7\ de Aphex Twin thread. 7\
- Thread starter isnieZot
- Start date
sander
_
Op 1 of andere manier klopt die gear list niet. 
INLAND EMPIRE
Ouwe rot
- Lid sinds
- 11 juni 2005
- Berichten
- 980
Het is een raar melancholisch figuur... die Richard.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-RxCSbpsRs&search=aphex twin
nick nova
Resonator
Origineel geplaatst door 6 trak
E-15 veel loiker
Idd! Ik heb er ook één!
Alleen is de adapter kapot
nick nova
Resonator
Ik lag me trouwens vroeger kapot te kwijlen op Simone.
ya afx is idd een fenix-freak:
..op http://www.datasynthi.com/dutchsynths/fenix/users/rj.html
z'n set op het melt festival een paar dagen geleden was weer 'ns aardig twisted, met al die panisch rondrijdende mensen in rolstoelen op 't podium en hijzelf achter een laptopje 'platen' aan het mixen in traktor.. klein stukje video hierzo: http://youtube.com/watch?v=k1NFCGRKHpc&search=afx
..op http://www.datasynthi.com/dutchsynths/fenix/users/rj.html
z'n set op het melt festival een paar dagen geleden was weer 'ns aardig twisted, met al die panisch rondrijdende mensen in rolstoelen op 't podium en hijzelf achter een laptopje 'platen' aan het mixen in traktor.. klein stukje video hierzo: http://youtube.com/watch?v=k1NFCGRKHpc&search=afx
krachtwerk
Ouwe rot
kratarknathrak
All hail the dark lord!
De eerlijkheid gezegd vind ik dat na 94 zijn werk wel erg wisselvallig wordt. Het werk daarvoor is erg goed, met SAW en Surfing on sine waves als toppers.
Die analords CD heb ik wel gekocht, maar die valt me dik tegen. Ik heb de indruk dat dat een beetje freewheelen in de studio was, met wat matige tracks tot gevolg. Met als argument om dit uit te brengen: "Mijn fans kopen het toch wel". Mjah, ik denk dat meneer D. James echt wel over zijn hoogtepunt heen is. Ik heb het wel een beetje met hem gehad. Geef mij maar Boards of Canada, Lusine icl of Plaid.
Die analords CD heb ik wel gekocht, maar die valt me dik tegen. Ik heb de indruk dat dat een beetje freewheelen in de studio was, met wat matige tracks tot gevolg. Met als argument om dit uit te brengen: "Mijn fans kopen het toch wel". Mjah, ik denk dat meneer D. James echt wel over zijn hoogtepunt heen is. Ik heb het wel een beetje met hem gehad. Geef mij maar Boards of Canada, Lusine icl of Plaid.
MonoTron
Initiating Sequence..
Weet iemand toevallig dat interview in FM177 op het net te vinden? Ik ben aan het rondzoeken, maar vind het niet.
Eventueel een pdf, jpeg of wat dan ook voldoet ook!
Het schijnt dat ie in het interview lekker irritant bezig is tegen de mannen van FM
Eventueel een pdf, jpeg of wat dan ook voldoet ook!
Het schijnt dat ie in het interview lekker irritant bezig is tegen de mannen van FM
MonoTron
Initiating Sequence..
Dit is al een ouder interview waar ie ook lekker irri is jaah.
Maar als het goed is is ie tegen de FM nog vervelender.
Maar als het goed is is ie tegen de FM nog vervelender.
krachtwerk
Ouwe rot
niet die van fm maar gewoon leesvoer voor de freaks
Still Hacking After All These Years by Greg Rule
He's one of the most brilliant (and bizarre) electronic music makers on the planet. But how in the world does Richard "Aphex Twin" James find time to record, tour, and build his own instruments? Filter boxes, drum machines, custom keyboard modifications, and even a sampler." there isn't much he hasn't tried. "When it worked," he said of the latter in May 1994, "I reckon it pissed on just about any manufactured sampler. " And nearly three years later, we're happy to report he hasn't changed a bit. Richard is still a tinkering maniac, but now his focus has shifted from hardware to software. "I've got three Macs," he tells us, "two laptops and a PowerPC. I use all the sequencers on the market, but at the moment I've been solely using my own program to create new algorithms." Not with Opcode's Max. He's been building the algorithms from scratch. "It's like using a programming language—a bit like Pascal. I've been doing it for about three months, so it's all quite primitive, but it's looking really interesting. This language-you can bring in your own samples and mess around with them. And it's got DSP functions you can't get anywhere else, but you have to program it in. There're no fancy sliders, although they're easy to construct. I've made loads of graphical interfaces for things. "The algorithm I just finished," he continues, "is a percussion thing that lets you swap and change the sounds. It does bass as well, but it's really acidy. You can leave it on for, like, an hour, and it really comes up with some mad shit. I made it learn to gradually change [the music] over time."
While he doesn't plan to market his software, he has been showing it off at recent gigs. "I just finished a tour, and I used it for one of the tracks. It was pretty interesting watching people dance to my algorithm."
