If you’re unfamiliar with the deep web, then you’ve probably at least heard of the Silk Road, an online drug marketplace that was recently broken up. That’s not all that goes on there though. Many privacy advocates utilize Tor and other deep web browsers in light of revelations that the NSA has been spying on it’s own citizens. This isn’t a blog about politics or social issues though, so I’ll leave this discussion at that. What this is about is Aphex Twin finally releasing a new album!

Yesterday a blimp with 2014 and the Aphex Twin logo for an “0” was spotted flying over London. Today, Richard D. James (aka Aphex Twin) tweeted a URL (http://syro2eznzea2xbpi.com/) this morning which links to the image above and what I assume is a track list. SYRO will be Aphex Twin’s first record since 2001’s Drukqs. That’s not counting Caustic Window, a side project of Richard D. James who’s self-titled album from 1994 recently saw the light of day thanks to Kickstarter.

Now for some theories from a friend of mine who in the interest of not advertising himself as a deep-web aficionado prefers to go by Phwelo:

“The code [at the Tor link] is very clean. CIRCL stands for Computer Incident Response Center Luxembourg. U473 is a Unicode character [it’s also a type of German U-boat). Minipops are little pixel dudes. Minipop #67 on one of the most popular minipop sites is Daft Punk. Death of hearing tissue begins at 180db. SYRO could be in relation to something Syrian? Also, produk is Hindi for product. ”

EDIT: Reddit user nachomuchacho69 has some more insight… “My guess is minipops refers to the korg minipops as other titles also have names of musical gear in them that could have been used to write those songs. By the way, U473 is compressor/limiter.”

EDIT 2: Some ideas from WATMM (the closest thing to an official Aphex Twin message board)…

“SYRO is an anagram of rosy.”

“The last track is Anastasia backwards.”

“…two tracks with Circlon in the name could be related to the Sequentix Cirklon sequencer.” There is also speculation that the numbers at the end of the tracks could be BPM.

9/11 Truthers don’t have anything on Aphex Twin fans. Check out a screenshot from the Tor link or if you’re hip enough (I’m not) you can see for yourself at the link: http://syro2eznzea2xbpi.com/

APHEX TWIN

SYRO

minipops 67 (source field mix)……………..120.2

XMAS_EVET10 (thanaton3 mix)………………..120

produk 29………………………………..101

4 bit 9d api+e+6………………………….126.26

180db_…………………………………..130

CIRCLONT6A (syrobonkus mix)………………..141.98

fz pseudotimestretch+e+3…………………..138.85

CIRCLONT14 (shrymoming mix)………………..152.97

syro u473t8+e (piezoluminescence mix)……….141.98

PAPAT4 (pineal mix)……………………….155

s950tx16wasr10 (earth portal mix)…………..163.97

aisatsana………………………………..102

If anyone else has any theories about this tracklist (or maybe about it being something else?) then please share. The only group in music that’s more cryptic than Aphex Twin are Boards of Canada.