AFX - Analogue Bubblebath

[Mason Stewart]

Hello Sup Forums. I wanted to make a focused thread all about the "Analogue Bubblebath" recordings by RDJ, under his pseudonym of AFX (as opposed to Aphex Twin). I'll be using yt links to give people immediate context; you are of course welcome to download whatever you can.

To begin with, the vast bulk of the content can be heard here:

youtube.com/watch?v=dg8eD68THQU

so there's no need to even bother pointing that out. However, this first link does not cover /absolutely every bit of sound and noise/ that was ever released as part of an Analogue Bubblebath recording (or closely related tracks), and so this question of "where is it all, what are the differences between versions, /really/ is what I wanted to drill in on.

[Daniel Rogers]

SKIP TL;DR FOR TRAX AT BOTTOM

First of all, we should say a few things about Analogue Bubblebath, the original release. Although the sound is quite dated, it's important for a few reasons.

It's a four-track EP, and it's also James' first professional, official music release, ever. Original pressings were credited to "The Aphex Twin", but at some point early in distribution/licencing etc, the convention that the record is attributed to "AFX" was firmly established.

This recording and its little history give us some pertinent information about James' career, right off the bat: he likes releasing EPs, specifically four-track EPs. He does "hard" tracks and "soft" tracks. And although he usually works alone, he will very occasionally collab with someone else (as with Tom Middleton on "Entrance to Exit.") This recording also establishes James' penchant for multiple pseudonyms.

Although the various versions of Analogue Bubblebath are mostly the same per discogs, there are some important differences. The original version of the titular track is missing a little "zoom" sound-effect right at its coda, which was added back on for the Classics compilation, being re-titled "Analogue Bubblebath 1". This is reproduced below. Furthermore, some versions have Isopropophlex being a minute longer (track sounds about the same, goes a bit wobbly); this is also reproduced below, and was also included on Classics, this time as "Isopropanol". Below then are the full four tracks of Analogue Bubblebath, in order, being the most "complete" version:

youtube.com/watch?v=0-ucWoXBves

youtube.com/watch?v=LDNIiyvUQVI

youtube.com/watch?v=CANHMRy6OUo

youtube.com/watch?v=-b5j9We_T1g

Fun facts: Tom Middleton has the same birthdate as RDJ. He really is a "twin" on this record!

"The Flowers that bloom in the warm of the sun/are there to be loved by everyone" is heard during the Come to Daddy video (but NOT the original music track).

[William Lewis]

This brings us to "Analog Bubblebath 2", a three-track record of which only about 1,000 vinyl copies were ever released. So copies are not stupid-rare, but they are rare.

The so-called "Aboriginal mix" of the a-side is exactly identical to what would later become known as "Digeridoo", which is available on various other releases. (some other yt'ers seem to prefer playing it at a slower speed). This leaves the two b-sides, which are both technically untitled on this release. The first of these features a sort of racing, "drift" noise which can also be heard on SAW8592's "Hedphelym", and the second features a series of wet, plodding noises. James as since re-released this track as "Alien Fanny Farts" and other similar names(?) on his online accounts, so the final track picked up that name.

The below therefore covers AB2 in its entirety. Notice that so far, nothing has been released by Rephlex, as we're quite early in James' career yet.

youtube.com/watch?v=8BGTvxxKoHM

youtube.com/watch?v=mxg8tHdK0RM

youtube.com/watch?v=q4TCk4ih1Jw

I want to say that the "fart" noise in the last link appears somewhere else in James' work but I can't place it just now.

[Luke Morgan]

I've never heard of this RDJ project but I will check it out solely because of your masterful GET

[Camden Reyes]

Hot damn, talk about some fucking appropriate quints.

I want to talk in detail about the differences among the various realeases of AB3. But because these differences are so detailed and convoluted, I'll skip it for now to get through the others.

Analogue Bubblebath 4 was made available by Rephlex in both CD and vinyl versions (just as Mighty Force et al had released CD and vinl versions of AB1); again, there are subtle differences but we can arrive at a "complete" version.