His touring rig consists of, get this, "One laptop computer, a little mixer, and an effects unit. But soon I'll be eradicating the mixer and effects. So basically it'll be one computer. It does everything I did before with live samples and sequences. I've put every element down on a digital track [in Digidesign's Pro Tools], so I can mix between tracks." Speaking of Pro Tools, "It's wicked," he enthuses. "You don't notice it's there, which is what you want with computers. It doesn't get in your way." While he's purchased most of the third-party plug-ins for it, Richard, true to his tinkering image, has also created one from scratch. "Within about two weeks I came up with one with this programming language I've been using. It's really, really cool. You can loop between sections, and loop individual tracks the same way you could with a sequencer. And I've got this thing on there so you can re-synthesize each track, change its pitch..."
Talking to Richard about his homemade software almost derailed us from the main purpose of the interview: to discuss his new self-titled album on Sire. Richard D. James is like nothing we've heard before, and frankly, we're still not sure whether we love it or loathe it. It's a bizarre 15-song blend of feeble synth sounds and jagged jungle loops. "Most of the album was done on my Mac, basically. Even the keyboard sounds were all pretty much computer-generated. Native audio." And when Richard sings, the sound gets even weirder. Give "Milkman" a spin, for example. "That was modulated on the computer," he says of the twisted vocal track.
Richard's drum programming is particularly impressive-rife with triplets and unpredictable stops and starts. "I think the main influence is Luke from Wagon Christ. He really inspired me to get into it more. I used to do lots of crazy triplets and stuff at a slower pace, but he really got me into doing it at a faster pace. He gave me the spark to do it faster, but now I'm trying to take it to all extremes, basically." Richard's jungle influence comes from "any of the drum 'n' bass and breakbeat artists. It's nothing new to me. I've been into breakbeat culture ever since it started through hip-hop, hardcore, and jungle. So I've always been into nicking other things, recycling 'em, basically mashing 'em up and making something different. I just like to mash things up a bit more than most people, that's all."
One of his favourite mashing tools is Steinberg's ReCycle. "Yeah, it's quite a wicked program. The most useful thing about it is it creates a bank on your sampler, and gives it loads of sample names. And that saves you an hour, at least. You can cut something up into, like, 90 samples, and transfer it over SCSI in a minute. That would take two hours normally." And not just for breakbeats, Richard uses ReCycle for melodic material as well. "I might play a violin or a trumpet scale into Pro Tools-every note I can think of-and then bang it into ReCycle, chop it up into little bits, bang it into the sampler, and you've got a complete bank of sounds in your sampler in about five minutes." Richard and his laptop are currently on tour in the UK, but he hopes to circle the States sometime later this year. "This is the next step for me," he says of his strange new sound. "It's like the first step for a much bigger step that I hope to take later on."
Article taken from Keyboard Magazine, April
Still Hacking After All These Years by Greg Rule
He's one of the most brilliant (and bizarre) electronic music makers on the planet. But how in the world does Richard "Aphex Twin" James find time to record, tour, and build his own instruments? Filter boxes, drum machines, custom keyboard modifications, and even a sampler." there isn't much he hasn't tried. "When it worked," he said of the latter in May 1994, "I reckon it pissed on just about any manufactured sampler. " And nearly three years later, we're happy to report he hasn't changed a bit. Richard is still a tinkering maniac, but now his focus has shifted from hardware to software. "I've got three Macs," he tells us, "two laptops and a PowerPC. I use all the sequencers on the market, but at the moment I've been solely using my own program to create new algorithms." Not with Opcode's Max. He's been building the algorithms from scratch. "It's like using a programming language—a bit like Pascal. I've been doing it for about three months, so it's all quite primitive, but it's looking really interesting. This language-you can bring in your own samples and mess around with them. And it's got DSP functions you can't get anywhere else, but you have to program it in. There're no fancy sliders, although they're easy to construct. I've made loads of graphical interfaces for things. "The algorithm I just finished," he continues, "is a percussion thing that lets you swap and change the sounds. It does bass as well, but it's really acidy. You can leave it on for, like, an hour, and it really comes up with some mad shit. I made it learn to gradually change [the music] over time."
While he doesn't plan to market his software, he has been showing it off at recent gigs. "I just finished a tour, and I used it for one of the tracks. It was pretty interesting watching people dance to my algorithm."
His touring rig consists of, get this, "One laptop computer, a little mixer, and an effects unit. But soon I'll be eradicating the mixer and effects. So basically it'll be one computer. It does everything I did before with live samples and sequences. I've put every element down on a digital track [in Digidesign's Pro Tools], so I can mix between tracks." Speaking of Pro Tools, "It's wicked," he enthuses. "You don't notice it's there, which is what you want with computers. It doesn't get in your way." While he's purchased most of the third-party plug-ins for it, Richard, true to his tinkering image, has also created one from scratch. "Within about two weeks I came up with one with this programming language I've been using. It's really, really cool. You can loop between sections, and loop individual tracks the same way you could with a sequencer. And I've got this thing on there so you can re-synthesize each track, change its pitch..."
Talking to Richard about his homemade software almost derailed us from the main purpose of the interview: to discuss his new self-titled album on Sire. Richard D. James is like nothing we've heard before, and frankly, we're still not sure whether we love it or loathe it. It's a bizarre 15-song blend of feeble synth sounds and jagged jungle loops. "Most of the album was done on my Mac, basically. Even the keyboard sounds were all pretty much computer-generated. Native audio." And when Richard sings, the sound gets even weirder. Give "Milkman" a spin, for example. "That was modulated on the computer," he says of the twisted vocal track.
