James was raised in Cornwall and began DJing at free parties and clubs around the South West in the late 1980s. His debut EP Analogue Bubblebath, released in 1991 on Mighty Force Records, brought James an early following; he began to perform across the UK and continental Europe. James co-founded the independent label Rephlex Records the same year.
His 1992 debut album Selected Ambient Works 85โ92, released by Belgian label Apollo, garnered wider critical and popular acclaim. James signed to Warp in late 1992 and subsequently released a sequel, Selected Ambient Works Volume II, the Richard D. James Album (1996), and Top 40 singles such as "Come to Daddy" (1997) and "Windowlicker" (1999); the latter two were accompanied by music videos directed by Chris Cunningham and brought James wider international attention.
After releasing Drukqs in 2001 and completing his contract with Warp, James spent several years releasing music on his own Rephlex label, including the 2005 Analord EP series under his AFX alias and a pair of 2007 releases as the Tuss. In 2014 he made available a previously unreleased 1994 LP as Caustic Window.
He returned later that year with the Aphex Twin album Syro on Warp, winning the Grammy Award for Best Dance/Electronic Album. He has since released charting EPs including Cheetah (2016) and Collapse (2018). His 2023 single "Blackbox Life Recorder 21f" was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Dance/Electronic Recording. Since 2015 he has been sporadically releasing music on SoundCloud.
Early life
James was born on 18 August 1971 in Limerick, Ireland, to Welsh parents. He has said that he had a stillborn older brother, also named Richard, and was later given the same name. In a 1997 interview, James said his brother had died in Canada in 1968, where his parents had moved for his father's mining work, and that his mother kept the name because she could not accept the death.
James was raised in Cornwall, living in Lanner and attending Redruth School in Redruth. He later described Cornwall as isolated from cities, a quality he said he enjoyed. Before writing music, he became interested in making sounds: as a child he played with the strings inside the family piano, experimented with tape recorders, and later began modifying electronic equipment.
In a 2001 interview, James said that when he was 11 he won ยฃ50 in a competition for producing sound on a Sinclair ZX81, a home computer with no dedicated sound hardware. Fact questioned this story in 2017, citing a similar program published in Your Computer Magazine in 1982 under the name G. N. Owen, for which the author was paid ยฃ6.
James bought his first synthesizer at age 12 and began making music at age 14. Cornwall had few record shops, but acid house was popular in its nightlife; James later said he had been making music similar to acid and techno before encountering the genres and then sought out records in those styles. He studied at Cornwall College from 1988 to 1990, graduating with a National Diploma in engineering.
One of his lecturers recalled that James often wore headphones during practical lessons and already had a "kind of mystique" among other students.
Career
1988โ1991: Cornish free parties, Rephlex Records and first releases
In the late 1980s, James became involved in the Cornish free party scene, putting on raves at "secret coves along the coast and behind sand dunes". The first party he DJed at was in a barn in 1988. Parties were also known to take place at Gwennap Pit. They mainly attracted local youths and travellers, with entrance donations taken in cannabis.
The community also held events at small clubs in towns around the county, including St. Ives, Porthtowan, and St Austell. James later referred to this scene as the "best he's ever been involved in".
James started a regular DJ slot in 1989, playing alternate weeks at the Bowgie nightclub in Crantock. There he met Tom Middleton and Grant Wilson-Claridge. James incorporated his own tracks, recorded on tape, into his DJ sets. Impressed by James's music, Middleton played a tape James had given him to a free party organiser in Exeter, Mark Darby, who eventually convinced James to release a record on his fledgling record label Mighty Force Records.
James was initially resistant, but while he was tripping on acid backstage at a DJ gig, Darby and Middleton convinced him to release the record. Darby later said: "I think if he had not done that trip that night there may have never been any Aphex Twin." James has given a similar account: "...they made me sign the contract when I was off my face.
I was tripping and they're waving this money and a pen at me. It's a bit clichรฉd but it's the way they got me to sign." Similarly impressed by James's music, Wilson-Claridge suggested they use some money he inherited to create a record label to release it. He and James founded Rephlex Records in 1991.
