Aphex Twin – Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments Pt 2

★★☆

The large expanse of time between Drukqs and last year’s Syro was apparently still a busy time for Richard D James.  On the release of Syro he commented that he had a great deal of music stuffed away on his hard drive, and it seems that this is true.  This EP follows very closely on the heels of that album and follows the trend of using the raw names of the files on his hard drive as the song titles.  The similarity ends here; this “EP” (which reaches nearly half an hour) features what seems for all intents and purposes seem like saved files from the staging area of his DAW.  The second track is a twenty second run of snare rolls, ferchrissakes.  Despite the dumping-ground nature of most of the album, there are some great moments, two of them named “diskhat”.  They’re head-nodder tracks for sure, but “piano un10 it happened” is a beautiful piano track reminiscent of “Avril 14th”.  Still, though, it feels like an album full of cast-off material, which is admittedly not strange for the arc of his career, but doesn’t make for essential listening.