Richard's drum programming is particularly impressive-rife with triplets and unpredictable stops and starts. "I think the main influence is Luke from Wagon Christ. He really inspired me to get into it more. I used to do lots of crazy triplets and stuff at a slower pace, but he really got me into doing it at a faster pace. He gave me the spark to do it faster, but now I'm trying to take it to all extremes, basically." Richard's jungle influence comes from "any of the drum 'n' bass and breakbeat artists. It's nothing new to me. I've been into breakbeat culture ever since it started through hip-hop, hardcore, and jungle. So I've always been into nicking other things, recycling 'em, basically mashing 'em up and making something different. I just like to mash things up a bit more than most people, that's all."
One of his favourite mashing tools is Steinberg's ReCycle. "Yeah, it's quite a wicked program. The most useful thing about it is it creates a bank on your sampler, and gives it loads of sample names. And that saves you an hour, at least. You can cut something up into, like, 90 samples, and transfer it over SCSI in a minute. That would take two hours normally." And not just for breakbeats, Richard uses ReCycle for melodic material as well. "I might play a violin or a trumpet scale into Pro Tools-every note I can think of-and then bang it into ReCycle, chop it up into little bits, bang it into the sampler, and you've got a complete bank of sounds in your sampler in about five minutes." Richard and his laptop are currently on tour in the UK, but he hopes to circle the States sometime later this year. "This is the next step for me," he says of his strange new sound. "It's like the first step for a much bigger step that I hope to take later on."
Article taken from Keyboard Magazine, April
krachtwerk
Ouwe rot
krachtwerk
Ouwe rot
Twin Peaks - Article From Zine, Circa 1993
Richard James has more pseudonyms than you could shake a very large stick at, but he still manages to garner a healthy reputation as a techno-meister through his Polygon Window and Aphex Twin releases. John Pavely meets the twenty one year old ‘wunderkind’!
“Well smart!.” He announces.
Standing in the doorway of his think tank home situated in a dusty Islington side road, Richard James (Polygon window, Aphex Twin, etc) looks like he has just got out of bed, which isn’t far from the truth. With a welcome like that, it’s fair to say that he’s working on all cylinders.
Touted as the child prodigy of the underground techno scene because of the fact that he was creating his ambient soundscapes at 13, way before Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson had even presumed to create what we now know as the Detroit Sound, he is, to put it mildly, prolific. Hence the myriad noms de plume which he uses to place his works with as many different labels as possible. James’ belief is that he should not be straight jacketed to one deal.
Sitting in his bedroom with samplers strewn about, it is easy to believe that James is nothing more than another in a long line of bedroom bores who, given the right equipment, will copy the latest three-second techno wonder. Not the thing to say.
“The problem with all the house shit that’s being churned out now is that it’s being done by people who go out and buy all this gear without knowing how to use it. That’s why so much of it sounds formulated, because they get the gear, then read some article in a paper which tells them how to make a dance record. It should be ideas that come first.”
James’ mind is packed with ideas. So many, in fact, that he believes he could “ …live to a hundred and still not get them all out.”
Part of the reason for this is that he grew up in Cornwall, a musical backwater in electronic terms with little access to equipment, but always knew that he had these strange electro soundscapes within him which needed to find a place in the real world.
“By the time I was 16 I had already done loads of really weird stuff on tape.” Says James.
So what was the starting point?
“I used to have loads of ghetto blasters and reel to reels. I then went out to car boot sales and bought old sound tapes for 50p or whatever. Then, using sounds I had made naturally, I would put it all onto little bits of tape and then loop them, sometimes playing six tapes at the same time and altering the speed of the motors to get what I wanted. I’ve got thousands of tapes from back then, which I still use today.”
And this from a man who is still only 21. James admits that people on Cornwall did think he was “….a little weird.”. He was soon making collages of sounds, his only influences being easily available Kraftwerk material. Eno was unheard of in Cornwall. The result of this early experimentation was ‘The Aphex Twin’ EP and ‘Analogue Bubblebath’ both released through Mighty Force.
It was, however, the more progressive dance release, ‘Didgeridoo’, on Outer Rhythm, that made most people sit up and take notice. People checked out his back catalogue of work which numbers fifteen releases to date under different guises, including his latest collection of works under the Polygon Window moniker, ‘Surfing On Sine Waves’. ‘Surfing…’, in turn is part of the ‘Artificial Intelligence’ series, which is being released through innovative Sheffield label, Warp. The press, who had largely ignored James’ work, began to tout him as the techno Mozart. Did the sudden press attention surprise him?
“I don’t really care what people write about me. I make music for myself. It just happens that there are records made of it and people buy it. I'’ not making records for record labels. I don'’ pander to the press, even though the press has been good recently. That just means that I sell more records, make more money and don'’ need to get a nine to five job. I do more music and I'm happy.”
Simple.
James has suddenly become the name to have as a remixer, which he finds slightly amusing. Curve were one of the first to approach him after using ‘Didgeridoo’ on their sound system while touring. They came to him with ‘Falling Free’ but James had to admit that he had never heard of them. He still did the job and Curve were so happy with the result that they decided to release it as a white label.
Since then, he has been approached by a multitude of artists and, while I was there, St Etienne were the latest to get the Aphex Midas Touch. It’s apparent, however, that he treats remixing as a distraction from his own mission to produce as much material as quickly as possible. Not to say that they will actually get released as soon as they’re finished.
