2.10.20 by Ryan Masteller

Every time you see one of those stylized “A” blimps over London you know Aphex Twin’s going to do something crazy and new (or at least just “new”). Perhaps now’s the time we ought to be looking for similar blimps over Virginia, but ones emblazoned with “W,” for Way Deep. Or maybe the duo wants to do their own thing, commemorate their events in their own way, like purchasing several “W” billboards along the DC beltway or hanging homemade “W” sheets from all the national monuments. On second thought, that sounds like a lot of work and expenditure. Better just stick with the blimps.

I invoke the hallowed name of Richard James’s better-known persona because Way Deep works along a similar IDM, ahem, “Spectrum” as the AFX maestro, or maybe an act like Auterchre or whatever. Doesn’t matter. What matters is that Way Deep controls the zone with wonky drill-n-bass miniature epics that send you into an absolute trance if they weren’t pulsing with jagged blasts of electricity. The ambient textures lurking underneath the foregrounded rhythmic gymnastics would be positively relaxing in another context. Way Deep should do an ambient mix of “Spectrum” to see how well that would work.

But we’re here, we’re now, and “Spectrum” is urgent and immediate, impossible to relegate to the subconscious. There is indeed a field over which “Spectrum” stretches, a measurable range of BPM antics. But it’s a Möbius Strip: one end of the spectrum loops back around into the other end, twisted 180 degrees, making the entire thing completely unorientable. Yeah, I know there are two sides to this tape (called “faces” here), and track titles are firmly planted on one or the other, but think about it: if you have a tape player that automatically flips from one side to the other and you get focused on doing something else, the chances are greater that you’ll lose yourself. Hence: Möbius Strip. Continuous unorientable “Spectrum.” Science wins again. What do YOU know about science, Aphex Twin?

Edition of 50 clear-lined cassettes, “made with you in mind,” from Become Eternal.