Windowlicker
| "Windowlicker" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Single by Aphex Twin | ||||
| B-side | "ΔMi−1 = −αΣn=1NDi[n][Σj∈C[i]Fji[n − 1] + Fexti[n−1]]" "Nannou" |
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| Released | 22 March 1999 | |||
| Format | ||||
| Length | 6:07 | |||
| Label | Warp | |||
| Writer(s) | Richard D. James | |||
| Producer(s) | Richard D. James | |||
| Aphex Twin singles chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |
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"Windowlicker" is a song by electronic music artist Richard D. James, released under his Aphex Twin pseudonym. It was released as a single on 22 March 1999 through Warp Records. The single peaked at number 16 on the UK Singles Chart, becoming his highest-charting song, and was later voted, by fans, as Warp Records' most popular song, for its Warp20 compilation.
The artwork for the single was created by Chris Cunningham, with additional work by The Designers Republic. Cunningham also directed the song's music video. In 2000, "Windowlicker" was nominated for the Brit Award for Best British Video.
"Windowlicker" consists of James' voice modulated on computer, mixed with his trademark breakbeat snare rushes, drum samples, and mixed choir-like singing, resulting in a smooth yet erratic song with the last minute of the track escalating into an extremely distorted wall of bass. Also included is a sample of a French voice, saying either J'aime faire des croquettes au chien (translating to "I like to make dog nuggets") or J'aime faire des cracottes au chien (translating to "I like to make dog cracottes").
A spectrogram of "Windowlicker" reveals a spiral at the end of the song. This spiral is more impressive when viewed with an X-Y scatter graph, X and Y being the amplitudes of the L and R channels, which shows expanding and contracting concentric circles and spirals.
The effect was achieved through use of the Mac-based program MetaSynth. This program allows the user to insert a digital image as the spectrogram. MetaSynth will then convert the spectrogram to digital sound and "play" the picture. According to an article on the website Wired News, photographs run through the program tend to produce "a kind of discordant, metallic scratching".
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Wikipedia