Aphex Twin

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Richard David James aka Aphex Twin, 2007
Richard David James aka Aphex Twin, 2007
Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
Selected Ambient Works Vol. II
  UK 11 
silver
silver
03/19/1994 (3 weeks)
Classics
  UK 24 02/11/1995 (3 weeks)
... I Care Because You Do
  UK 24 05/06/1995 (2 weeks)
Richard D. James album
  UK 62 11/16/1996 (1 week)
Drukqs
  UK 22nd 11/03/2001 (2 weeks)
26 Mixes for Cash
  UK 63 04/05/2003 (2 weeks)
Chosen Lords (as AFX)
  UK 82 04/22/2006 (1 week)
Syro
  DE 26th 03/10/2014 (2 weeks)
  AT 21st 03/10/2014 (2 weeks)
  CH 15th 09/28/2014 (2 weeks)
  UK 8th 04/10/2014 (4 weeks)
  US 11 10/11/2014 (4 weeks)
Computer Controlled Acoustic - Pt 2
  UK 36 31/01/2015 (3 weeks)
Orphaned Deejay Selek 2006-2008 (as AFX)
  UK 34 09/03/2015 (1 week)
Didgeridoo
  UK 55 05/09/1992 (2 weeks)
Quoth (as a polygon window)
  UK 49 04/03/1993 (1 week)
On
  UK 32 11/27/1993 (3 weeks)
Analogue Bubblebath 4 (as AFX)
  UK 87 09/03/1994 (2 weeks)
Ventolin EP
  UK 49 04/08/1995 (2 weeks)
Donkey rhubarb
  UK 78 08/26/1995 (1 week)
Girl / Boy EP
  UK 64 10/26/1996 (1 week)
Come to Daddy EP
  UK 36 
silver
silver
10/18/1997 (2 weeks)
Window licker
  UK 16 04/03/1999 (3 weeks)
2 remixes by AFX (as AFX)
  UK 69 08/11/2001 (1 week)
Smojphace EP (as AFX)
  UK 82 06/28/2003 (1 week)
Analord 05 (as AFX)
  UK 97 03/26/2005 (1 week)
Cheetah
  CH 63 07/17/2016 (1 week)
  UK 14th 07/15/2016 (1 week)
  US 140 07/30/2016 (1 week)
Collapse
  CH 88 09/23/2018 (1 week)
  UK 11 09/27/2018 (1 week)
  US 113 29.09.2018 (1 week)

Richard David James (born August 18, 1971 in Limerick ), known by his pseudonym Aphex Twin , is an Irish - British musician , DJ and label owner ( Rephlex Records ). He also published under other pseudonyms such as AFX , Caustic Window and Polygon Window . James is one of the most important representatives of the electronica scene.

The person

Richard D. James was born in 1971 to Lorna and Derek James at Limerick Regional Hospital. His first brother Richard James died in childbirth. His parents gave James the name of his late brother, supplemented by the middle name David .

He grew up with his two sisters on the British peninsula of Cornwall . In Cornwall he later began his musical career as a DJ in local clubs. As a teenager he was a DJ at Shire Horse in St Ives and played with Tom Middleton at the Bowgie Inn in Crantock, Newquay .

James is considered a headstrong and somewhat eccentric eccentric . He is reluctant to give interviews and the statements he makes in them are often contradicting each other. That is why the truth of many biographical facts is highly controversial. Many of the idiosyncrasies shown turned out to be pure rumors that surfaced after media reports, for example that he lives in a converted bank and is said to own an armored reconnaissance vehicle.

His first marriage resulted in two sons. James is second married to a Russian art student and lives with her and his two sons in Scotland near Glasgow .

music

He allegedly produced his first pieces of music at the age of 10 with the help of a prepared piano and a tape recorder . At the beginning of the 90s, James released three works with his albums " Selected Ambient Works 85-92 ", " Selected Ambient Works Vol. II " and "Surfing On Sine Waves" (as Polygon Window), which are now considered to be groundbreaking for the development of electronic music Music can be called. Because of his influence, James has been dubbed the “ Mozart of Techno ” by the British music magazine Melody Maker . However, he himself has little to appreciate this term and sees in his compositions more references to the work of Erik Satie .

According to his own admission, the inspiration for some of his pieces of music came during lucid dreams .

