Window licker
| Window licker | ||||
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| Extended play by Aphex Twin | ||||
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Publication |
March 22, 1999 |
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| Label (s) |
Warp Records WAP105, Europe Sire 35007 WEA Records WPCR-10328, Japan |
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Format (s) |
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Electronic music |
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Title (number) |
3 |
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running time |
16:03 |
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Richard D. James ( Aphex Twin ) |
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Windowlicker is an EP by British electronic musician Richard D. James under his pseudonym Aphex Twin . The EP was released on Warp Records in the spring of 1999 and reached # 16 in the UK singles charts . The song was later voted by fans as the most popular Warp Records track for the Warp20 compilation.
The title of the EP and the title track (German: Fensterlecker ) is a derogatory word for mentally disabled people in Great Britain. On the other hand, it is also a literal translation of the French term faire du lèche-vitrine , in German: window shopping .
The artwork for the CD comes from British director Chris Cunningham and the creative agency The Designers Republic .
background
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Chart positions Explanation of the data |
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The title track Windowlicker consists of a voice sample from James that was manipulated and modulated on the computer. This is underlined with his typical breakbeats , drum samples and mixed choral singing. This results in a calm, yet inconsistent track, which ends in an extremely distorted bass soundscape in its last minute. A short sample from James' girlfriend at the time is integrated into the track, who says J'aime faire des croquettes au chien in her French mother tongue , which translates as: I love making dog croquettes.
Track two, mostly called the track name Formula or Equation due to the very complicated mathematical equation , has a very experimental sound and is roughly comparable to noise . The wind-up of recordings of music Clocks existing third track Nannou devoted James his then-girlfriend.
When looking at the second track through a spectrum analyzer, a hidden image of James' logo appears. This was probably integrated into the track as the sound of Aphex Twin just for the purpose of finding the logo. It's one of the few examples of embedding images in music. Venetian Snares once put a picture of his cats on a track. Nine Inch Nails also used this effect on the Year Zero album . In the same way, in the track Windowlicker , a spiral with concentric circles and further spirals appears at the end of the song. This effect can be achieved with the MetaSynth program . It allows the user to insert a digital image into the spectrogram as a sound. According to an article in Wired magazine , the photographs mostly create “a relatively discordant, metallic scratchy tone”.
Music video
The music video for the track Windowlicker was shot in Los Angeles in 1999 by director Chris Cunningham . He also made the video for Come to Daddy in 1997 . The Windowlicker video is ten minutes long for a music video and is a parody of contemporary American gangsta rap music videos.
In the video, two young men (a Latino and an African American) drive through the summer streets of Los Angeles in an old Mazda convertible. They keep an eye out for prostitutes - called hoochies in the credits . The two talk to two prostitutes, but they don't want to serve them. Suddenly an absurdly long limousine appears (including the driver's window, it consists of 38 windows) and crashes into the two men's old car. It takes 20 seconds for the end of the sedan to fade in. A man with the face of Richard D. James gets out; he apparently has an unrealistic amount of strength, sex appeal and luck. The two prostitutes now accompany James with other women in their limousine, their faces transforming into broadly grinning, bearded men’s faces. You dance with more scantily clad women on the beach. One of these women has a horrible, deformed and repulsive face, which resembles a drawing by Swiss artist HR Giger called The Windowlickers . At the end of the video, the man with James' face shakes a bottle of champagne. The sparkling wine flowing out is very similar to semen ejaculation.
The actors of the prostitutes and suitors from the beginning are Marcus Morris, Gary Cruz as well as Marcy Turner and Chiquita Martin.
The two men from the beginning of the video use a lot of curses and swear words. In the dialogue part of the video (less than four minutes long) vulgar and obscene words, terms and idioms are used 127 times, 44 times the word fuck alone .
The video was released on VHS in 1999, once in the censored version, in which every obscene word was replaced by a beep. It was nominated for best video at the 2000 BRIT Awards , but lost to a video by Robbie Williams .
The full version of the Windowlicker clip only runs at night on German music television. In order to broadcast the video during the day, Cunningham cut out the dialogue for a director's cut so that the video begins with the appearance of the limousine. The Austrian music broadcaster gotv also broadcasts the video uncensored and uncut during the day due to Austrian law. In 2008, MTV Networks was fined because, among other things, it completely broadcast the video before 9 p.m.
Miscellaneous
- "Windowlicker, Acid Edit" was a remix of the song in acid house style and was released on James' remix CD 26 Mixes for Cash (2003), Warp Records .
- The promotional material for the EP included a calendar with various photos from the video and an authentic gold chain with the Aphex-Twin logo. The chain was also shown in the video.
