Warpaint on their love for Aphex Twin

The big music news of the past week has been the enigmatic return-of-sorts of Aphex Twin. Through hints left on New York pavements, blimps over London, and Deep Web links, we’ve learnt that we’re probably getting a brand new album, SYRO, later this year. Needless to say, everyone lost their minds – Richard D James (a Limerick lad, lest ye forget) has long been held up as an ambient superstar and true electronica pioneer.
Speaking to HP’s Craig Fitzpatrick a couple of months back, Emily Kokal of Cali quartet Warpaint compared his talents to the musical greats – if Mozart lived today, he’d be making electronic music.
“Absolutely. You'd be using technology to your advantage and you'd be experimenting with those options. I've heard [Aphex Twin] is really into [French avant-garde composer] Erik Satie and I think the thing that sets him apart from a lot of electronic music is his sense of melody. He's got some of the most beautiful melodies I've ever heard. It's like Erik Satie or Chopin. Beautiful classical music. Sombre, melancholic classical music.”
The subject of Aphex Twin arose owing to Warpaint’s connection to his famous music video collaborator Chris Cunningham (bassist Jenny Lee Lindberg is married to the director).
Kokal made it plain that the band would love to work with James, but can’t see it happening.
“I can't imagine him ever working with a band,” she sighed, “But I think there's something to be said about what electronic musicians are doing production-wise. That's what makes what Nigel [Godrich] does with Radiohead so interesting. They take their quality of sound into another realm. They really create another universe using all the technology we have around today. It's not just relying on old analogue gear, it's using technology. And that's what electronic music is. It's really the best of what's happening with technology musically.”
Warpaint drafted in Flood to produce their eponymous second album due to their desire to work with someone who understood electronic music in terms of production.
“Think about Violator,” Kokal says of the seminal Depeche Mode album he produced. “He really trailblazed a lot of electronic music. But just taking the traditional rock forma that we bring, as well as the beats, ambient elements and vocals we bring and try to keep crating a really sonically lush world. That's why I love Aphex so much. I can put my headphones on and listen to the same Aphex song 100 times and still catch new things. Because every single hit is tuned differently and has a different delay on it. It's orchestral. It's as dense as a symphony.”

Read more with Warpaint here