James's first release was the 12" EP Analogue Bubblebath, released on Mighty Force in September 1991. The EP made the playlist of Kiss FM, an influential London radio station, giving it wide exposure in the dance music scene. In 2015 The Guardian called the release one of the key moments in the history of dance music.
The record caught the ear of Renaat Vandepapeliere, the head of R&S Records, at that time one of the leading European rave labels. James visited him in Belgium, bringing a box full of cassettes of his music. From these cassettes they picked out tracks for two records, including James's first album Selected Ambient Works 85-92.
In 1992, as word of his 12" records spread, James started performing at London techno events like the formative club Knowledge, held at the SW1 nightclub in London's Victoria, and the influential night Lost.
Through 1991 and 1992 James released three Analogue Bubblebath EPs, two EPs as Caustic Window, the Red EP as part of the Universal Indicator collective, along with the Digeridoo and Xylem Tube EPs on the R&S label. Although he moved to London to take an electronics course at Kingston Polytechnic, he admitted to David Toop that his electronics studies were slipping away as he pursued a career in electronic music.
1992โ1994: Selected Ambient Works and early success
The first full-length Aphex Twin album, Selected Ambient Works 85โ92, comprised material dating back to James's teen years. It was released in November 1992 by Apollo Records, a subsidiary of Belgian label R&S. John Bush of Allmusic would later describe the release as a watershed moment in ambient music. In a 2002 Rolling Stone record review Pat Blashill noted that Aphex Twin had "expanded way beyond the ambient music of Brian Eno by fusing lush soundscapes with oceanic beats and bass lines," demonstrating that "techno could be more than druggy dance music".
Writing for Pitchfork in 2002, David Pecoraro called it "among the most interesting music ever created with a keyboard and a computer". DJ Mag's Ben Murphy named it "a seminal record in the IDM, ambient and experimental canon".
In 1992 James also released the EPs Digeridoo and Xylem Tube EP as Aphex Twin, the Pac-Man EP (an album of remixes of Pac-Man music) as Power-Pill, two of his four Joyrex EPs (Joyrex J4 EP and Joyrex J5 EP) as Caustic Window, and Analogue Bubblebath 3. "Digeridoo" reached No. 55 on the UK Singles Chart, and was later described by Rolling Stone as foreshadowing drum and bass.
That year, he also appeared as the Dice Man on the Warp Records compilation Artificial Intelligence with the track "Polygon Window". The compilation helped create the genre later known as "intelligent dance music", and helped launch James's career alongside Autechre and Richie Hawtin. As Polygon Window, in 1993, James released his first records on Warp: Surfing on Sine Waves (the second in the Artificial Intelligence series) and the EP Quoth.
Later that year he released the EP On, which entered the top 40 on the UK chart. Rephlex also released an EP by James under the alias Bradley Strider, Bradley's Robot, and two more Caustic Window records.[citation needed]
James was part of several tours in 1993. He supported the Orb on several dates, and joined the "Midi Circus" tour at venues across the UK, co-headlining with Orbital, the Orb, and Drum Club. Later in the year, he was part of the NASA "See the Light" tour with Orbital, Moby, and Vapourspace at venues across the United States.
Warp released the second Aphex Twin album, Selected Ambient Works Volume II, in March 1994. It explored a more ambient sound, inspired by lucid dreams and James's experience of synaesthesia. It reached number 11 in the UK chart, but was not particularly well received critically; critic Simon Reynolds later noted that "many in the Aphex cult were thrown for a loop" and that "Aphex aficionados remain divided".
Other 1994 releases were a fourth Analogue Bubblebath, GAK (derived from early demos sent to Warp), and Classics a compilation album.
1995โ2000: ...I Care Because You Do, Richard D. James Album and Come to Daddy
For his charting 1995 album ...I Care Because You Do, composed between 1990 and 1994 in a range of styles, James used a self-portrait of his face for the cover, which became a motif on his later releases. He commissioned Western classical-music composer Philip Glass to create an orchestral version of the ...I Care Because You Do track "Icct Hedral", which appeared on the Donkey Rhubarb EP.