“A lot of the stuff on ‘Surfing….’ Is around three years old. I had to rework a lot of the tracks from dodgy masters. The most recent are ‘Quoth’, which is the single, and the last track ‘Quino-phec’, both of which are a year old. This album shows the different moods I go through is very representative of my time in Cornwall.”
‘Surfing…’ moves between the minmalist, cleaner techno of ‘Quoth’ to the more ambient, Eno-ish feel of ‘Audax Powder’. It is all slightly unnerving stuff and begs the question, where is its soul?
“It’s very obvious that it has no vocals. People are just used to hearing a voice, but I work in different forms, I’d love to be able to sing in loads of different voices, but I can’t. Therefore, I use sound as my form of expression. If I had the choice though, I’d choose sound any day. It’s also fun converting people to the value of electronic music, mainly because I rabbit on about it all day.”
James also believes that what he is working in is an international language. A new electronic/musical form of communication. He has teamed up with the likes of PCP and the Belgian R&S label, as well as taking it to the masses by holding large PA’s in the US. His latest jaunt brought him to the attention of Hollywood which, when you listen to ‘Ambient Sounds’ and ‘Surfing…’ would seem like a natural progression.
“Visual stuff is my second love. I really want to get into film work, which is why I’ve started to link up with different publishers to place the material.”
You could imagine an AV tie-up with that newest form of special effects buzz, virtual reality.
“I think the idea is good, but I haven’t really seen anything that is amazing as yet. I’m definitely checking it out though.”
In a world where highly commercialised techno pap has saturated the market, there are a lot of people out there disaffected with a scene that has degenerated into predictable formulae. Richard James is a forerunner of a burgeoning underground ‘intelligent techno’ UK scene that ranges from Warp labelmates B12 and Black Dog, to the Infonet label with Bandulu and Thunderground. You should also look out for James’ label, RePHlex Records, and material from ART and Irdial. All have a mission to take techno back from the corporations, get people to believe there is more to it than an E-based instant gratification and champion the ambient side of the genre, which was always an integral part of the music.
If James gets sounds and ideas into the hearts and minds of conformist and thrill merchants, an ‘intelligent’ future could be on the cards.
Interview Date –March 1993
Interviewer-John Pavely
Magazine- Zine (now defunkt)
Richard James has more pseudonyms than you could shake a very large stick at, but he still manages to garner a healthy reputation as a techno-meister through his Polygon Window and Aphex Twin releases. John Pavely meets the twenty one year old ‘wunderkind’!
“Well smart!.” He announces.
Standing in the doorway of his think tank home situated in a dusty Islington side road, Richard James (Polygon window, Aphex Twin, etc) looks like he has just got out of bed, which isn’t far from the truth. With a welcome like that, it’s fair to say that he’s working on all cylinders.
Touted as the child prodigy of the underground techno scene because of the fact that he was creating his ambient soundscapes at 13, way before Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson had even presumed to create what we now know as the Detroit Sound, he is, to put it mildly, prolific. Hence the myriad noms de plume which he uses to place his works with as many different labels as possible. James’ belief is that he should not be straight jacketed to one deal.
Sitting in his bedroom with samplers strewn about, it is easy to believe that James is nothing more than another in a long line of bedroom bores who, given the right equipment, will copy the latest three-second techno wonder. Not the thing to say.
“The problem with all the house shit that’s being churned out now is that it’s being done by people who go out and buy all this gear without knowing how to use it. That’s why so much of it sounds formulated, because they get the gear, then read some article in a paper which tells them how to make a dance record. It should be ideas that come first.”
James’ mind is packed with ideas. So many, in fact, that he believes he could “ …live to a hundred and still not get them all out.”
Part of the reason for this is that he grew up in Cornwall, a musical backwater in electronic terms with little access to equipment, but always knew that he had these strange electro soundscapes within him which needed to find a place in the real world.
“By the time I was 16 I had already done loads of really weird stuff on tape.” Says James.
So what was the starting point?
“I used to have loads of ghetto blasters and reel to reels. I then went out to car boot sales and bought old sound tapes for 50p or whatever. Then, using sounds I had made naturally, I would put it all onto little bits of tape and then loop them, sometimes playing six tapes at the same time and altering the speed of the motors to get what I wanted. I’ve got thousands of tapes from back then, which I still use today.”
And this from a man who is still only 21. James admits that people on Cornwall did think he was “….a little weird.”. He was soon making collages of sounds, his only influences being easily available Kraftwerk material. Eno was unheard of in Cornwall. The result of this early experimentation was ‘The Aphex Twin’ EP and ‘Analogue Bubblebath’ both released through Mighty Force.
It was, however, the more progressive dance release, ‘Didgeridoo’, on Outer Rhythm, that made most people sit up and take notice. People checked out his back catalogue of work which numbers fifteen releases to date under different guises, including his latest collection of works under the Polygon Window moniker, ‘Surfing On Sine Waves’. ‘Surfing…’, in turn is part of the ‘Artificial Intelligence’ series, which is being released through innovative Sheffield label, Warp. The press, who had largely ignored James’ work, began to tout him as the techno Mozart. Did the sudden press attention surprise him?
