Aphex Twin

Born to Welsh parents in 1971, James spent his childhood in Cornwall. He experimented with electronics from an early age, winning a competition to make a Sinclair Spectrum play a tune by setting the connected television's volume to full and alternating the colours on the screen, producing different pitches of noise.

He became a DJ and musician on the local rave scene, taking on the monicker "Aphex Twin" from the name of a manufacturer of signal processing equipment combined with the word "twin"; this was because the original Richard James, his brother, had died before Richard D James was born. James uses the "D" of his middle name to distinguish himself from his late brother.

He was a founding partner in the Rephlex Records label in 1991 and released his first records on this label, as well as Mighty Force and R&S Records of Belgium. James soon moved to London and released a slew of albums and EPs on the Warp Records label. He was also responsible for a number of disturbing music videos in collaboration with director Chris Cunningham.

Aphex Twin is credited with pushing forward the genres of techno, ambient and drum and bass and has created a vast amount of music, much of it unreleased. Recent experimentation on his album Drukqs included use of a prepared piano in the style of composer John Cage.

He owns a 1950s armored scout car (a Daimler Ferret Mark 3), a submarine, and lives in a converted bank. Aphex Twin continues to create records at the boundaries of the accepted norms of music.

Discography

• Digeridoo (1992)
• The Aphex Twin (1992)
• Xylem Tube EP (1992)
• Selected Ambient Works 85-92 (1992)
• On/On Remixes (1993)
• Selected Ambient Works Vol 2 (1994)
• Words & Music (1994)
• Classics (1994)
• ...I Care Because You Do (1995)
• Ventolin/Ventolin EP (1995)
• Donkey Rhubarb (1995)
• 51/13 Singles Collection (1996)
• Girl/Boy EP (1996)
• Richard D James Album (1996)
• Come To Daddy/Remixes/EP (1997)
• Windowlicker (1999)
• Drukqs (2001)
• Cock 10/54 Cymru Beats (Promo) (2001)
• 26 Mixes For Cash (2003)
• Smojphace EP (2003)

Aliases

Richard D. James has also released a large amount of material under various aliases:

AFX:

• Analogue Bubblebath (1991)
• Analogue Bubblebath 2 (1991)
• Analogue Bubblebath 3 (1993)
• Analogue Bubblebath 3.1 (1997)
• Analogue Bubblebath 4 (1994)
• Analogue Bubblebath 5 (1995 unreleased)
• Hangable Auto Bulb (1995)
• Hangable Auto Bulb 2 (1995)
• 2 Remixes By AFX (2001)
• Mangle 11 (Circuit Bent V.I.P. Mix) (appears on Rephlexions compilation album - 2003)

Brad Strider:

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

Caustic Window:

• Compilation (1998)
• Joyrex J4 (1992)
• Joyrex J5 (1992)
• Joyrex J9 (1993)

GAK:

• GAK (1994)

Polygon Window:

• Surfing On Sine Waves (1993, re-released 2001)
• Quoth (1993)

Power Pill:

• Pac-Man (1992)

Q-Chastic:

• Q-Chastic EP (1992 unreleased)

In the Universal Indicator series:

• Universal Indicator: Red (1991)
• Universal Indicator: Green (1995)

See Also

• Intelligent dance music
• Squarepusher
• Warp Records

External Links

• Rephlex Records
• Warp Records
• the #IDM 909 Chat

Referenced By