There's no one else really like Aphex Twin. Sure, there are plenty of people (including Radiohead, these days) who sound like Richard D. James, or want to. But there's no one else really like him. Aphex Twin is melody and chaos, usually at the same time. His music isn't strictly electronica, and it's not strictly ambient either. You could dance to it, I suppose, but if you attempted to follow any of the rhythms you'd end up in a hideous twisted heap on the floor.

So, what is it, then? Well, it's music. It's got hooks, choruses, melodies, chord progressions and that bit where it goes 'nnnggghhhCHANKCHANKCHANK', whatever the hell that is. It's also having a bit of a laugh, while being completely serious on a different level.
 

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Richard D James Album (1996 Warp)
You have to question the sanity of anyone who makes a record sleeve mostly out of cut-up pictures of their own face. Still, as far as sleeves go, this one gives a pretty good impression of the record; amusing, organic and faintly queasy. Though it's the disjointed, almost random, beats that the Aphex Twin is most famous for, he also has his grubby fingers in many other pies; always, he's not just concerned with the destruction of sound but the creation of melodies as well.

Opening track '4' might have some Aphex Patent-Applied-For breaks, but it also has a vaguely orchestral melody and a sample of Richard saying, 'Yep'. It's not exactly gentle, but it isn't the kind of racket you might expect from having listened only to 'Come to Daddy' or 'Windowlicker'. At around 2:15, 'Cornish Acid' isn't a particularly short track, but its squelching melody and thumping irregular beats make up this. 'Peek 8245 45201' sounds like the music your modem would listen to, yet is perfectly listenable to humans. At 3 minutes it's almost long, for this record. 'Corn Mouth' is like superfast drum 'n' bass, only with the treble turned up all the way; at least until a squelchy baseline insinuates itself. There isn't another word so descriptive of Aphex Twin's music as 'squelchy.'

The second side starts with 'To Cure a Weakling Child', a faintly sinister childish nursery-rhyme jammed together with beats which sound like a drum machine falling down a very tall hill. 'Goon Gumpas' settles into a gentle orchestral groove with a sublime bassline for all of 2 minutes. 'Yellow Calx' is perhaps the most recognizably House track, although it remains resolutely unstraighforward. 'Girl/Boy Song' picks up where 'Goon Gumpas' left off, only this time the orchestra is invaded by the Richard D. James convulsing electronic rhythm quartet to excellent effect. 'Logon-Fock Witch' (at least I think that's what it says) ends the record on a truly bizarre but completely musical note, proving once and for all that the Jew's Harp does have a place in modern popular music.

Though, at 32 minutes long, this record is shorter than I would have liked, because Aphex Twin manages to pack a whole album's worth of material into every 2 minutes, it doesn't have the feel of an EP but rather of a fully-realized album.

But that aside, this record is brilliant. If ever there was something that shouldn't work, then this is it. There's not much else which is so complex, so simple, so various and so listenworthy as Aphex Twin.
 

#LINKS#
AphexTwin.nu
My favourite Aphex site. Up-to-the-minute news, complete discography. Everything, basically.
Aphex Start
Excellent and reasonably up-do-date Aphex site.
Aphex Twin Discography
All his records, even the obscure ones.
Joyrex: The Aphex Twin Information Datebase
A great news site, but nothing else seems to be working.
 

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