“I don’t really care what people write about me. I make music for myself. It just happens that there are records made of it and people buy it. I'’ not making records for record labels. I don'’ pander to the press, even though the press has been good recently. That just means that I sell more records, make more money and don'’ need to get a nine to five job. I do more music and I'm happy.”
Simple.
James has suddenly become the name to have as a remixer, which he finds slightly amusing. Curve were one of the first to approach him after using ‘Didgeridoo’ on their sound system while touring. They came to him with ‘Falling Free’ but James had to admit that he had never heard of them. He still did the job and Curve were so happy with the result that they decided to release it as a white label.
Since then, he has been approached by a multitude of artists and, while I was there, St Etienne were the latest to get the Aphex Midas Touch. It’s apparent, however, that he treats remixing as a distraction from his own mission to produce as much material as quickly as possible. Not to say that they will actually get released as soon as they’re finished.
“A lot of the stuff on ‘Surfing….’ Is around three years old. I had to rework a lot of the tracks from dodgy masters. The most recent are ‘Quoth’, which is the single, and the last track ‘Quino-phec’, both of which are a year old. This album shows the different moods I go through is very representative of my time in Cornwall.”
‘Surfing…’ moves between the minmalist, cleaner techno of ‘Quoth’ to the more ambient, Eno-ish feel of ‘Audax Powder’. It is all slightly unnerving stuff and begs the question, where is its soul?
“It’s very obvious that it has no vocals. People are just used to hearing a voice, but I work in different forms, I’d love to be able to sing in loads of different voices, but I can’t. Therefore, I use sound as my form of expression. If I had the choice though, I’d choose sound any day. It’s also fun converting people to the value of electronic music, mainly because I rabbit on about it all day.”
James also believes that what he is working in is an international language. A new electronic/musical form of communication. He has teamed up with the likes of PCP and the Belgian R&S label, as well as taking it to the masses by holding large PA’s in the US. His latest jaunt brought him to the attention of Hollywood which, when you listen to ‘Ambient Sounds’ and ‘Surfing…’ would seem like a natural progression.
“Visual stuff is my second love. I really want to get into film work, which is why I’ve started to link up with different publishers to place the material.”
You could imagine an AV tie-up with that newest form of special effects buzz, virtual reality.
“I think the idea is good, but I haven’t really seen anything that is amazing as yet. I’m definitely checking it out though.”
In a world where highly commercialised techno pap has saturated the market, there are a lot of people out there disaffected with a scene that has degenerated into predictable formulae. Richard James is a forerunner of a burgeoning underground ‘intelligent techno’ UK scene that ranges from Warp labelmates B12 and Black Dog, to the Infonet label with Bandulu and Thunderground. You should also look out for James’ label, RePHlex Records, and material from ART and Irdial. All have a mission to take techno back from the corporations, get people to believe there is more to it than an E-based instant gratification and champion the ambient side of the genre, which was always an integral part of the music.
If James gets sounds and ideas into the hearts and minds of conformist and thrill merchants, an ‘intelligent’ future could be on the cards.
Interview Date –March 1993
Interviewer-John Pavely
Magazine- Zine (now defunkt)
krachtwerk
Ouwe rot
Aphex Twin Is Dead. Melody Maker, 1994
Aphex Twin is dead.
Flat on his back in the middle of Hyde Park, Richard James, the electronic maverick, known as the Polygon Window, Blue Calx, AFX etbloodycetera, hasn’t slept for 48 hours. He yawns every couple of seconds to prove it. He is, however, in good spirits. Especially when it comes to talking about the Midi Circus tour.
“It’s high time underground dance acts were promoted in a gig format,” he says, propping himself up with an elbow.
“I know there’s The Orb, but they’re not really a techno group, but I think that Orbital and The Drum Club and the others are breaking out of the clubs. I can’t see how this tour can fail.”
Richard is himself no stranger to the live circuit. He’s lost count of the gigs he’s played and the countries he’s visited since Aphex Twin’s debut show at the legendary Tresor Club in Berlin 18 months ago.
Onstage, he is surrounded by racks of sequencers, samplers, FX units and other technological jiggery pokery, all made his own fair hands. Wires go in all directions. There is, he says, no DAT player. An Aphex gig is a real live show.
“The only big problem I’ve had was when I electrocuted myself in front of 17,000 mad Germans at the Mayday techno festival,” he tells me “I put my finger on a live terminal. I kept thinking ‘When will it trip, when will it blow…..fuck…..Frying tonight!…’ My finger started to sizzle when it blew. I was thrown off the keyboard and all the power in the place went dead.”
Aphex Twin’s performances aren’t normally so visually explosive. There’s little to see apart from Richard’s head and a lot of knob twiddling.
“So? I don’t want people staring at me. I want them to dance. What’s so good about watching a guy bouncing around with a guitar? I’m too busy to bounce around. I usually forget that I’m doing a gig. It’s as if I was at home.”
It’s two years since Richard James came to London from Cornwall, to study Electronics at college. It was here that he began to build his wonderful instruments heard on “Selected Ambient Works 1985-92’ and Polygon Window’s ‘Surfing On Sine Waves’. By the end of the second term there wasn’t enough room for his bed. He dumped it in somebody’s garden. And left college soon afterwards.
Although he is now living in a much bigger flat, this too is starting to look like a Dixon’s repair shop. Richard says he can’t bear to be away from his music-making utilities for more than a couple of days and that he has no interest in the outside world.