The body of this record is four tracks, and certain of the CD copies contain a distorted snipped-coda, which is part of an interview given by Evel Knievel. It is therefore dubbed "knievel" by fans, although none of the tracks were officially named at the time. Some of them suggest animal noises however, and so the names "Elephant Song, Gibbon, Cuckoo, Sloth, Knievel" became standard unofficial track titles, just as SAWII has standardized yet-unofficial track titles.

Between the vinyl and CD versions, the ordering of Cuckoo and Gibbon is apparently sometimes reversed, depending on the edition. The below is a track sequence which follows the original release, and include the piss-take "Knievel". "Gibbon" being the second track was apparently the original ordering; this is reflected below. Nice fan video for Gibbon, btw:

youtube.com/watch?v=NZtUrS1YgG0

youtube.com/watch?v=3C87G9szsRw

youtube.com/watch?v=mhCYzlkO7Mk

youtube.com/watch?v=5QdzolPpo_A

youtube.com/watch?v=2hTExQnvXf0

Notice that we're into Rephlex releases now, James and Grant have founded their label and are up-and-running.

[Leo Brooks]

really good thread thank you user!

[Benjamin Ortiz]

Seems Kek is an AFX fan.

[Hudson Adams]

Honestly it's not his best material, but there's some gems. It's more for a completist.

Analogue Bubblebath 5 is the rarest of the bunch, and IS in fact "stupid rare", not merely because of it small run, but also because it was never mass produced for an open market of any kind. AB5 Exists only as a few dozen vinyl records (and now audio rips, yt clips etc) which were sent to lucky customers who had been sorta-screwed earlier.

The story goes that the Analord series was being released, and there were screw-ups in the mail order process, so that certain customers were out their record, or received their stuff late. As a way of saying Sorry, un-announced copies of AB5 were sent to the few-dozen so-screwed customers along with their fixed original order, circa 2005.

AB5 is supposed to have been recorded circa 1995, which would mean that the entire Analogue Bublebath series had been recorded in the early 1990s (or in the original's case, as early as the late 80s). Either way, the dates 1991-1995 have a very rough correspondence to the recording/release of this material. When you dig back in on this stuff, it really hits how just how important the first half of the 1990s was for James. He did his best work at that time IMO (SAW II), and he had lots more coming. Seen in this light, his recent prolific output (drawing on previous recordings) is just him doing what he had been doing 20 years earlier - he was officially releasing previously-recorded stuff even then, too.

I haven't been into a detailed tracklisting, but there's just the one extant version so one yt link should do just fine. Nine tracks, all untitled except for "Cuckoo", which re-appears here and was apparently given that official name per the now-defunct Rephlex site:

youtube.com/watch?v=2GmGtvWnH8w

a copy of AB5 can be yours for many hundreds (into the thousands) of your local currency, from a seller or two. It's actually quite solid.

[Jaxon Walker]

AB5 is fucking awesome, just got into it recently. Track 1 and the penultimate one are comfy as fuck, and the last one has some proper emotion. Really great release.

[Luis Parker]

Already knew about them all. The third, & fifth are my personal favorites.

[Dominic Gomez]

Monitoring and enjoying this thread. You'll be addressing the apparent existence of AB6 now, correct?

[Camden Sanchez]

A note on the Rephlex catalogue numbers for AB3-5:

Analogue Bubblebath 3 has the Rephlex catalogue number of CAT 008,

Analogue Bubblebath 4 has the Replhex catalogue number of CAT 019,

Analogue Bubblebath 5 has the Replhex catalogue number of CAT 034.

Fun fact: I own a 2001 Rephlex compilation CD entitled "The Braindance Coincidence" which itself is "CAT 100 CD". The liner notes contain a list of Rephlexs' catalogue up to that point, and sure enough the above information is repeated - but as this is before the above AB5 quasi-release occurred, CAT 034 is instead listed cryptically (along with multiple others!) as "UNRELEASED".

But now that I'm about to get technical, let me mention that there is another thing called "Analogue Bubblebath 3.1", a companion to 3, released in 1997. It has an irregular catalogue number of "CAT 00897" which would seem to refer to its association with "CAT 008", and its later year of replase. This will become important to understand certain things, since I'm now in a position to discuss AB3 in its various incarnations.

