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A majority of his output has been released on Warp records, the Sheffield label which has given us Autechre, LFO, Sweet Excorsist, Nightmares On Wax, Pulp (in their early days) and more recently !!! and Maximo Park. Aphex Twin has never troubled the charts, and could never be described as 'mainstream', but his work has gained an international following. He has been producing music for 20 years and there are many albums containing music which spans from early ambient and rave-influenced tracks through to more recent drum n bass and pastoral pieces. So, where do you start? Well, a good "My First Aphex Twin" album is 'Druqks'...on Warp. This double CD is probably archetypal Aphex Twin, it constantly contradicts itself; twisting and turning to defy classification. The longer tracks, such as "54 Cymru Beats" and "Vordhosbn" are a melange of breakneck drum n bass, acid house and electronic experimentation...atonal and rhythmically complex. They make your blood boil and your heart beat faster. Weird voices chatter in the background at times, synth pads form a rough melody, and drums skip in and out, reversing then charging headlong into impossible dance music. In between these are tracks such as the wonderful "Avril14": music for solo piano, this track changes your mood and your expectations completely. A jaunty, haunting piece of music which brings to mind the proto-ambient/jazz noodlings of Keith Jarrett. There are other pieces like this one, most notably "Nanou2", which imbue the album with a melancholic air which, hitherto this, would not have been associated with Richard James. The album is a journey (as all good albums are) and it encompasses influences as far reaching as Detroit techno, drum n bass, jazz and John Cage or Stockhausen. Next up....go for 'Classics' on R&S Records. This is a collection of Aphex's early techno, and features an early... er .....classic, "Didgeridoo". This does what it says on the tin; an electronic didgeridoo sound pounds on, modulating and fading, then swelling again, forming the bassline of the track. A heavy breakbeat clips in and the track is underway. This is some of James' most accesible, danceable music. Other tracks of note are "Polynomial - C" (Phillip Glass meets Kraftwerk...he wears his influences on his sleeve here) and "Analogue Bubblebath", a left-of-centre ambient dance track with an insistent chord progression. Then....move onto "Selected Ambient Works....". There are two volumes of this, "1985-92" (on Apollo records) and "Vol 2" (on Warp). Finally, I'll just mention three other albums, not in great length, but they're worth checking out. " I Care Because You Do" (on Warp....it contains the awesome "Icct Hedral", which was later remixed by Phillip Glass); "Come To Daddy" (a very scary EP on Warp) and "26 Mixes For Cash". This last album is a 2 CD set of Richard James' remix work, and it contains a list of tracks which are eclectic, to say the least; ranging as they do from Nine Inch Nails to Gavin Bryars. The best track being one of the Aphex Twins' own: "Remix". This is all a long winded way of saying, "The Aphex Twin...he's great, he is"...but if you've got ANY interest in electronic music, or you're just getting bored of "Chilled Ibiza" compilations, etc...then check out this obsessive Cornishman.
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