Richard D. James is like the Miles Davis of electronic music: Both started young and had inventive, deeply personal styles. Both created a few genres and perfected others that were already well-trod. Both were wildly prolific, then took long breaks and basically disappeared when they were functioning at exceptionally high levels. And both made very little music that was less than good.
So you might consider Expert Knob Twiddlers to be James’ version of Quiet Nights. A collaboration between James and his friend Mike Paradinas, who has worked as μ-Ziq (and many other names) and founded the Planet Mu label, it’s the rare James-related release that is just OK. It’s also one of the less interesting things Paradinas made during his excellent ’90s run. The fact that it wasn’t all that common in shops and was a rare collaborative release from James gave it a bit of an aura that, two decades later, doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. It sounds like two friends who enjoy making music together having some fun and entertaining themselves, without much thought for quality control.
Though it’s a low-key record that doesn’t pretend to be about innovation, Expert Knob Twiddlers is interesting as a time capsule. It was recorded on relatively crude equipment in 1994, when both James and Paradinas were working at an early peak and releasing massive amounts of music under a variety of names, and it was released in ’96, when James was basically a superstar as Aphex Twin. In every gesture, it feels tied to the mid-’90s, offering Mike and Rich’s version of the Gen X nostalgia that was everywhere at the time. (Just look at that album cover.) Many of these tracks either sample from or are the creators’ versions of ephemera like ’60s spy film soundtracks, easy listening records, off-kilter funk, advertising jingles, and the like—a jumble of kitschy loops that could have come from Keyboard Money Mark, Sukia, or any number of lesser artists making music in that decade with cheap gear and samples. There’s very little to distinguish these playful genre exercises, well constructed as they are.
Not to say it’s a bad record, just one of little depth. Expert Knob Twiddlers is marginally improved in this reissue, complete with additional unreleased tracks from the initial sessions, a fuller-sounding remastering, and a new sequence that suggests a bit more variety than is actually here. There are occasional moments of inspiration, like the tense and jittery “Vodka”—which appears a second time in a new, less interesting mix—or “Bu Bu Bu Ba,” a slow and dreamy number with a pleasant melody. But too many tracks are along the lines of “Winner Takes All” and “Giant Deflating Football”—essentially, just a single string loop and occasionally a breakbeat, repeating for almost six minutes with small accents placed here and there. Listening to the album is a matter of expectations. Set aside that it pairs two giants of electronic music and enjoy it for what it is: a collection of well-rendered DJ tools for your next lounge music night.
