The World's Most Legendary Electronic Music Producer Just Released a New Album

Culture

Electronic music legend Aphex Twin officially broke his 13-year silence Sunday with the stream of his highly anticipated album Syro. Audiences have waited longer than a decade for this, and it was worth every minute. Listen here.

The record has already set the music communities across the Internet buzzing, and Pitchfork has already pinned it with their top honor "Best New Music."’ Despite the atypical promotional strategy and the album art's error message aesthetic, the music on Syro is far more accessible than his previous album Drukqs. For the most part, it's light and melodic, filled with a dazzling array of refined polished synth textures.

But just as with everything Aphex Twin releases, nothing about the stream is straightforward. Each song on the site has been segmented into one-minute chunks, at the end of which a listener must click ahead to keep listening. The process forces listeners to pay attention and really engage with the album as they unlock it for themselves piece by piece — this is a release strategy that demands the attention we rarely give music these days.

That's absolutely necessary because the music itself requires real dedication to unlock its scope and depth. Syro is not music for the passive listener — it's a rich and complex work that heralds a bold new step for the greatest electronic producer of our time. Listen up.