AB3 is the one of the better known ones, having a kind of standard CD version, and the goofy numbered track-titles (pic related). I can now really start talking AB3, it will take another few posts to do it justice.

[Parker Sullivan]

TIL Rich has been playing 9D chess all these years.

[Jose Moore]

You can of course just read the wiki, but I think I can offer more detail.

Analogue Bubblebath Vol 3 is obviously the third installment in the series. It was released in 1993, both in an original 12" incarnation (whose tracklisting had been indicated on the label in the previous post), and also as a significantly different CD copy which not only contains several extra tracks, but does not include every bleep, boop, noise of the vinyl version.

/Furthermore, later in 1997, Rephlex released the aforementioned "Analogue Bubblebath 3.1", which was merely a collection of some of the earlier CD-only tracks, /plus even more content found only on that record/. Complicating matters even further, this whole mess was re-issued 2002-ish, with a completley different tracklisting.

So, we ask the same question again: what is the most "complete" version of the tracks which can be presented, capturing the spirit of "the original(s)", such as they were? This is going to take some energy!

First of all, I should say that pretty much every CD version of AB3 is for all intents and purposes identical (I've checked tracklistings and times, at least). Furthermore, the 2002 re-issue per wiki looks to have substantively the same track times as what the CD has, just with a re-arranged track listing.

The problem therefore reduces to explaining the original vinyl issues of AB3 and AB3.1 respectively, versus the (for me, singular, definite article) CD release. We're now comparing three different things. Unless I say otherwise, the original vinyl is AB3, the original 3.1 vinyl is AB3.1, and the CD is simply CD.

Don't mind the different CD packagings (bubblewrap, etc) and "AFX in his third Analogue Bubblebath"... titles on discogs. All those CDs are the same (up to track ordering and track times) when you check.

[Jackson Adams]

Pic related is a state of an autistic chart I'm working up, to capture all this noise about AB3. As you can already see by the arrows, the tracklistings are totally different from vinyl to CD. This "shuffle" between media releases of the same material reminds one of how Drukqs was released with two different tracklistings: (a fun exercise for some time: if you have a digital copy Drukqs or CDs you can rip, find the vinyl tracklisting and set up a "vinyl playlist" on your computer sometime! I did this a time or two and I may just do it again, now.)

Let's first of all simply present what appears to be a faithful vinyl rip of AB3.

youtube.com/watch?v=233okxv8Fp8

AB3 and AB3.1 had a novelty/innovation of having "lock grooves" at strategic places in the middle of the platters, forcing you to engage with the media a bit more (tediously) and set up your listening experience. it also separates a very pretty track from a very vulgar one, on AB3.1. Furthermore, two of the tracks of the CD are in their original intention, merely the left and right channels, to create a single piece of two very different tracks, meant to be heard simultaneously.

Then there is the tracklisting. I've been aware of the autistic numbers for years, but I don't think I've ever drilled in and figured out what all the numbers mean. It's personal info relating to James, mostly, or other relevant things. -previous addresses, phone numbers, things like that.

For example, ".0180871", is clearly a reference to James' birthdate of August 18, 1971, which he shares with Tom Middleton as I said. "0.38", would seem to be a simple reference to that piss-take's playing time.

[Luis Richardson]

I for one appreciate the autistic detail and charts fellow afxbro

>not loving .215061

[Asher Davis]

presumably faithful AB3 vinyl rip:

youtube.com/watch?v=233okxv8Fp8

virtually identical (but not!) other purported vinyl rip, with just a few differences in noises and effects, as a playlist:

youtube.com/watch?v=CDuG0czqiM8&list=PLhNQFpGI0CeaaqmI03QhoTkOXjpG8wzDQ

the CD, as a playlist,

youtube.com/watch?v=IxFXhOCbPns&list=PLYa84zSxTXm8IUXe-FnwAanMxMYkLCnLs

If you compare the above (that is, vinyl to CD), you will notice not only different track lists and certain exclusive/missing tracks between them, but /significantly/totally different effects on the tracks themselves, at several points/. Hence me just linking everything.

