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BBC's Lauren Laverne Proves the Perils of Pronouncing the Title of a New Aphex Twin Track

Richard D. James' "2X202-TS5" is a staticky scorcher—and a mouthful.

Update [July 29, 12:47 pm]: Aphex Twin just dropped another track from the Cheetah EP, "CHEETAHT7b," on Beats1. Listen on Apple Music now.

The inveterate experimenter born Richard D. James is continuing his recent tear of productivity with the release of a new EP on July 8 called Cheetah for Warp. He's deep in the midst of all the things you do when promoting an album, but as with everything Aphex Twin does, he's doing them in his own off-kilter way. He's announced the release by sending a series of fliers, modeled after an old synthesizer advert, to record stores across his native Britain. Then he released a music video for "CIRKLON3 [ Колхозная mix ]," his first in 17 years, that was directed and conceptualized by a 12-year-old YouTube sensation.

Today, he did about the most straightforward thing you can do, a track premiere on BBC Radio6, but even that had a little bit of his ever-puckish grin thrown into the proceedings, when host Lauren Laverne had to attempt to pronounce the title of the track, the now typically garbled "2X202-TS5." Considering the difficulty level, she handled it like a pro, with just a slight nervous giggle, but it's still pretty entertaining to hear someone actually say one of these titles out loud.

Oh, and the track itself, is another staticky stomper akin to his Analogue Bubblebath series. Like "CIRKLON3" before it, there's a sense of familiarity about it, which is strange from a producer who's so used to pushing into unknown realms. But there's a comfort in that, a surprisingly warm embrace from brittle drums and delicately intersecting synth lines.

Listen to a playback of the Radio6 stream here, the Aphex Twin segment starts around the 1:56:00 mark.