All of which might explain why he is wearing a Mel and Kim t-shirt underneath his black jumper.
“I’m not worried about looking cool,” he says. “I never worry about what people think of me, or my music. I don’t give a shit if my records don’t sell; I’m just into making tunes. If it wasn’t for my mates wanting to DJ with them, I might not have ever even thought of putting out any records. Music is therapy for me. I’d rather work than sleep. That’s why I’m so tired today. I just have to get these ideas out of my head. It’s like having high blood pressure. So what if I’m self indulgent? It’s much better to have your head up your own arse than someone else’s.”
With a Caustic Window album in the pipeline, aswell as the long awaited Polygon Window’s ‘Surfing On Sine Waves’ in the US on Al Jourgenson’s label Wax Trax, Richard will be signing to Sire for the purposes of America and Japan.
On top of all this, Richard is earning a name for himself as a remixer. Having (literally) turned over Curve, Saint Ettienne and Meat Beat Manifesto, he has now given the Twin treatment to the new Jesus Jones single, ‘Zeroes and Ones’.
“No matter how much money was involved, I’d refuse to hand over a remix I wasn’t happy with.”, he says before I get the chance to ask him the obvious. “I’ve had complaints that my remixes are nothing like the originals, but all of the sounds come from the tape that I’ve been given. And in some cases it’s nothing like the original because if it had been I wouldn’t have given it back because it would have been crap.”
The key to Richard James’ music, whatever name he’s using at the time, is his fascination for the textures of sounds. He doesn’t so much make tracks as sculptures. It’s as if the melodies and the beats have a physical presence.
“That’s exactly it!” he beams. “I mean, some of the tracks for ‘Ambient Works 2’ consist of just one sound. I’m trying to make music that surrounds you, which fills the room. I love the idea of the record ending and leaving a huge gap in your head.
“It’s a shame that people don’t really listen to what goes on around them. Everyday sounds, like the sounds in a supermarket, are blanked out, because you’ve heard them so many times before. But if you take a microphone to the supermarket, as I often do, and play the tape back at home, it’s fucking brilliant.”
Blimey. Whatever would Richard do if he suddenly went deaf?
“That would be a nightmare. I could hack being blind, but not deaf. I’d have to commit suicide. Or spend the rest of my life sitting at my speakers, feeling the vibrations of the bass.”
A nightmare indeed. Especially for his neighbours. Long may his ears function. And long may they burn.
Long live The Aphex Twin.
Aphex Twin is dead.
Flat on his back in the middle of Hyde Park, Richard James, the electronic maverick, known as the Polygon Window, Blue Calx, AFX etbloodycetera, hasn’t slept for 48 hours. He yawns every couple of seconds to prove it. He is, however, in good spirits. Especially when it comes to talking about the Midi Circus tour.
“It’s high time underground dance acts were promoted in a gig format,” he says, propping himself up with an elbow.
“I know there’s The Orb, but they’re not really a techno group, but I think that Orbital and The Drum Club and the others are breaking out of the clubs. I can’t see how this tour can fail.”
Richard is himself no stranger to the live circuit. He’s lost count of the gigs he’s played and the countries he’s visited since Aphex Twin’s debut show at the legendary Tresor Club in Berlin 18 months ago.
Onstage, he is surrounded by racks of sequencers, samplers, FX units and other technological jiggery pokery, all made his own fair hands. Wires go in all directions. There is, he says, no DAT player. An Aphex gig is a real live show.
“The only big problem I’ve had was when I electrocuted myself in front of 17,000 mad Germans at the Mayday techno festival,” he tells me “I put my finger on a live terminal. I kept thinking ‘When will it trip, when will it blow…..fuck…..Frying tonight!…’ My finger started to sizzle when it blew. I was thrown off the keyboard and all the power in the place went dead.”
Aphex Twin’s performances aren’t normally so visually explosive. There’s little to see apart from Richard’s head and a lot of knob twiddling.
“So? I don’t want people staring at me. I want them to dance. What’s so good about watching a guy bouncing around with a guitar? I’m too busy to bounce around. I usually forget that I’m doing a gig. It’s as if I was at home.”
It’s two years since Richard James came to London from Cornwall, to study Electronics at college. It was here that he began to build his wonderful instruments heard on “Selected Ambient Works 1985-92’ and Polygon Window’s ‘Surfing On Sine Waves’. By the end of the second term there wasn’t enough room for his bed. He dumped it in somebody’s garden. And left college soon afterwards.
Although he is now living in a much bigger flat, this too is starting to look like a Dixon’s repair shop. Richard says he can’t bear to be away from his music-making utilities for more than a couple of days and that he has no interest in the outside world.
All of which might explain why he is wearing a Mel and Kim t-shirt underneath his black jumper.
“I’m not worried about looking cool,” he says. “I never worry about what people think of me, or my music. I don’t give a shit if my records don’t sell; I’m just into making tunes. If it wasn’t for my mates wanting to DJ with them, I might not have ever even thought of putting out any records. Music is therapy for me. I’d rather work than sleep. That’s why I’m so tired today. I just have to get these ideas out of my head. It’s like having high blood pressure. So what if I’m self indulgent? It’s much better to have your head up your own arse than someone else’s.”
With a Caustic Window album in the pipeline, aswell as the long awaited Polygon Window’s ‘Surfing On Sine Waves’ in the US on Al Jourgenson’s label Wax Trax, Richard will be signing to Sire for the purposes of America and Japan.