In the same year, James released his Hangable Auto Bulb EP under the name AFX, which spearheaded the short-lived drill 'n' bass style. This rapid, computer-based drum programming style would become the dominant approach of James's work through the end of the decade. In 1996, James and Michael Paradinas (ฮผ-Ziq) collaborated for the album Expert Knob Twiddlers under the one-off side project Mike & Rich, which was released by James' Rephlex label.
Richard D. James Album, James's fourth studio album as Aphex Twin, was released on Warp in 1996. It features software synthesisers and unconventional rhythms. Will Hermes of Spin discussed James's use of jungle elements, writing that "by applying junglist strategies to his own obsessive sound creation - his gorgeous weirdo palette of modernist strings, whirring crib toys, and agitated machines - he remakes drum'n'bass in his own image".
In a Pitchfork list of the best albums of the 1990s, Eric Carr wrote that Richard D. James Album demonstrated "aggressive combinations of disparate electronic forms", with an "almost-brutal contrast between its elements" that has ensured its relevance. In 2003 NME named it the 55th greatest album of all time, and in 2009 Pitchfork named it the 40th greatest album of the 1990s.
James garnered attention the following year after the release of his charting Come to Daddy EP. The title track was conceived as a death metal parody. Accompanied with a successful music video directed by Chris Cunningham, James became disenchanted by its success: "This little idea that I had, which was a joke, turned into something huge.
It wasn't right at all." It was followed by "Windowlicker", a charting single promoted with another Cunningham music video, nominated for the Brit Award for Best British Video in 2000.
2001โ2009: Drukqs, Analord and the Tuss
In 2001 Aphex Twin released Drukqs, an experimental double album featuring abrasive, meticulous programming and computer-controlled piano influenced by Erik Satie and John Cage. It features the piano composition "Avril 14th", which remains perhaps James' best known work. The album polarised reviewers. James told interviewers he had accidentally left an MP3 player with new tracks on a plane, and had rushed the album release to preempt an internet leak.
In 2001 James also released a short EP, 2 Remixes By AFX, with remixes of songs by 808 State and DJ Pierre. It also had an untitled third track, consisting of a SSTV image with high-pitched sounds which can be decoded to a viewable image with appropriate software. In 2002 James was nominated for the Brit Award for Best British Male. In 2003 Warp released 26 Mixes for Cash, collecting many of James's remixes for other artists.
In 2005 James released a series of vinyl EPs under the AFX name, Analord, created entirely with analogue equipment. These were followed in 2006 by a compilation album of Analord tracks, Chosen Lords. In 2007 James released two records on Rephlex, Confederation Trough and Rushup Edge, under the alias the Tuss, Cornish slang for "erection". Media sources speculated about James's involvement, but his identity was not confirmed until 2014.
In 2009 Rephlex Records released digital versions (in the FLAC file format) of the 11 Analord EPs. Each of them (except for Analord 10) had bonus tracks, totalling 81 minutes of new music between them all.[citation needed] Richard later disbanded Rephlex Records and gave up on the website.
This same year, James began working with the visual artist Weirdcore for graphics for his live shows, debuting at Bloc Festival in Minehead. Weirdcore has continued to work with James on live graphics and music videos.
In 2010 James said he had completed six new albums, including a new version of the unreleased Melodies from Mars. In September 2011 he performed a live tribute to the Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki; he performed his remix of Penderecki's "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima" and a version of "Polymorphia". The following month, he performed at the Paris Pitchfork Music Festival.
2014โpresent: Caustic Window, Syro, and return as Aphex Twin
In 2014 a test pressing of a 1994 album recorded under James's pseudonym Caustic Window appeared for sale on Discogs. The album was once intended for sale on James's label Rephlex, but went unreleased. With the consent of James and Rephlex, fans organised a Kickstarter campaign to purchase the record and distribute copies.
Syro, the first album released under the Aphex Twin name since Drukqs in 2001, was released through Warp on 23 September 2014. It was marketed by a teaser campaign including graffiti, a blimp flown over London, and an announcement made via a .onion address accessible through the darknet browser Tor.
In November 2014 James released a set of 21 tracks, Modular Trax, on the audio platform SoundCloud. The tracks were later removed. Over several months in 2015 James anonymously uploaded 230 demo tracks, some dating to the 1980s, to SoundCloud. He said he had released the demos to relieve his family of the pressure to release his archives after he dies. He has continued to occasionally release tracks on the account.
