Aphex Twin - Collapse EP

September 14, 2018 - Warp

As someone who’s never spent much time listening to Aphex Twin outside of the company of obsessive fans, but instead spent time studying his elongated insidious smile, I said to myself, “You know what, it’s time you let the effect of the Aphex consume you.” But that’s not what happened. Mr. Twin’s newest release, Collapse EP is a deconstructive, and perhaps undecided hodgepodge of arrangements that reimagines (if unintentionally) what new-new age meditation music can be.

Incorporating video game noises and tropical rhythms which accelerate into drum and bass and decelerate again into something a little more simplistic that needs no name, The Aphex does a highly produced bombast that’s playfully ineffective and scattered. Pleasantly melodic moments frustrate my defining process. Cinematic drive pushes the EP along, with no clear effect but the impression of storytelling. In this sense, Collapse has made a successful loose association between its function and its title. The elements of storytelling or concept album are distilled to their frameworks with non abiding content.

The songs in sequence seem to be rearrangements of each other, something that could possibly have better effect on me if I liked synth action sequences more and the sound of digital insects. I find little point in distinguishing between the songs even in terms of labeling, beyond just relieving the listener a little of sitting through one 29 minute song. A long flex of an EP, the focus of which is the amount of sounds and overloads that can be stuffed into a half hour while still resembling music. 

Simultaneously congruent and antithetical to silence, the Twin creates such a heavy blanket of sound that an arc to follow is lost—at least from me—it has left, and continues to leave during each listen. ⛰️

Collapse EP, an album by Aphex Twin on Spotify