04-01-19
One of my first thoughts when listening to this song is thinking about the character in Grandma’s Boy JP, and how this was used as his entry music to simulate a unique technologically inclined individual. Not that it didn’t work for the intended use it has always stood as a major point of reference.
“Windowlicker” is a euphemism taken from the French phrase “faire du lèche-vitrine” which translates as “licking the windows.” This is used as a descriptor for men who glare at women where they may be seen as “window-shopping” for their next sexual partner.
Windowlicker consists of Aphex Twin’s Richard Davis James’ voice modulated on the computer, with mixes of drum samples, choir singing and a myriad of audio tracks. The culminating effect is a smooth yet erratic melody that slowly works towards the listen minute which is filled with extreme audio distortion. The wall of bass that is felt entering around the five-minute mark is arguably the most well-known sample from the track, creating a euphoric climax.
James had also included what is known as a spectrogram at the end of the song, creating a series of images that can be seen within the audio file of the song. If this wasn’t impressive and surprising enough, when viewing the spectrogram through an X-Y scatter graph you would see an oscillating spiral effect. This little Easter egg is accompanied by the second track off the same EP, 1NDi[n][Σj∈C[i]Fji[n − 1] +Fexti[n−1]]” (commonly known as ‘Equation’ or ‘Formula’) which reveals a portrait of what is believed to be none other than James himself. Aphex Twin leaves us with lots of little surprises.
Lyrics:
No lyrics, just strangeness