Song Synopsis: Windowlicker
Time to start my first ever music-related post! To begin, I will go into detail of one of my favourite songs of all time, “Windowlicker” by Aphex Twin. To make your reading experience better, listen to the song on YouTube while you are reading, which I have posted below.
The song starts slow, with a deep distorted voice while the music builds up into a solo drum part. It then begins a build up, and finally starts into the chorus, which is a quick and energetic distorted choir over rapidly changing break beats. The song then gets calmer again, but more erratic than the beginning. Very quickly after, the chorus repeats itself. A new section then starts, signalled by a fast transition. The choir is still going, and some very fast drum samples can be heard. The song then goes into a quiet part and starts with a choir-less intro. If you listen closely, you can hear a non-distorted voice say J’aime faire des croquettes au chien, which is French for “I like to make nuggets for the dog”, which continues with Aphex’s trademark dark humour. The choir starts up agin, but less voices and less distorted. A reverse part starts happening and song starts to pick up again. A distorted sound is heard and get faster and happens more often until the the song stops and all heard is the sound over and over. The song quickly pulls back into the chorus but some parts are changed. A quiet transition happens and the song goes back into chorus (this part is not in the music video, the transition goes right into the wall of bass). The chorus continues. The chorus ends, and and a loud, very distorted bass is heard. The build-up brings us to the outro, which is a dark wall of extremely distorted bass. The bass ends, and a part that sounds like it is in reverse plays. A high-pitched sound is heard and the song ends.
This is one of my favourite songs—and for obvious reasons: it’s catchy, it’s awesomely bizarre, and this kind of erratic, jumpy song clicks with me. Hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you listen to more Aphex Twin. He has a lot of music: five albums, nine EP’s, and other music done under other aliases. Other songs I recommend are “Alberto Balsam,” which is a calm and simple song and “Come to Daddy,” which is the exact opposite of “Alberto.”
Thanks for reading my post, and expect more in the future.