Finally, 3.1.

[Aiden Kelly]

Same. Best thread I've seen here in a long time. Thanks, OP.

[Kevin Reyes]

AB3.1, presented as an ordered series of tracks:

Side A:

youtube.com/watch?v=4VRAjHlGzt0

youtube.com/watch?v=khFxQtAGz58

Side AA:

Sound effect on "side AA" (side B). Notice how on the CD, this is the album's coda, being joined with this release's previous track.

youtube.com/watch?v=u6PGA_LPcPA

A pretty track on Side AA. You can see the mid-platter lock-groove in action (the user comments on it)

youtube.com/watch?v=Z74Hb5BFqdQ

To separate it from THIS shit! In a long piss take two or three guys (AFX probably and someone else) riffing on "shit" and "cunts" for 2 1/2 minutes. I start cracking up a bit about a minute in. I hadn't heard this one before, maybe you haven't either.

youtube.com/watch?v=SMgAKSvNA00

I would like to actually complete the chart ( I think I'm close for AB3++etc, anyway), so maybe keep the thread bumped a time or two and I'll post it. Beer run now.

certain unofficial track titles have been appended to many of these tracks, on the CD release. I believe what happened was that the Gracenote etc. technology started to get traction only at the turn of the millenium, so they ret-conned these tracks' original extra CD-versions in terms of the LATER 1997 release of AB3.1. Quite confusing, I thought AB3.1 was release separately, first, but apparently this is not the case.

Barring more details from me, that comprehensively covers the Analogue Bubblebath series.

[Jason Gutierrez]

But what about the Soundcloud references to an Analogue Bubblebath 6?

[Carter Clark]

GODDAMMIT OP, WHAT ABOUT AB6? IM JUST AS AUTISTIC AS YOU!

[Charles Cook]

chill, let him do his thing. maybe he'll get around to it.

[Ian Richardson]

tbqph I don't know anything about it! Or the other free stuff that has come and gone over the past few years, on the online accounts. I sorta missed the boat with that stuff.

nice pic btw, the lad looks quite military. Like an American Civil War tintype or somesuch. Or John Connor, sensing the gravity of his new fight.

Now, to complete my train of thought regarding Analogue Bubblebath Volume 3, in all its incarnations...

Let me finish that chart (I am now emboldened to do it), and then let me sugest an "ideal/complete" mix of AB3 (referring to the overall project, now).

Cheetah dropping has sort of put me back onto this type of thing. But i really don't know anything about the various online-dumps of content. Feel free to chime in/speculate vis a vis "AB6"!

Does Sup Forums know anything about a purported SAW Vol. III?

[Parker Mitchell]

Is there a torrent or DL with all of this stuff archived together, preferably in lossless?

[Blake White]

Dunno lol. The OP cannot into torrents very well (nor do I care much), hence the language in my OP. But knowing and actually hearing is 2/3 of the battle, and lossy yt clips is a great starting point. If you want such a comendium bad enough, you'll either find it or make one (my notes would be a good starting point IMO).

also bump, the table seems to be shaping up and coming along smoothly such that I will be able to post ITT, effectively completing what I had hoped to do with this thread.

[Thomas Phillips]

Pretty much everything here is found on What.CD

[Isaac Hill]

another bump just to be safe. table is at 90%, just have to cinch up and then printscreen, paste etc.

[Josiah Campbell]

buump, 95% percent now.

[Liam Rivera]

some of the soundcloud dump tracks had the suffix "AB6" or had it as a hashtag

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11ouNaaVrNp60Ib34Kp0TO1n1XSc7-9DvfiZ9ZiTiD2c/htmlview?sle=true#

[Adrian Butler]

ah, cheers.

Here is my working analysis of the Analogue Bubblebath series. Note especially the indicated differences among the various instances of the "3" release. I cheated the zoom size one size small to be just-legible and create a picture which may be of interest or use to someone.

Now, the suggestion based on this is to re-organize a "complete" track list for 3++ etc, as I had done with the others (but with nowhere near the same complexity), intende to be heard as one complete whole.

