Aphex Twin’s set at London’s Field Day festival was a audiovisual assault on the senses full of boombastic breakbeats, raw junglist snares and intense pummeling high-speed gabber, the visuals were equally intense and the crowd, an enormous rogues gallery of nutters, were definitely up for it.
Update: Adding the official event video here:
On my last trip to London, I found myself crossing the Thames in a Hackney.
My driver, eager for a chat, attempted some default football-related banter and failed, before enquiring as to the purpose of my visit.
It was the Easter weekend and I was off to the Tresor party at Printworks, eager to experience the venue before it closed down.
“Ravin’ is it?”, his attempts at conversation had hit a brick wall. I nodded back, “Yeah.”
“Ah… Football’s my thing, can’t play it anymore because of my knee of course”, I caught a fleeting wince in the rear-view mirror as he spoke, “but I still go to matches…”
“…Tell the truth I never really understood the whole raving thing”, he’s looking in the mirror somewhat quizzically, I sense he’s genuinely trying to comprehend it all so, traffic being slow-moving, I proceeded to edify him in a way I felt he’d understand.
I told him it’s all about finding your connection. Your true connection.
On the pitch, I was clunky, uncoordinated and utterly disinterested. On the dancefloor, I’m a machine, even though my knees are kinda knackered nowadays too.
So that’s the first connection, the connection to yourself, doing something physical that gives you a sense of power, where the chattering mind is silenced and you get into the zone.
The second connection is with those around you. You find it on the stands chanting with the lads, I find it at the back of the club dancing to the beat with the nutters, but it’s the same result – an overwhelming sense of unity.
Put those two things together and it’s a powerful combination, awareness of your personal potency plus a warm sense of belonging – it’s something every human craves.
My Hackney driver nodded, I could tell by his expression a sense of comprehension clicked.
Now what’s this got to do with Aphex Twin? Everything, as it happens.
As an awkward lanky kid, I couldn’t throw a ball, catch a ball or kick a ball. Always been more of a head the ball frankly. The other kids bonded over football, but for me it never took.
So instead I bonded over music, forming lifelong friendships based on a mutual love of favourite albums and a passion that has kept me going through some of my toughest times.
Aphex Twin has been a major part of that journey. In fact, I always keep a copy of Ambient Works 1 with me at all times – y’know, for emergencies.
I had it originally for my Walkman, but nowadays it lives on my phone – whenever I’m happy, sad, angry or just need to tune the world out, it’s always there, ready to soothe my soul.
All my friends are weirdos, none of them fit in. And a lot of them are also Aphex Twin fans.
I even have a good friend of mine who looks like Aphex Twin.
(Seriously, he really does, we went to see Laurent Garnier once and some random Spaniards wanted to interview him but that’s a story for another day.)
I was in a bar one time and walked up to him, “Did anyone ever tell you that you look like Aphex Twin?”
“Oh I love Aphex Twin!” – and then we talked about Aphex Twin. That was over ten years ago and we’ve been best mates ever since.
There are some people in my social circle whose company I put up with only because of their taste in music.
For me, that matters.
Walk into a pub anywhere and talk football shit and suddenly everyone’s your best mate.
Ask them if they like Aphex Twin and the answer is at best, “Who?” and at worst, “Is he that bloke with the tits?” (Then you have to explain that they’re just CGI tits, but you’re digging a deeper hole at that point and it’s better just to get out of there trust me.)
For us 90s weirdos Richard D James is the ginger Jesus, but I always felt his flock was small and widely scattered.
So what a joy it was to suddenly find oneself surrounded by thousands of fellow freakazoids, all smushed together in a field, united by our love of Aphex Twin.
The Waxen Pith
As with many things in life, I arrived late to the party.
I had no sleep on Thursday, even less sleep on Friday and was violently hammered to consciousness on Saturday morning by builders outside in the corridor of the “hotel” I was staying at.
All of this chaos was conducted by a bellowing alpha yellowjacket barking orders and occasionally jabbering into his walkie-talkie following searing bursts of static.
Ow my fucking head.
I genuinely tried to get some rest, not happening – so I gradually made my way to the gig, which was on the other end of London from where I was staying.
Let’s just say I wasn’t in the best of form and in no mood to go wrestling with a shitty app on arrival.
<rant>It’s really shitty form of the promotors to force us all to download an app just to gain entry.
Even shittier form not to consider all of us without UK mobiles who had extreme difficulty getting any reception. And then to make us jump through the same hoop twice.
But it’s shittiest of all on the staff, who had to deal with this same issue over and over, while other paying patrons were being delayed entry.
Nobody should be forced to download an app. It’s an imposition.
If I can fly to London with a printed QR code I shouldn’t need an app for an Aphex Twin gig.</rant>
Right, I’m in… fuck that was a mission I need a drink – first bar I found was the Kraken bar, good, rum, precisely what a techno pirate like me was looking for.
I’ve spent a while Googling trying to find out who the DJ was to no avail, but she was wicked playing some really nice junglish stuff, wonky and off-kilter but killer tracks the whole way through.
After some shuffling (and possibly some reflexive gun-fingers) I decided to go for a ramble, enjoy some people watching and see if – despite being late – any of the Aphex EPs were still available.
Fat chance.
The stall had been completely cleared out by that stage – us Aphex fans are an obsessive bunch.
