So you may have heard that Aphex Twin is back...
Redruth sprang to mind when I saw the terraced housing and railway bridge in the beginning sweep of T69 Collapse's video. Turns out others came to the same conclusion in the YouTube comments.
Amongst the Redruth references were pointers to an interview Richard D. James did, alongside Luke Vibert, with John Peel at Gwennap Pit in 1999.
The fan theory is that the Collapse EP artwork and latter part of the video is a nod to Gwennap Pit. And when the video dropped on Tuesday, I happened to be less than two miles down the road from it, as my mum lives in Carharrack. So guess what I did on Wednesday morning?
Much is made of Aphex Twin's Cornish roots and myth building, listen to the recent BBC Radio 4 documentary for starters, and seeing that Lanner is just down the road from Gwennap, I think it's a solid theory.
As for T69 Collapse itself, it sounds like it could easy have been on Syro, which is no bad thing. Yet that breakdown, when the melodic refrain breathes after the collapsing drums (around 3:15), is up there with the best things he's done.
So I've pre-ordered the Collapse EP, along with a Buddha Machine, from Bleep. I chose the cassette version for I am a bell.
Related Post: Carharrack: Hard At Work Since 1290