His music cannot be tied to a particular style. Rather, it is a very creative and idiosyncratic interpretation of different styles. The pieces are often characterized by simple, intuitive as beautiful felt melodies from unusual sounds, sometimes complicated rhythms and extremely detailed Drum -Programming (especially on "Drukqs" and "Hangable Auto Bulb"). Aphex Twin became known for its early, more accessible ambient pieces. Other of his works are more likely to be assigned to Intelligent Dance Music , Techno or Drill 'n Bass , a style that was invented especially for Aphex Twin.

His remixes for other artists also cause excitement over and over again , in which he often completely destroys the original musical material (for example his remixes for Die Fantastischen Vier ) or completely reinterprets it (e.g. his remix for Nine Inch Nails , which he is with produced the original samples without ever having heard the original composition). For the guitar rock band Lemonheads he delivered his own piece as an alleged remix of a Lemonheads song because he had missed the deadline for the remix.

In 1995 there was a brief dispute with Karlheinz Stockhausen . Stockhausen had criticized a piece by James, the track "Alberto Balsam", as too monotonous on a radio show.

Living up to his reputation as a creative sound maker, the songs on the " Windowlicker EP" contained hidden patterns and a picture of James with his signature grin . This embedded visual information can be displayed with a program that visualizes the frequency spectrum.

The music of Aphex Twin has repeatedly been assumed to be related to drug use, which Richard James himself rates as very low, as he stated in an interview with Frontpage magazine :

"... I try to keep this aspect as minimal as possible ... Making tracks when you are tripping is almost a complete waste of time ..."

He made a similar statement in UK magazine The Guardian :

“I never wanted to make the big deal about drugs because I don't think they deserve it. It's just something you want to do. I most likely come across as, "Yeah, acid and weed are great". But I don't think so, absolutely not. And if I did, I wouldn't reveal it in interviews. Plus, I'm never drugged when I'm making music. Whenever I did it, it was total rubbish. It's a very disciplined thing to make music. When you're on drugs, you're just fucked. You could never get a track on the chain like that. When I'm stoned, I go to bed "

- Richard D. James, in: The Guardian, October 5, 2001

After the release of the album " Drukqs " in 2001, James had hardly released any new material for three years. During this time only the " 26 Mixes for Cash " collection of already published remixes and three new remixes under the pseudonym AFX were released. Some critics have already speculated whether James is no longer able to express anything musically. In the spring of 2005, the first of a total of 11 planned releases of a series entitled "Analord" appeared. The Analord 10, released first and with a box, was limited to 1000 pieces. In April 2006, "Chosen Lords", a compilation of the Analords series, was released on CD.

In April 2014, one of the four test pressings of the 1994 Caustic Window album previously owned by Richard James, Chris Jeffs , Grant Wilson-Claridge and Mike Paradinas was offered for sale at Discogs . With the permission of Rephlex Records and James, James E. Thomas, the operator of the English-language music forum We Are The Music Makers , launched a Kickstarter campaign in which 4,124 supporters raised the purchase price of 67,424 US dollars and one in return Received digital copy of the album. The original record was then auctioned on eBay for $ 46,300 by Minecraft developer Markus Persson . Some donated to charity.

After an almost 10 year release hiatus, a marketing campaign began in August 2014 for a new Aphex twin album. First of all, a blimp with the Aphex Twin logo and the number “2014” flew over London. Shortly thereafter, Aphex Twin's Twitter account posted a Tor link, which included the tracklist of the new album and other details. The album Syro was released on September 19, 2014 on the Warp Records label . The single "minipops 67 [120.2]" had already been released two weeks earlier. With the album, he not only reached the top 10 of the British music charts for the first time , but was also successful in other European countries and came to number 11 on the US album charts . At the 2015 Grammy Awards , Syro was named best dance / electronic album.

In January 2015, Computer Controlled Acoustic - Pt 2, an EP with new pieces of music, followed. At the same time, an anonymous user, under the names user487363530 , user4873635301 and user48736353001, began publishing 173 pieces of music on Soundcloud . The account was linked from Aphex Twin's Twitter account. Fan circles quickly agreed that the pieces were outtakes of his productions from the 1990s. Philip Sherburne wrote in an article for Pitchfork that "The trademarks of the productions are reminiscent of specific points in time in James' catalog ... you hear the same machines, the same processes, and most importantly, the same ideas - if it's not James, then a musician who is his equal in every way, and how likely is it that someone like that would go undetected for all these years? ” Mike Paradinas confirmed that some of the pieces were by James and that he would have played them for him years ago.