- The EP was named Single of the Year 1999 by the New Musical Express , whereupon Richard D. James wrote the following thank you letter to the editor:
"Great! Thank you for choosing my track. As always, I had a very good year, even though it was very intense, everything was accelerating, new stuff was constantly being written, I really plan to just isolate myself more next year. Hope everyone is having a really boring New Year's Eve party, overdosing on everything and choking on their own vomit on the bathroom floor. Make sure you are face down before you pass out!
Drawn, Pritchad.g.kraymes. "
- In James' album Drukqs he is sampling parts of
ΔMi−1 = −αΣn=1NDi[n][Σj∈C{i}Fji[n − 1] + Fexti[n−1]the piece 54 Cymru Beats . - The outro of the song Windowlicker is used in the film Grandma's Boy .
- In September 2010, Pitchfork Media selected the song Windowlicker as # 12 of the 200 Best Tracks of the 90s .
Tracklist
All songs were written, composed and produced by Richard D. James.
CD, vinyl
- Windowlicker - 6.07
- - 5.43
- Nannou - 4.13
![{\ displaystyle \ Delta M_ {i} ^ {- 1} = - a \ sum _ {n = 1} ^ {N} D_ {i} \ left [n \ right] \ left [\ sum _ {j \ in \ mathbb {C} \ {i \}} F_ {ji} \ left [n-1 \ right] + F \ operatorname {ext} _ {i} \ left [n ^ {- 1} \ right] \ right] }](https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/cd5e00ba8a0274926ff20d362cbb1fea4fb2ab49)
Bonus tracks (Japan)
- Windowlicker (Demo Version) - 1:57
- Windowlicker (End-Roll Version) - 1:07
Remarks
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↑ Track 2 is often referred to simply for reasons of simplicity as equation or formula , which means "equation" or "formula" in German. Another mathematically correct, but also very cumbersome way of writing is
ΔMi−1 = −∂Σn=1NDi[n][Σj∈C{i}Fji[n − 1] + Fexti[n−1]]. The American Amazon website calls the title Complex Mathematical Equation , in German "Complex mathematical equation".
Web links
- Windowlicker music video ( October 5, 2014 memento on the Internet Archive ) on Warp.net
- Windowlicker at Warp Records
- Face the music - The Guardian Friday Review , March 5, 1999.
- Spectrogram analysis of the second track (The Aphex Face)
- aphex twin •• windowlicker. view clip: large •• stills ( memento from June 23, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (analysis of the video)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Charts UK
- ↑ Warp / Records / Releases / Aphex Twin / Windowlicker
- ↑ The frequency axis should be on a logarithmic scale
- ↑ Re: Dissecting Windowlicker track # 2 . ( Memento of February 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Electronic Music Mailing List Archives: idm
- ↑ Kahney Leander, Wired News, May 10, 2002: Hey, Who's That Face in My Song?
- ^ Credits of the video, 1999.
- ↑ §§§ The Windowlickers. The Aphex Twins (image)
- ↑ Windowlicker Credits
- ^ Mark Sweney, The Guardian, MTV fined £ 255k for offensive material , June 4, 2008. Online version.
- ↑ English original: Smart! Thank you very much for voting for my track / s. I've had a very good year as usual, although it was very intense, getting on a really big roll, writing new stuff constantly, really looking forward to isolating myself next year even more! Hope everyone has a totally boring New Year's party, overdoses on everything and chokes on their own vomit on the bathroom floor, make sure you lie face down just before you pass out! Signed, Pritchad.g.kraymes.
- ↑ Pitchfork Top 200 Tracks of the 90s
- ↑ amazon.com
Selected Ambient Works 85-92 (1992) | Selected Ambient Works Vol. II (1994) | ... I Care Because You Do (1995) | Richard D. James Album (1996) | drukqs (2001) | 26 Mixes for Cash (2003)
EPs: Bradley's Beat (1991) | Digeridoo (1992) | Q-Chastic (1992) | Joyrex 4, 5 + 9 (1992-1993) | Analogue Bubblebath 1-4 (1991-1993) | Xylem Tube (1992) | On (1993) | Bradley's Robot (1993) | Quoth (1993) | GAK 1-4 (1994) | Ventolin (1995) | Hangable Auto Bulb 1, 2 (1995) | Donkey Rhubarb (1995) | Girl / Boy (1996) | Come to Daddy (1997) | Windowlicker (1999) | 2 Remixes (2001) | 4-track EP (2005) | Analord 1-11 (2005) | Confederation Trough EP (2007)