a need to satisfy rowdy ravers with the most mindblowing music to end their nights. With no samples used, the wavering, raw tubular sound is reconstructed with an airy yet cavernous synth, manipulated via electrically charged fluctuations. Skittering percussion becomes high voltage technoid rhythms thrust into a vortex of claps, lost in the deeply resonating acid thunderstorm.

‘Flap Head’ continues in that tactile synth vein, with a revolving bass that sounds a little like wobbling a laminated sheet of paper, somehow perfectly threaded into a heaving hardcore monster with clinking synths, clunking beats, and ripping acid modulations. ‘Phloam’ takes all this into an industrial overload of grinding metal and pulverising concrete beats, a relentlessly jackhammering sense of rhythm after which ‘Isoprophlex’ unleashes a vigorous laser storm.

The Digeridoo EP has become a staple in Aphex Twin’s sprawling discography since it first turned heads and exploded minds in 1992.