After 13 years, Aphex Twin returns with the album SYRO, and news on how Kanye West tried to steal his piano composition for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
Electronic artist Richard D. James is set to release his first album in 13 years on September 23. The artist sat down for an interview with Pitchfork last week, and talked a little bit about the upcoming album. James says SYRO, pronounced sigh-ro, is “the most accessible album” he is currently working on. It features vocals from his family, as well as music from new electro-mechanical instruments. In addition to the information about the new release, James revealed a little bit about how Kanye West samples songs.
“Is it a sample? I actually don’t know what it ended up being in the end, I’m so slack. I know that he tried to fucking rip me off and claim that he’d written it, and they tried to get away with not paying. I was really helpful, and when they first sent it to me, I was like, ‘Oh, I can re-do that for you, if you like,’ because they’d sampled it really badly and time-stretched it and there was loads of artifacts. I was like, ‘I’ll just replay it for you at that speed if you want.’ And they totally didn’t even say ‘hello’ or ‘thanks,’ they just replied with, ‘It’s not yours, it’s ours, and we’re not even asking you any more.’” [laughs]
Kanye had sampled (or whatever he calls it) Aphex Twin’s piano track from “Avril 14th” for his song “Blame Game.”
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