On May 6, 2015, the largest of these Soundcloud accounts with over 200 tracks was deleted without any explanation. Two days later, the tracks were uploaded again from the user18081971 account . The new username refers to James' birth date, August 18, 1971.

At the beginning of June 2016, James announced the Cheetah EP with a poster with seven partly new tracks, which was released on July 8, 2016.

In August 2018, James revealed with mysterious 3D posters in London's Elephant & Castle Underground Station that a new EP called Collapse would be released on September 14, 2018 . On August 7th, the first single T69 Collapse was released , accompanied by a music video by the animation artist Weirdcore. The radio station ByteFM called T69 Collapse a "familiar, brain-knotting piece of breakcore , in which dismembered drums and synthesizers spiral to dizzying heights".

Commercial win

Aphex Twin became known to a wider audience primarily through the unusual and sometimes disturbing music videos for " Windowlicker " and " Come to Daddy ", which were created in collaboration with director Chris Cunningham . Even before these releases, Aphex Twin was represented in the British charts several times, for example in 1992 with a re-release of his piece "Didgeridoo" and in 1993 with the single "On", which reached number 32 in the British charts. All in all, his publications on Warp Records had sold about a million times, according to Steve Beckett as of 2009. His other publications were often produced in small editions and thus remained relatively unknown, numerous songs were also respected successes in the electronica scene and some underground hits, without becoming known to a larger audience.

In 1999 Aphex Twin received the Prix ​​Ars Electronica in the digital musics category together with Chris Cunningham .

Pseudonyms

His stage name Aphex Twin refers to the company Aphex Systems (producer of effects devices). Several of James' publications contain the note "Aphex is a registered trademark of Aphex Systems Limited and is used by permission" in the liner notes . The second part of the pseudonym, the English term for a twin, is a reference to Richard's older brother of the same name. He died at birth in 1968. James' parents gave their second son the same name. James also publishes under numerous other pseudonyms:

Aphex twin logo
  • AFX
  • Caustic window
  • Polygon Window
  • Bradley Strider
  • The Dice Man (only for one piece)
  • GAK
  • Power pill
  • Q-Chastic
  • Soit-PP (only for one piece)
  • Blue Calx (only for one piece)
  • Analord
  • The Tuss (The Tuss is assigned to "James, Richard David" on the official BMI page)
  • user48736353001

Together with Mike Paradinas (µ-ziq) James released the album "Mike & Rich" in 1996 under the project name Mike & Rich . The album subtitle "Expert Knob Twiddlers" is occasionally and erroneously used as an album name.

Together with Mike Dred , he released various EPs and a compilation album on Rephlex Records from 1992 under the name Universal Indicator .

James' musical companions include Mike Paradinas and the musician Luke Vibert, who also grew up in Cornwall . Since the late 1990s, James has promoted the artists Tom Jenkinson ( Squarepusher ), Michael C. Cullen ( Mike Dred ) and Chris Jeffs ( Cylob ) on his Rephlex Records label . With Squarepusher he produced the track "Freeman Hardy & Willis Acid", which appeared on the warp compilation "wap100 - we are reasonable people". Some of James' early EPs and his debut album Selected Ambient Works 85-92 were released on the Belgian label R&S Records and its sub-label Apollo Records . He later moved to Warp Records . The album 26 Mixes for Cash , a compilation of older remixes, was released on Warp in 2003 and was to remain the last for eleven years. In the meantime, there has been speculation about a possible separation from the label. However, in late 2009, Warp Records confirmed the extension of the record deal with James.

