Today I will examine another of Richard D James’ weird and wonderful creations.
Anyone familiar with Aphex will know that this is a very easy name by his standards. A typical example of how he’s been naming songs for the past 20 years or so would be a song like “S950tx16wasr10 (Earth Portal Mix)” from 2016’s Syro. Just rolls off the tongue doesn’t it?
Before that he used a lot of anagrams, and threw Cornish words into the mix in case anybody thought it was too accessible.
But on his debut album Selected Ambient Works 85-92 (released in ’92 so now about 30 years ago), he mainly uses Greek sounding names, instead of random strings of letters, numbers and symbols that look like error codes from alien computers…
“Ageispolis” is very listenable, a tidy and clean piece of electro-esque goodness. There’s no glitches or stutters, and the melodies are all very straightforward, including a beeping synth riff that wouldn’t seem out of place on a pop track. That said, it is still very much an Aphex Twin production, with layers of dense atmospheric pads smothering a distorted bassline.
It’s very calming stuff, and all the more so for its simplicity.
Fantastic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4BEpxiF4Qk