Aphex Twin (FKA Richard D. James) is set to release his first EP since 2019 on July 28th 2023. Last month (June 2023) the enigmatic electronic musician shared the single “Blackbox Life Recorder 21f” (via Warp Records) teasing listeners with a post-techno taster of his forthcoming EP Blackbox Life Recorder 21f/In a Room7 F760. A pleasantly moody and meditative track, “Blackbox Life Recorder 21f” is a carefully crafted cacophony of danceable calmness, its release marks AFX’s first musical output since 2019’s T69 Collapse EP.
Amidst the wheeze of idiosyncratic synth leads, gooey bass parps and skittish yet hyper-danceable polyrhythmic drum programming, AFX manages to conjure one of his most delicate melodies to date, at times it even sounds as if RDJ’s synthesised and re-pitched his own voice, embedding himself within the tracks groove as though he were an audible apparition haunting ear drums from beyond the rave. The singles cover artwork (as well as the EP) was created in tandem with frequent AFX collaborator Weirdcore. The digital sleeve depicts what appears to be a mosaic of Menger Sponges festooned with Aphex Twin’s legendary logo.
The release of “Blackbox Life Recorder 21f” came after a slew of opaque online occurrences that were ostensibly orchestrated by the Cornish musician. Earlier this year what began as message board murmurings and group chat rumours of a headline appearance at Field Day Festival 2023 were confirmed when a new website entitled 190823.co.uk popped up online.
Curious Aphex acolytes who clicked the web link were rewarded with a wash of undulating pixels dribbling down their screens before morphing into a digital poster adorning the illustrious Irish ‘IDM’ composers iconic ideogram (7\) confirming him as one of Field Day Festival’s co-headliners alongside fellow British beat-mangler Bonobo. Warp Records divulged further, posting a nine date UK/EU Summer tour poster across their socials.
After a five year musical hiatus spent pursuing a plethora of other projects, including programming a sound design app, teaming up with tech companies to create experimental micro-tonal software synth plugins and even releasing his very own AFX NFT (complete with secret audio info encrypted within) the proceeds of which went towards “planting trees and donating to permaculture projects“, RDJ has been busy boy indeed.
The Blackbox Life Recorder 21f/In a Room7 F760 EP consists of four tracks and will be released on July 28th through Warp Records.
There tracks are listed as follows:
1. “Blackbox Life Recorder 21f”
2. “zin2 test5″
3. “In a room7 F760″
4. “Blackbox Life Recorder 21f [Parallax Mix]”
You can pre-order your copy here:
With the EU tour leg well underway, Aphex Twin will return at the tail end of the summer for his first live performances on UK soil since 2019.
You can acquire tickets via this link: https://ra.co/dj/aphextwin/tour-dates
Heres the UK 2023 summer tour dates:
19/08/2023 – Field Day Festival – London
02/09/2023 – Forwards Festival – Bristol