On 23 January 2015 James released Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments pt2, created with robotic instruments including the Disklavier, a computer-controlled player piano. On 8 July 2016 he released the Cheetah EP, backed by a music video for "CIRKLON3 [ะะพะปั ะพะทะฝะฐั mix]", the first official music video for an Aphex Twin track in 17 years.
On 17 December, James performed in Houston, Texas at the Day for Night festival, his first American appearance in eight years. A 12-inch vinyl was sold exclusively at the festival, containing two 10-minute tracks, entitled Houston, TX 12.17.16 [Day For Night]. On 3 June 2017 James performed at the Field Day festival and released a limited edition EP, London 03.06.17.
The performance was livestreamed on NTS Radio's Youtube channel. On 19 June 2017 a Michigan record store sold an exclusive Aphex Twin record comprising two tracks released on SoundCloud in 2015, entitled 3 Gerald Remix / 24 TSIM 2. On 27 July, Aphex Twin opened an online store with expanded versions of previous albums and new tracks. On 29 July, at the Fuji Rock Festival, a tape limited to 500 copies was released.
Aphex Twin released an EP, Collapse, on 14 September 2018. The EP was announced on 5 August in a garbled press release written in broken English and visually distorted with the same Aphex Twin 3D graphic found in London, Turin, and Hollywood. A promotional video for the Collapse EP was to be broadcast on Adult Swim, but was cancelled after failing the Harding test. It was made available online instead, and the video for "T69 Collapse" was uploaded to YouTube.
During James' September 2019 tour two 12-inch records were released at performances at Printworks, London, and Warehouse Project, Manchester, entitled "London" and "Manchester" on James' warp.net site. Official recordings of the sets were released on 15 September and 26 December 2019 on Youtube.
Speculations of James's return started after a mysterious website featuring the Aphex Twin logo inside of the word "London" was discovered by fans. Its title alluded to 19 August 2023, the same day that the Field Day festival takes place on in London, teasing a possible performance. His return was confirmed on 24 January 2023, when Aphex Twin was announced as a headliner for the festival.
Over the next few weeks, several other performances were announced for Europe. At a performance at Sรณnar on 16 June, an exclusive 12-inch vinyl was released entitled Barcelona 16.06.23. During this festival, large QR code displays with Aphex Twin branding were spotted. This, coupled with posters found in Los Angeles, led to the discovery of an augmented reality app named YXBoZXh0d2lu.
It was created to tease James' upcoming EP. On 21 June James announced the EP Blackbox Life Recorder 21f / In a Room7 F760, which was released on 28 July 2023.
After the release of the EP, the app was updated again. Using the app to scan the front cover, inner sleeves, trifold insert, and vinyl label of Blackbox Life Recorder 21f / In a Room7 F760 reveals a variety of artwork and visuals, such as a 3D version of the cover, and makes the EP's songs playable in the app.
On 19 August, James performed at Field Day and released another exclusive vinyl EP, London 19.08.2023. NTS Radio released a 360-degree video recording of the set on 27 August. On 2 September, at a performance at Forwards Bristol, a cassette combining the Barcelona and London releases was released, Bristol 02.09.23.[citation needed]
On 18 June 2024, James announced an expanded edition of Selected Ambient Works Volume II would be released later in the year. The re-issue was confirmed to be releasing on digital, triple CD, 4xLP standard and box set editions and double cassette formats. This re-issue included two bonus tracks, "th1 [evnslower]" and "Rhubarb Orc. 19.53 Rev", as well as the 19th track being released on all formats.
The tracks were gradually released onto streaming platforms, with "No. 19" releasing on the day of the announcement, "th1 [evnslower]" releasing on 4 September 2024 and "Rhubarb Orc. 19.53 Rev" being released on 2 October 2024. Selected Ambient Works Volume II (Expanded Edition) officially released on 4 October 2024.
On 17 December 2024 a compilation album featuring a variety of music exclusively released during James' live performances was released without announcement, titled Music from the Merch Desk (2016โ2023).
