Aphex Twin Releases Gritty, Ominous New Song ‘T17 Phase Out’

Aphex Twin | Photo Credit:
Andy Willsher/Redferns/Getty Images

Aphex Twin may have over-served himself on holiday spirits, uploading a new track, “T17 Phase Out” to SoundCloud with a message suggesting he was drunk at the time.

“I prolly i shntnde downoied thi coz im drunki m ena uploaded..” the caption reads, verbatim. “T17 Phase Out” finds Aphex Twin navigating glitchy, eerie terrain, with staggered percussion that kicks in fuzz-blasted bits, foreboding synths that filter in and out and an ominous, omnipresent din of white noise.

“T17 Phase Out” is the latest Aphex Twin cut to appear on a SoundCloud account with a generic username (“user18081971”) where mastermind Richard D. James has been posting music from his various projects throughout the year. James began the characteristically enigmatic practice in January, when he began dumping hours of previously unreleased music onto a different account belonging to “user478363530.”

Around the same time, James released a new Aphex Twin EP, Computer Controlled Acoustic Instrumentals pt2, which followed 2014’s Syro, the first proper Aphex Twin album since 2001’s Drukqs. Though his SoundCloud sprees have slowed, James has continued making up for lost time, releasing another EP, Orphaned Deejay Selek (2006-2008), under his AFX moniker in August.

While James did not release any music during his lengthy hiatus, he remained busy, telling Rolling Stone last year that Syro alone represented “about a fifth of what I’ve done in the last 10 years. One album out of many possible ones.”