I had vague notions of buying my RDJ-lookalike mate an Aphex Twin umbrella so he could go windowlicking his way to work on rainy days, pity…
My eventual attempts to lively up myself also misfired badly leaving me slumped up against a tree and reevaluating my life. Come on mate, snap out of it and get into it…
As I thought this I spotted a random in a Tresor t-shirt, one which, I recognised, looked very much like the ones they were selling last time at Printworks.
It was a sign… I felt the need to say hello.
What followed was about an hour or more of bollocks talk where we solved various social and geopolitical issues but never got around to implementing those fixes because we got distracted discussing other important issues like the best Aphex album or debating the merits of the track Ventolin.
My new bestie – whose name I’ve since forgotten because that’s how raves work – also had a habit of referring to RDJ as “The Aphex Twin”, which initially caused me to flinch until I realised I was in the presence of a true hardcore fan dating way back to the Mighty Force days.
He also was adamant that we camp out nice and early as close to the front as possible, which initially was quite exhilarating to be fair. It’s been a while since I’ve experienced such a heightened sense of anticipation from a crowd. A crowd that was growing exponentially, by the second, thousands of us now, and suddenly I’m scrunched up as close to the front as it’s possible to get, huddled up with the die-hard ultras of Mescalanium United all chanting…
Come On You Cunt – Let’s Have Some Aphex Acid!
A huge cheer went up as Richie emerged, not that I could actually see him (we weren’t that close).
But we could certainly hear him, as he unleashed a squall of beatless modular meanderings for over five minutes. This was the sonic equivalent of sumos throwing salt around to bless the ring before the main bout of wrestling began.
Can only imagine what nearby residents made of it all.
Not being the type to jerk off to Eurorack porn (to each his own I suppose) I was impatient to hear some percussion so I could start dancing.
Richie you little foot-tease, come on I need to start fucking moving here!
When the beat finally dropped the crowd erupted and almost immediately, the shoving began. We are now in a Spartan phalanx, time to hold the line and keep the barbarian choo-choo trains at bay.
Timid at first – that intrinsic Londoner politeness “mmm, sorry!” – growing ever more assertive with each minute, more people, more shoving, longer trains of twats, less chance of being able to dance for longer than a four-bar loop.
I think I managed to hang in there for about 15 – 20 minutes before claustrophobia got too much so I went for some air and a slash.
So apologies to my new Aphex mate, if you’re reading this, but I’ve always been more of a dance at the back with the weirdos guy than a bunched up at the front guy punching the air guy and I needed some room to get my happy feet on.
I turned back to check on him and he was still tiger uppercutting the stratosphere, yeah he’ll be grand.
Once I’d filtered out my rum and had a chance to stretch I emerged with winged feet and carved out a nice little spot on the edge of chaos to cut loose.
I also wanted to try and grab some video but couldn’t, having burned up my batteries trying to find reception just to get inside, but luckily some rando on YouTube spent the entire time filming it.
(This video also seems to have better audio.)
The first half of the gig was mainly breaks with some techno bangers thrown in, before mutating into some junglist madness in the third quarter plus random assaults of batshit gabber noise. (Another random YouTube video before clearly demonstrates how mental things got.)
Truthfully, there were a few moments where I just stood there completely flabbergasted squinting at the lights trying to figure out how to dance to some of the malformed machinegun beats that enfiladed my eardrums – at one point I got a flashback to the yellowjacket with his walkie-talkie who woke me up 15 hours previous.
But that’s the thing with Aphex Twin, he knows he’s being paid to fuck with people’s heads, so that’s exactly what he’s going to do. And it’s exactly what he done at Field Day.
Shoutouts to:
- My buddy who smoked half my cigs but also bought beers for balance and helped get me hyped up and ready despite my extreme lack of sleep. Appreciate it.
- The random Japanese dude having the time of his life, stomping around by the barricades and pounding the air with his fists like a frenzied King Kong. Loved your energy mate.
- Whoever that DJ at the Tiki bar was – I may never find out but loved the vibes.
Next Heap With
Once the gig ended I decided to move quickly, thinking well, if he does play an encore I can always dance further at the back, but I figured that wasn’t going to happen and I was fast approaching the Cinderella hour.
So I began my quick march towards the tube – a mission in and of itself – before beginning the long trek back to the other end of London and my cramped and humid room.
As the carriage rattled along the weirdos’ ranks thinned and I soon found myself trapped deep underground and even deeper behind enemy lines in a sweaty t-shirt and muddy trainers and very much fitting the description of “something that doesn’t look right.”
I must have heard that announcement a dozen times since getting on and was beginning to take it personally.
Oh dear, I definitely don’t look right and there’s no more space cadets in Aphex t-shirts around to back me up, earphones on, head down, count the stops. This, incidentally, is a perfect example of a time when I’m glad I have SAW1 for emergencies, time for Tha.
Tha is a coming home wrecked on the tube anthem if ever there was one.
It took me well over an hour to get back to my room, after which I collapsed on my marshmallow-mattress bed and eventually managed to get some long-overdue sleep.
No builders in the morning this time, thankfully and believe it or not I managed to get a full seven hours in the end, waking up feeling surprisingly spry.
Moreover I was on a high for days after the event – I’d come to Field Day specifically to pop my Aphex cherry, a long overdue bucket list cross-off 30 years in the making.
He did not disappoint.
Returning to reality was harrowing – as it so often is – but this time I done so with a sense of reassurance.
There’s far more weirdos out there than I’d realised, quietly lurking in shadows, resenting their jobs, staring caustically out the window, but all ready to be mobilised at a moments notice to take to the streets demanding to hear some Aphex acid.