Hear Aphex Twin’s Gauzy New Song ‘tnodvood104’

Aphex Twin continued his prolific streak by posting a song titled “tnodvood104” on SoundCloud. He gave the track a simple label: “#voodoo.”

“tnodvood104” uses a few basic elements to establish a steady, unhurried pulse: a resonant bass drum throb, a programmed percussive flicker and a few chime-like noises in two different tones. A group of voices also appears to sing wordless, overlaid notes, as if the listener stumbled onto a choir doing vocal warm-ups before practice. These never assemble into a coherent melody – after climbing through some scales, the voices fade away, leaving behind Aphex Twin’s scratchy mechanical skeleton.

Richard D. James returned as Aphex Twin in 2014 by releasing Syro, his first album under that name since 2001. In 2015, James put out new music as AFX, which marked the first project under that name since 2005. This year, Aphex Twin released the Cheetah EP. During a rare American performance in Houston this month, he also sold a new 12-inch record.