Works

Albums

As an Aphex Twin

As a polygon window

  • Surfing on Sine Waves (1992)

As a caustic window

  • Caustic Window (1994, 16 untitled tracks)

As The Tuss

  • Rushup Edge (2007)

EPs

As an Aphex Twin

  • Didgeridoo (1992)
  • Xylem Tube (1992)
  • On (1993)
  • Ventolin (1995)
  • Donkey Rhubarb (1995)
  • Girl / Boy (1996)
  • Come to Daddy (1997)
  • Analogue Bubblebath 3 (re-release) (1999)
  • Windowlicker (1999)
  • Analord 10 (2005)
  • Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments pt2 (2015)
  • Cheetah (2016)
  • Collapse (2018)

As AFX

  • Analogue Bubblebath 1 (1991, re-release 1994)
  • Analogue Bubblebath 2 (1991)
  • Analogue Bubblebath 3 (1993, re-release as "Analogue Bubblebath 3.1" 1997, but different tracks and as "Analogue Bubblebath" 2LP 2002)
  • Analogue Bubblebath 4 (1994, re-release 2003)
  • Hangable Auto Bulb 1 (1995)
  • Hangable Auto Bulb 2 (1995)
  • 2 remixes (2001)
  • Smojphace (2003)
  • 4 Track EP Split EP with LFO (2005)
  • Analord 1 (2005)
  • Analord 2 (2005)
  • Analord 3 (2005)
  • Analord 4 (2005)
  • Analord 5 (2005)
  • Analord 6 (2005)
  • Analord 7 (2005)
  • Analord 8 (2005)
  • Analord 9 (2005)
  • Analord 11 (2005)
  • Orphaned Deejay Selek 2006-08 (2015)

As a caustic window

  • Joyrex 4 (1992)
  • Joyrex 5 (1992)
  • Joyrex 9 (1993)

As Bradley Strider

  • Bradley's Beat (1991, re-release 1995)
  • Bradley's Robot (1993)

As a polygon window

  • Quoth (1993)

As Q-Chastic

  • Q-Chastic (1992)

As a power pill

  • Pac Man (1992)

As GAK

  • GAK 1-4 (1994)

As The Tuss

  • Confederation Trough EP (2007)

Unofficial publications

As an Aphex Twin

  • Words & Music (1994) (press release with tracks from Selected Ambient Works Vol. II )
  • Melodies from Mars (1995) (unreleased album)

As AFX

  • Analogue Bubblebath 5 (1995) (unreleased album with nine tracks)
  • Remixes Vol.1 (2005) (unofficial vinyl version of the first half of the " 26 Mixes for Cash ")

Compilations / Remixes

As an Aphex Twin

  • On (Remixes) (1993)
  • Classics (1995, summary of the Xylem Tube EP, Didgeridoo EP, two remixes for Mescalinum United plus "Analogue Bubblebath" (Analogue Bubblebath 1 EP) and "Metapharstic")
  • Ventolin (Remixes) (1995)
  • 51/13 Aphex Singles Collection (1996, compilation of EPs Ventolin, Ventolin Remixes, On and Donkey Rhubarb)
  • 26 Mixes for Cash (2003) (Remixes)

As AFX

  • Hangable Autobulb (2006, summary of the "Hangable Auto Bulb" EPs)
  • Chosen Lords (2006, compilation of some tracks from the "Analord" EPs)

As a caustic window

  • Caustic Window Compilation (1998, re-release of 3 Joyrex EPs)

Music videos

  • Ageispolis (1992)
  • On (1993, directed by Jarvis Cocker , Martin Wallace)
  • Polygon Window (1994, directed by Phil Wolstenhome)
  • Stakker Westworld (1995, directed by Stakker) (unofficial video project with music from the album Selected Ambient Works Vol. II )
  • Donkey Rhubarb (1995, directed by David Slade )
  • Ventolin (1995, directed by Steve Doughton, Gavin Wilson)
  • Come to Daddy (1997, directed by Chris Cunningham )
  • Windowlicker (1999, directed by Chris Cunningham )
  • Vordhosbn (2001, directed by Vincent Bitaud)
  • Milkman (2001, directed by César Ducasse)
  • Nannou (2004, directed by Laurent Brient )
  • CIRKLON3 [Колхозная mix] (2016, directed by Ryan Wyer)
  • T69 Collapse (2018, directed by Weirdcore)

Several of the videos mentioned above have also been released on DVD or VHS:

  • Come to Viddy (On, Donkey Rhubarb, Come to Daddy), VHS (1997)
  • The Work Of Director Chris Cunningham (Come to Daddy, Windowlicker, Monkey Drummer) (2003)
  • WarpVision . The Videos 1989–2004 (Windowlicker, On, Come to Daddy, Donkey Rhubarb, Nannou) (2004)
  • Chris Cunningham - Rubber Johnny (2005)

literature

  • Rob Young: Warp . Black Dog Publishing Ltd., London 2005, ISBN 1-904772-32-3 (Series: Labels Unlimited ).

