Windowlicker’s ‘Equation’: How Aphex Twin coded his face into music
1999 was a huge year for Aphex Twin. Following a string of acclaimed IDM releases for Warp Records, including Richard D James Album and Come to Daddy EP, coupled with a pioneering music video by visionary Chris Cunnigham, ‘Windowlicker’ bookended the ’90s with his most twistedly brilliant single yet, an oozing mulch of viscous electronica that suffuses porno chintz with spasmed drum-machines and flickering vocal samples that was equal parts terrifying and hilarious.
As ever with the Cornish mischief maker, it’s often the lesser-known cuts that grant greater rewards. While ‘Windowlicker’ was surprisingly climbing high on the UK charts, its B-side ‘(∆Mᵢ⁻¹=−α ∑ Dᵢ[η][ ∑ Fjᵢ[η−1]+Fextᵢ [η⁻¹]])’ (or ‘Equation’ as it’s known to fans) hid a peculiar audio easter egg amid its aggressive experimentalism. With the proper hardware, you’ll be able to spot Richard D James’ trademark grinning mug at the 5.27 mark, in addition to various spirals and crude doodles smattered throughout the track.
To do this, though, the first thing you’ll need is a spectrogram, which acts as a visual display of sound frequencies and their variations over time. This may only yield partial results, as feeding ‘Equation’ through a linear spectrogram scale might reveal a pair of bugged-out eyes but little else. Adjusting the scale to ‘logarithmic’ reveals the full splendour of the Aphex smirk, grimacing at the curious aural excavator atop a grinding sheet of metallic, digital squall, the intriguing noise that images make when exported as a sonograph.
For such a seemingly complex feat of sonic trickery, it was actually relatively easy to create. Utilising the Metasynth software available on Mac systems at the time, one could simply draw an image and reproduce said drawing as a piece of sound, even uploading images to create unholy electronic screeches. It’s easy to imagine the glee this was played with on James’ part, perfectly in keeping with his irreverent brand of myth-making crypticness, which he jovially shrouds himself with to this day.
It’s all part of the Aphex fun, right? James’ spectro-tomfoolery followed a reputation of sly mirth provocative misdirection, whether it’s lying to press and reporters, recruiting Frank Sidebottom to speak on his behalf on Channel 4 in 2005, or the mid-1990s mayhem of ‘Donkey Rhubarb’ and the giant Aphex teddys and greased-up female bodybuilders adding a dose of PT Barnum to his warped electronica.
Aphex Twin wasn’t the only spectrogram tinkler in town at this time, though. Fellow labelmates Plaid buried a series of ‘3’s’ on Rest Proof Clockwork‘s ‘3recurring’, and breakcore Canadian Venetian Snares snuck in a charming picture of his pet cat on ‘Look’. Always omitting a distinctive screech, it’s probably much easier now to audibly spot when a spectrogram’s in use, a mysterious hand implanted in the ‘leaked’ audio of Nine Inch Nails’ ‘My Violent Heart’ spotted immediately by dedicated, sonic sleuths back in 2007.
Despite the spectrogram perhaps becoming resigned to a brief piece of novel japery when utilised in popular music, it serves as an intriguing document of subversion that still manages to be entertaining in a uniquely Aphex Twin way. Like the backmasking trend of decades prior, the Twin’s coded face in ‘Equation’ speaks to the enduring appeal of buried secrets and artefacts in our popular mediums.