On top of all this, Richard is earning a name for himself as a remixer. Having (literally) turned over Curve, Saint Ettienne and Meat Beat Manifesto, he has now given the Twin treatment to the new Jesus Jones single, ‘Zeroes and Ones’.
“No matter how much money was involved, I’d refuse to hand over a remix I wasn’t happy with.”, he says before I get the chance to ask him the obvious. “I’ve had complaints that my remixes are nothing like the originals, but all of the sounds come from the tape that I’ve been given. And in some cases it’s nothing like the original because if it had been I wouldn’t have given it back because it would have been crap.”
The key to Richard James’ music, whatever name he’s using at the time, is his fascination for the textures of sounds. He doesn’t so much make tracks as sculptures. It’s as if the melodies and the beats have a physical presence.
“That’s exactly it!” he beams. “I mean, some of the tracks for ‘Ambient Works 2’ consist of just one sound. I’m trying to make music that surrounds you, which fills the room. I love the idea of the record ending and leaving a huge gap in your head.
“It’s a shame that people don’t really listen to what goes on around them. Everyday sounds, like the sounds in a supermarket, are blanked out, because you’ve heard them so many times before. But if you take a microphone to the supermarket, as I often do, and play the tape back at home, it’s fucking brilliant.”
Blimey. Whatever would Richard do if he suddenly went deaf?
“That would be a nightmare. I could hack being blind, but not deaf. I’d have to commit suicide. Or spend the rest of my life sitting at my speakers, feeling the vibrations of the bass.”
A nightmare indeed. Especially for his neighbours. Long may his ears function. And long may they burn.
Long live The Aphex Twin.
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Aphex Twin Interviews Plastikman by Scott Sterling.
After establishing a new way of looking at acid house with classics like "Spastik" and the albums Sheet One and Muzik, Plastikman (aka Windsor's Richie Hawtin) has taken a radical left turn into the sythetic machine mindbank. Almost completely devoid of beats, his new long-player Consumed is a refractory and often difficult foray into sound, texture and thought.
So who better to get to the crux of the situation than fellow electronic marvel and notorious recluse, Richard James? Like Hawtin, James is far better known as a moniker (Aphex Twin). Both were at the forefront of the Electronic Revolution of the early 1990s, when along with acts like the Orb and Moby, they were being primed to take over the music world much like the Chemical Brothers and Prodigy are today. But both stepped away from the limelight in their own inimitable fashion; for James, it was by producing increasingly difficult music under a confusing litany of monikers. Hawtin, however, got a little help from the U.S. government; caught at the U.S./Canadian border with record boxes, tour itineraries but no working papers, he found himself effectively banned from America for five years.
With The Man finally off his back, Hawtin is again (however reluctantly) reentering the manic whirl of major labeldom. For James, it's perhaps moments before he walks away from that world entirely.
Sweater: Have you heard the new Plastikman album yet?
Richard James: No, but I'm looking forward to it. Is it out yet?
Richie Hawtin: It just came out this week.
RJ: I've been spending all of my time and money on new computer software.
RH: Are you using a Mac or PC?
RJ: I'm working on four different Macs, but I'm about to get a PC.
RH: Let me know when you do, because I've got some stuff to send you.
RJ: Wicked. [The two go off on an unintelligible jag talking excitedly about new programming tricks and gear.]
RH: Hey Sweater, you better ask some questions, or we'll go on like this for hours.
Sweater: Okay. So Richard [James], you're recording now, right?
RJ: Yeah, I'm in the studio messing about. I'm gonna release two more albums and that will be that.
Sweater: What do you mean?
RJ: No more releases.
Sweater: You're retiring?
RJ: [Laughing] Hardly. I'm just over the whole music business aspect of it. I've made more than enough money. I really enjoyed all of it; meeting so many industry pricks and winding them up has been immensely entertaining, but its gotten old.
RH: Tell me about it. After five years in the business, you figure out who's cool and who's not and you meet everyone you want to meet.
RJ: It affects the music, too. When I think in terms of singles and albums, I work differently. Like "Come To Daddy." That was something I put together really quickly without even thinking about it. Music like that is such a cop-out. It's too easy. There's no challenge there. That was just me being aggro.
RH: I love that song. Most people don't like to think about their music. They want it handed over on a silver platter. The words to "Come To Daddy" are so brilliant because that's exactly the type of person the song is talking about. Richard uses lyrics really well. But I agree with him; I'd rather just make music and not have to worry about release schedules and promo tours. I release things when they feel right, not when some record company thinks it's most profitable.
Sweater: Wasn't there talk of you two working together?
RJ: Yeah, we met up some years ago and talked about it.
RH: That was more at the beginnning of our careers, and we had more time. We both got really busy really quickly. I think the last time we hung out was at that laser park in London where I almost got killed.
RJ: Now that's a story. A bunch of us went to this laser-tag park, where people get all kitted up and chase each other around with laser guns. I guess this guy thought that Rich hit him in the face or something...
RH: ...And he put me in this choke hold until I nearly passed out.
RJ: He was this massive bloke that threatened to take all of us on.
RH: Hey, maybe it's better that we don't hang out too much!
RL: Have you been playing a lot of gigs?
RH: Not really.
