Aphex Twin

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Essential Albums

  • Drukqs
    Drukqs

    2001

  • Come to Daddy
    Come to Daddy

    The year 1997 was electronic music’s global breakout moment. The Chemical Brothers, The Prodigy, and Fatboy Slim all released landmark albums, spreading UK rave—nearly a decade after those first all-nighters in muddy fields—to a stateside audience. Daft Punk dropped their first LP, inaugurating the French Touch; Moodymann made his album debut too, proving Detroit still had plenty of gas left in the tank. And then there was Aphex Twin, whose Come to Daddy shredded every last page in the electronic rulebook. It tossed acid, jungle, and ambient house into a blender and hit “puree”; the album was by turns noisy, confrontational, gleefully tongue-in-cheek, and heartbreakingly beautiful. Savvy, too: At precisely the moment that once-“faceless” electronic music was generating genuine superstars, Richard D. James spoofed underground pieties and overground celebrity alike with an ingenious, Chris Cunningham-directed video for its title track that turned James and his leering visage into an unlikely icon—electronic music’s first real alternative hero. James had been at it since 1991, entrancing ravers with hits like “Digeridoo” and expanding the possibilities of IDM (or as he called it, “braindance”) with 1995’s …I Care Because You Do and 1996’s Richard D. James Album. But rather than following up with a “mature” take on his sound, Come to Daddy threw down the gauntlet with the “Pappy Mix” of its title track, mashing up drum ’n’ bass breaks with industrial sonics and the refrain “I will eat your soul,” delivered with almost cartoonish malevolence. Two additional mixes of the same song offer contrasting takes—one politer, one far weirder—but it’s the EP’s deep cuts that truly shine. The rubbery syncopations of “Bucephalus Bouncing Ball” remain among the best examples of James’ programming nous, polyrhythms bending and flexing like a Swiss wristwatch in an industrial vise; “Flim,” one of the sweetest songs in James’ catalog, dusts the frantic grooves of drill ’n’ bass with sunshine and powdered sugar. In 2011, Skrillex cited “Flim” as his favorite song of all time—proof of Come to Daddy’s continued power to surprise.

  • Richard D. James Album
    Richard D. James Album

    1996

  • Selected Ambient Works, Vol. II
    Selected Ambient Works, Vol. II

    Aphex Twin, a.k.a. Richard D. James, introduced himself to the world with a head fake. From its title, his debut album, 1992’s Selected Ambient Works 85-92, looked like a best-of collection—hardly what you’d expect from a newcomer. Two years later, the follow-up maintained the ruse: None of its 20-odd tracks (the precise number differed according to format and country) had been previously released save for “Blue Calx,” which first appeared on a 1992 compilation. But Selected Ambient Works Vol. 2 was more straightforward than its predecessor in one crucial way. Where Aphex Twin’s debut mostly showcased ethereal techno and breakbeat house, SAW 2 zeroed in on the purist essence of ambient music, much as Brian Eno had established it 16 years earlier: beatless, mysterious, and as ineffable as a beam of sunlight. James, cryptic as always, claimed he had recorded much of the album by practicing lucid dreaming—making music in a semiconscious state, essentially—and it’s not hard to believe, given the music’s hazy, otherworldly tones. Detuned synthesizers clink like melting wind chimes; wordless voices droop like wilting flowers, halfway between a lullaby and a sigh. The childlike quality of Aphex Twin’s albums from later in the decade here manifests itself as the spookiest sort of melancholy, suggesting haunted dollhouses in the cobwebbed attics of houses where nobody has lived for a long, long time. In contrast to much of the contemporaneous ambient music that soundtracked the era’s chillout rooms, SAW 2 has little interest in kitsch, exotica, futurist fantasies, or virtually any kind of communal experience: It’s private music that feels like floating in space, far from any human contact. Yet that chilliness, that sense of isolation, and that very unknowability are exactly what have kept fans transfixed for decades.

  • Selected Ambient Works 85-92
    Selected Ambient Works 85-92

    1992

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About Aphex Twin

Aphex Twin is one of many pseudonyms used by Richard D. James, the wildly eclectic and innovative British composer, DJ, and producer who revolutionized electronic music in the ’90s with his complex—at times abrasive—instrumental creations. • James grew up in the countryside of Cornwall, where he first grew fascinated with the mechanics of sound creation. He’d deconstruct and modify synthesizers and mess with the strings inside of pianos. • He cultivated a passion for raves through the ’80s, organizing local Cornish events along the coast or in clandestine club locales where the price of entry was often cannabis. • The artist’s 1992 debut album, Selected Ambient Works 85–92 is regarded as a landmark achievement in electronic music meant for contemplative listening. • Inspired by lucid dreaming, his 1994 album Selected Ambient Works Volume II peaked just outside the Top 10 on the UK charts. • His widely popular 1999 single “Windowlicker”—accompanied by a characteristically absurd, fever-dream–style music video—cracked the Top 20 of the UK charts. • James released the 2001 album drukQs after he left an mp3 player filled with unreleased tracks on an airplane. He figured the songs would soon be leaked, so he released them. • Over the next decade, he released material under the aliases AFX and Tuss. • In 2014, James released Syro, his first album under the Aphex Twin name in 14 years. It reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart and No. 8 on the UK pop albums tally. The LP also won a Grammy for Best Dance/Electronica Album. • Sticking with the Aphex Twin moniker, James returned to summit of Billboard’s Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart with his subsequent EPs Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments pt2 (2015) and Cheetah (2016). • Aphex Twin music is often described as intelligent dance music, or IDM—a term that James has rejected.

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