Web links

Commons : Aphex Twin  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Chart sources: DE UK1 UK2 UK3
  2. ↑ Music Sales Awards: UK
  3. ↑ Aphex Twin , article by John O'Connell in The Face , October 2001
  4. ↑ a b c d From the Vaults: An interview with Aphex Twin at electronicbeats.net, accessed June 15, 2016
  5. ↑ a b Video: New track from the Aphex Twin at DeBug.de , accessed on August 30, 2010
  6. ↑ a b Aphex Twin on New 'Syro' LP: 'I'm Feeling Really Horny About It - and Very Smug' at rollingstone.com, accessed September 4, 2014
  7. ↑ Spex October 2014, page 26: Aphex Twin: A Backup for Millions
  8. ↑ Well-tempered shudder: Aphex Twin has soldered again by Aram Lintzel in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of October 22, 2001, accessed on January 10, 2011
  9. ↑ Aphex Twin by John O'Connell in The Face Magazine, October Issue 2001, accessed January 10, 2011
  10. ^ Karlheinz Stockhausen. Advice to clever children, article in The Wire , November 1995, issue 151, pp. 32-35
  11. ↑ The Face of Aphex Twin - Overview of the images embedded in Windowlicker ( Memento from June 1, 2002 in the Internet Archive )
  12. ↑ Hey, Who's That Face in My Song? Article in Wired on May 10, 2002
  13. ↑ One of the images produced with the Spectrogram ( Memento from April 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  14. ↑ Frontpage 11/96, p. 28
  15. ^ Translation by the author. English Original: I never wanted to big up any drugs, because I don't reckon they deserve it. It's just something that you choose to do. I probably come across as, like, 'Yeah, acid and weed are amazing.' But I don't think that at all, really. And if I did, I wouldn't want to say it in an interview. Plus, I'm never under the influence of drugs when I make music. Whenever I have been, it's always been totally rubbish. It's a real disciplined thing, making music. When you're tripping, you're just fucked. You could never get it together to make a track. When I'm stoned, I go to bed.
  16. ^ The Friday interview: Tank boy at guardian.co.uk, accessed August 30, 2010
  17. ↑ Now listen to the unpublished »Caustic Window« album at intro.de, accessed on June 30, 2014
  18. ↑ CAT023 Caustic Window - Own The Legendary Record by RDJ! at kickstarter.com, accessed June 30, 2014
  19. ↑ Minecraft inventor buys test pressing for $ 46,300 ( memento from June 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) at intro.de, accessed on June 30, 2014
  20. ↑ Aphex Twin Announces New Album SYRO Via the Deep Web at pitchfork.com, accessed August 22, 2014
  21. ↑ Twin on Twitter: t.co/dVY3ZILJKE
  22. ↑ Philip Sherburne: If This Aphex Twin Archive Is Fake, We Don't Want to Know What Real Is . Pitchfork Media. January 27, 2015. Accessed January 31, 2015.
  23. ↑ Aphex Twin - Cheetah EP at warp.net, accessed June 15, 2016
  24. ↑ Is Aphex Twin releasing new music or a synth? at musicradar.com, accessed June 15, 2016
  25. ↑ Aphex Twin ends guessing game and releases new video for "T69 Collapse" - ByteFM Blog. Retrieved on August 20, 2018 (German).
  26. ^ Dave Simpson: Bleep of faith: 20 years of Warp records . In: theguardian.com of April 17, 2009.
  27. ↑ BMI directory entry for The Tuss - Alspacka
  28. ↑ Mike & Rich - Mike & Rich , article on Discogs.com Version of April 14, 2009, quoted by Mike Paradinas
  29. ↑ Orphaned Deejay Selek 2006-08 on Warp Records . Retrieved March 2, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Aphex Twin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES James, Richard David (real name); AFX; Caustic window; Polygon Window
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British musician and DJ
DATE OF BIRTH 18th August 1971
PLACE OF BIRTH Limerick , Ireland