Aphex Twin Says His New Album Won’t Be His Last

By now, everyone and their dog knows that Aphex Twin is putting out a new album. Called Syro, its his sixth in this past quarter-century, and comes 13 tumbleweed-strewn years after his last album, Drukqs. (Coincidentally, a few months back saw the surprise leak of an early unreleased album under his Caustic Window alias; this is the real deal.) The FADER was lucky enough to grab 20 minutes on the phone with the man himself last Thursday and, ahead of a full Q&A we'll be running in the coming weeks, here are five whoa things we gleaned.

1. First off, Aphex Twin is really nice; he was polite, he laughed at bad jokes, and he called back when the line cut out. 

2. The oldest track on Syro was recorded six or seven years ago, but there are a lot of newer compositions on there, too. "I’d stockpiled up so much stuff and you can kind of have to draw a line under it somewhere," he said. "By banging something out it, it’s like the end of the chapter. It properly draws a line under it and allows you to move on."

3. He buys a shedload of new music everyday, mainly from the UK-based online music store Juno. "I buy ridiculous amounts of files," he told us. "I always go to that thing, 'Listen to the last eight weeks of whatever.' And it’s all those billions of genres, like Scouse house. There’s actually better music now than ever, that’s ever existed before in my life. It’s all kind of good listening stuff—stuff to play in the car—[but] not so much kicking stuff out there."

4. Music takes up all of his spare time, too: “I’m a serial killer for sounds,” he said with an audible Cheshire cat grin. “I collect sounds from other records so I have to know where they come from and how they’re made. I bought every old sampler in existence and bought all the sample libraries. Like a serial killer, basically. I’ve gone through all of the sounds and worked out where everyone got all their sounds from.” 

5. And finally, he confirmed Syro wouldn't be a one-off—it's got him "kicked into gear" for a new period of output. 

Warp Records will release Aphex Twin's sixth studio album, Syro, on September 23rd.