| Cheetah | |
| Type: | EP |
| Artist: | Aphex Twin |
| Cover: | Cheetah (EP).png |
| Alt: | The cover artwork for Cheetah, an extended play by the electronic musician Aphex Twin. |
| Label: | Warp |
| Producer: | Richard D James |
| Prev Title: | Orphaned Deejay Selek 2006–08 |
| Prev Year: | 2015 |
| Next Title: | Collapse EP |
| Next Year: | 2018 |
Cheetah is an extended play record by the electronic music artist and producer Aphex Twin. It was released on 8July 2016 on Warp.[1] The name is a reference to Cheetah Marketing, a British manufacturer of microcomputer peripherals and electronic musical instruments in the 1980s (such as the MS800 namechecked in two of the EP's track titles).
In 2015 Richard D. James uploaded several tracks with names like "Cheetah3 Teac" and "CHEETAHT7" to his SoundCloud 'user18081971' account; these have since been removed.[2]
A flyer teasing the EP release was sent to various record shops in the UK in early June 2016. The flyer parodies the luxurious writing style of 1970s adverts.[3] [4] The album was announced on 9 June, with James tweeting a link to a website for the EP.[5]
The Cheetah EP was made available on vinyl, CD, cassette and a digital download in various digital formats, including MP3, WAV and FLAC.[6]
A video for "CIRKLON3 [Колхозная mix]" was released on 21 June. The video was James' first since the Chris Cunningham-directed video for "Windowlicker" in 1999 and was directed by 12-year-old Ryan Wyer. James and Warp commissioned Wyer to direct the video after James discovered Wyer's "Ryan Wyer" YouTube channel.[7]
At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, Cheetah received an average score of 74, based on 11 reviews.[8] Writing for Exclaim!, Daryl Keating gave the album muted praise, calling it "fine but unremarkable, especially when pitted against the behemoths of his back catalogue".[9]
| Pitchfork | The 20 Best Electronic Albums of 2016 | 2016 |
All tracks were written & produced by Richard D. James.[10]
Credits adapted from Cheetah liner notes
| Peak position | |
| Australian Albums (ARIA)[11] | 63 |
|---|---|
| Italian Albums (FIMI)[12] | 97 |
| New Zealand Heatseeker Albums (RMNZ)[13] | 5 |