I would also like to invite any anons to volunteer information on the track titles for AB3 that I don't know about ,esp. the long number forms from the orignal release. I don't know what they are!

[Evan Bell]

As someone who really digs Aphex's early stuff, I appreciate this thread a lot. My personal favorite of his early work is Entrance to Exit, it goes hard as fuck.

[Austin Parker]

okay! Time for a victory lap. This is a nice Gak trak:

youtube.com/watch?v=2_ZrTali5_Y

"Gak" was a play-doh like substance marketed and sold by Nickelodeon in the early 90s, as I remember well from my childhood. An even flimsier material was named "Floam", which sounds like the Aphex track "Phloam". I therefore think Rich was hip to that stuff when it was being sold in stores.

Among the early non-album stuff, I always really liked Polynomial-C. And doing this exercise has taught me that there's this other early collaborator who literally shares a birth date with James (a real "Twin" as it were, distinct from his stillborn brother). I'm not actually crazy about the Analogue Bubblebath original release, but as we've seen, it's historically important and anticipates a lot of how RDJ will operate over the next years and decades, especially the "4 track EP" thing. Gak and Donkey Rhubarb come to mind.

[Michael Evans]

Are you like, autistic or something? I always thought I was his biggest fan, but you seem to one-up me.

[Jose Harris]

NOW. About the track titles (both official and conventional) of the Analogue Bubblebath 3 series... We want to understand what the titles mean!

Although the original vinyl version contains numeric track titles, the CD version is also helpful in that there are commonly accepted yet unofficial track designators. In short, the CD copy of AB3 has 13 selections, with 13 mysterious track titles.

Of these, three are readily understood as referring to the track's placement on the (later) 1997 AB3.1 release (CAT 00897, etc...). Another two, whether [Untitled] or [CD only track #etc...], simply acknowledge that the track is exclusive to the CD. This explains the (unofficial) track titles for 5 of the 13 tracks, leaving the eight track titles which correspond to the original Analogue Bubblebath 3 vinyl release. There is one instance of confused-counting here: the original releases' ".38" is absent from the CD, while it duplicates one of the channels from ".0180871", to create a +- wash in accounting.

Basically, we still have the original eight track title numbers to explain. I can readily explain three of them, in a few different ways:

.0180871 (both left-and-right channels, as repeated on the CD) is a clear reference to RDJ's birthdate of 18 August, 1971.

.38 is a reference to that piss-take track's length (0:38); however, since the speakers vaguely and ominously seem to discuss death, ".38" could also be interpreted as referring to a .38 caliber gun.

AFX 6/b is a simple, short acknowledgement of another piss-take. Since the harsh pattern repeats for 16 repetitions, or bars, the "6/b" bit could reasonably be somehow interpreted as a sort of comment on this number of repetitions.

This explains 3 of the remaining 8 track titles from the original Analogue Bubblebath 3 release. Now, while I search myself, my challenge to Sup Forums:

WHAT IS THE EXACT SIGNIFICANCE OF THESE (five?) NUMBERS TO APHEX TWIN, RDJ, ETC?!?!?!

.215061
.000890569
.55278037732581
.942937
.1993841

[Dominic Watson]

Cool thread OP, thanks for the info

[William Gomez]

If I were his biggest fan, then I would have purchased Analord in its entirety as it was originally released, and put it in that folder thing, but I was poor at the time. also I haven't kept up with the free new online stuff, as I've said, which I guess has been plentiful. :^/

There are limits to one's attention.

[Aaron Rivera]

soo whats the hype around this ?

[Hudson Evans]

no big hype about anything new I know, the Analogue Bubblebath series is old news.

I've just always known about it and never deeply analyzed it. Now I've done that, and a few anons seem to have appreciated it.

[Grayson Thompson]

>wearing your own merch

[Christian Barnes]

>being so much of a self-hating white millenial cuck that you don't know to do that shit constantly, and proudly

[Luke Flores]

rare pic of Richard rocking dog tags that read

TWIN, APHEX
TECHNO SURVIVORS