Aphex twin

Born in 1971 in the Irish city of Limerick in the family of the Welshmen Lorna and Derek James, he spent his childhood in Cornwall . From an early age, young Richard liked to experiment with electronics. Already at the age of twelve, Richard achieved some success in this field. The equipment of the first experiments - Casio FZ-10M, DX-100, SH-101, Quadraverb, Atari 520ST various keys, 8 turntables, one busy mixer ^[2] . Once he won one of the contests, making the Sinclair ZX-81 computer sound hardwareless that did not support audio output: a specially selected sequence of machine codes created pickups in the sound channel of the TV connected to the computer, as a result, when the volume was turned off to the maximum, the noise of different tonality.

Later, when he became a disc jockey , his love of noise did not subside. At one of the performances, he brought sandpaper along with the plates. Those few who remained in the hall ran outside without making terrifying sounds. "Who cares? They paid me already ... I played sandpaper in New York, by the way, and people danced there ... ”, James later justified. Somewhere in those days his nickname appeared - "Eiffex Twin."

In 1991, he moved to London and released several singles and albums under the label Warp Records and under several aliases ( AFX , Polygon Window , Bradley Strider , Caustic Window , Dice Man , The Tuss , GAK , Power-Pill , Q-Chastic , Soit -PP , Blue Calx (not to be confused with another Blue Calx - Naoto Suzuki). He was one of the founding members of the Rephlex label. In 1996, his music migrated to Electronic Music and drum and bass . In 2001, he released the album “drukqs " In the style of Electronic Music / Prepared piano.

In 2002, one of Aphex Twin's work, Selected Ambient Works Volume II, was included in The 25 Most Influential Ambient Albums Of All Time (25 major ambient albums of all time).

In 2005, Aphex Twin returns to its early acid techno period with the release of the Analords series .

In the same year, the album " Acoustica: Alarm Will Sound performs Aphex Twin " by the American group Alarm Will Sound was released , consisting of acoustic arrangements of electronic music, the composer of which is Richard.

Also worth noting is the collaboration of Richard with Chris Cunningham at the Traffic festival in Turin in 2005 . In this free festival, they managed to show both their best hits - Come To Daddy, Mt Saint Michel videos, as well as innovations in the style of Aphex Twin: Elephant Song with frames from Flex.

This musician has always been known for his scandalous interviews. His statements are sometimes so unexpected that many consider them a lie. For example, about his tank, that he wrote his first things in ambient style at the age of 13, that he did all the synthesizers himself , etc. One can’t but note Richard’s passion for placing his creepy grimaces literally everywhere, where can. In addition to frequent use in the design of release covers, he placed one of them in the Equation composition - you can see it on the sonogram of the track starting at the time position 05:26. ^[3]

Albums

• Selected Ambient Works 85–92 ( 1992 )
• Selected Ambient Works Volume II ( 1994 )
• ... I Care Because You Do ( 1995 )
• Richard D. James Album ( 1996 )
• drukqs ( 2001 )
• Syro ( 2014 )

Singles and EPs

• Digeridoo ( 1992 )
• Xylem Tube EP ( 1992 )
• On / On Remixes ( 1993 )
• Ventolin / Ventolin Remixes EP ( 1995 )
• Donkey Rhubarb ( 1995 )
• Girl / Boy EP ( 1996 )
• Come To Daddy ( 1997 )
• Windowlicker ( 1999 )
• Analord 10 from the Analord series (see below) ( 2005 )
• Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments pt2 ( 2015 )
• Cheetah EP ( 2016 )
• Collapse EP ( 2018) ^[4]

Promos & Collections

• Words & Music ( 1994 ) (Interview and several tracks from Selected Ambient Works Volume II )
• Classics ( 1995 , reissued in 2008 ) (A Collection of Early and Rare Tracks)
• 51/13 Singles Collection ( 1996 ) (Compilation Exclusive to Japan )
• Cock 10/54 Cymru Beats ( drukQs Album Promo )
• 26 Mixes for Cash ( 2003 ) (Collection of mixes for other artists, as well as four original tracks)
• 2 Mixes on a 12 "for Cash ( 2003 ) (Promo Collection 26 Mixes for Cash )

Richard D. James has released a lot of material under various pseudonyms:

AFX:

• Analogue Bubblebath ( 1991 )
• Analogue Bubblebath 2 ( 1992 )
• Analogue Bubblebath 3 ( 1993 )
• Analogue Bubblebath 3.1 ( 1997 )
• Analogue Bubblebath 4 ( 1994 )
• Analogue Bubblebath 5 (recorded in 1995 , but only released in 2005 in small quantities)
• Hangable Auto Bulb ( 1995 )
• Hangable Auto Bulb 2 ( 1995 )
• 2 Remixes By AFX ( 2001 )
• Smojphace EP ( 2003 )
• Mangle 11 (2003)
• Analord Series ( 2005 ) - with the exception of Analord 10 (see above)
• Chosen Lords ( 2006 ) (compilation of tracks Analord 1-11)

Bradley Strider:

• Bradley's Beat ( 1995 )
• Bradley's Robot ( 1996 )

Caustic Window:

• Joyrex J4 ( 1992 )
• Joyrex J5 (1992)
• Joyrex J9 ( 1993 )
• CAT 023 (recorded in 1994, released in 2014 as a copy of the test plate)
• Caustic Window Compilation ( 1998 )

Gak:

• GAK ( 1994 )

Polygon Window:

• (Quoth) ( 1993 )
• Surfing on Sine Waves ( 1993 , reprinted in 2001 )

Power Pill:

• Pac-Man ( 1992 )

Q-Chastic:

• Q-Chastic EP (Recorded in 1992 , not released due to loss)

In the Universal Indicator Series:

• Universal Indicator: Red ( 1989 )
• Universal Indicator: Green ( 1995 )
• Universal Indicator: Violet ( 1999 ) (along with The Kosmik Kommando)

Rest:

• Melodies From Mars ( 1995 ) - Richard's unreleased album, circulated in friends circles on C-90 tapes.
• Along with Squarepusher, he recorded Freeman Hardy & Willis Acid for the WAP100 Warp .
• Is “Rich” from “Mike and Rich” ( Expert Knob Twiddlers ) (“Mike” is Michael Paradinas , also known as µ-Ziq ).
• He authored the soundtrack for the short film Rubber Johnny, directed by Chris Cunningham .

• Rephlex records
• R & S Records
• Warp records

• Aphex Twin on Discogs
• Aphex Twin Profile at Last.fm
• The Complete Story of Aphex Twin - Russian article, the history of Aphex Twin, part 1
• The Complete History of Aphex Twin - Russian article, the history of Aphex Twin, part 2
• Interview after the release of Druqks (2001) on the site of Andrey Gorokhov " Muz Prosvet "
• www.director-file.com Chris Cunningham clip Come To Daddy
• Interview with Afex Twin in Moscow in 1994 - link leads to options advertising site
• Article about Aphex Twin in Russian - from Sound Proector weblog
• Aphex Twin & Chris Cunningham, Turin (English)