RJ: Neither have I. The stuff I'm doing now seems to be way too experimental to subject on other people.
RH: Same here. I had some live gigs lined up, but I cancelled most of them. It's still too soon.
RJ: I've been doing a lot of DJ gigs, though. I get bored at night. If I play a gig, then everyone gets together and we have a laugh.
Sweater: Did either one of you attend Jeff Mills' recent art opening in London?
RL: No, but I did run into Jeff in Cannes recently. My mate Chris and I won some video award and they put me and my girlfriend up in this really nice penthouse for four days. We hung out in the room until we got bored, then we just came home. We didn't even go to the awards show.
RH: [Laughs.]
RJ: But I ran into Jeff and he was like this total businessman in a suit and everything. I found it very amusing.
RH: The two sides of Jeff. When he's in business mode, he's really in business mode.
RJ: I just heard that he's getting married.
RH: Maybe you should take him and his fiancé out for an afternoon of laser tag.
RJ: Sadly, all of the laser tag parks are closed now. There are a few paintball places, though.
RH: Paintball can get pretty violent.
RJ: The last time I went I caught one of the balls with my face. Nothing quite like a mouthful of paint.
Sweater: Was the Cannes award for the "Come To Daddy" video?
RJ: Yes, it was directed by Chris Cunningham, who I first met about five years ago at this party where I was heavily tripping. I just kept bumping into him, and it was really weird because he looks a lot like me.
RH: That's a great video.
RJ: Thanks. He's gonna do one for my next single, which will probably be my last proper single.
Sweater: So if you're not going to make records, what are you going to do?
RJ: Focus on my label, RePHlex Records. I've been neglecting it for a while, and my partner Grant works really hard on it. It's time I gave him some support.
Sweater: You both run record labels on top of everything else.
RJ: Yeah, it's weird for me especially since I only employ my friends.
RH: It's the same for me. You just have to remind them who's the boss.
RJ: [Laughs.] That part is so funny. We'll all be up late getting stoned and someone will say, "I've gotta pack it in so I can get up for work tomorrow," and I'll just give them the day off. I'm not a very good boss.
RH: I heard that you live in an old bank these days. What's that like?
RJ: It's great. A really solid structure, as you can imagine. It's in a great area, mainly because everyone else seems to think that it's shit.
RH: Why's that?
RJ: It's not trendy at all, and it's quite grey and industrial. But I like it that way. No one bothers me, and I get left alone. It's a challenge every time I go outside. This guy tried to kill me a few weeks ago for looking at him.
RH: What?
RJ: I was eating dinner at this restaurant and I was sitting by the window. This guy walks up to the window and just stares at me. I was already in a pissy mood, so I just stared right back at him. The longer I stared back, the madder he got until he just started pounding on the glass. Then he shattered the window.
RH: So what happened next?
RJ: Security had to come and haul the guy off. I could've averted the whole thing by just looking away, but it was just like fuck him, you know?
RH: So I want to see this bank.
RJ: It's actually right around the corner from Ministry of Sound, this famous club I just hate. It's horribly cheesy. The queue to get in goes right by my front door. I throw water balloons down on their heads from the roof.
RH: [Laughs.] Are you coming over here anytime soon?
RJ: I'm actually trying to put together a RePHlex Records tour of the States, and then use that money to tour South America. I love playing shows where the audience is 10 people that have absolutely no idea who you are. Those are the best. And I love riding in those massive rock 'n' roll tour buses.
RH: There are plenty of those going around. I got stuck on one with the Prodigy and Moby once.
RJ: Moby actually rode the bus?
RH: For a few dates, anyway. He started flying because he couldn't deal with people smoking.
RJ: When I toured with him, he wouldn't even get on the bus. [Laughter all around.]
RH: My favourite gigs are in towns like Lubbock, Texas, or anywhere in Mississippi. The people there are just as freaked out by us as we are of them, which always makes for a better show.
RJ: My best gig ever was at the Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas. Just complete bullshit. There's this giant guitar out front and everything. That place was a nightmare, just pure hell.
RH: I guess Speedy J just got married in Vegas.
RJ: Much respect is due for a daft move like that! Nice one, Speedy!
Interview taken from Sweater, August 1998.
Aphex Twin Interviews Plastikman by Scott Sterling.
After establishing a new way of looking at acid house with classics like "Spastik" and the albums Sheet One and Muzik, Plastikman (aka Windsor's Richie Hawtin) has taken a radical left turn into the sythetic machine mindbank. Almost completely devoid of beats, his new long-player Consumed is a refractory and often difficult foray into sound, texture and thought.
So who better to get to the crux of the situation than fellow electronic marvel and notorious recluse, Richard James? Like Hawtin, James is far better known as a moniker (Aphex Twin). Both were at the forefront of the Electronic Revolution of the early 1990s, when along with acts like the Orb and Moby, they were being primed to take over the music world much like the Chemical Brothers and Prodigy are today. But both stepped away from the limelight in their own inimitable fashion; for James, it was by producing increasingly difficult music under a confusing litany of monikers. Hawtin, however, got a little help from the U.S. government; caught at the U.S./Canadian border with record boxes, tour itineraries but no working papers, he found himself effectively banned from America for five years.
With The Man finally off his back, Hawtin is again (however reluctantly) reentering the manic whirl of major labeldom. For James, it's perhaps moments before he walks away from that world entirely.
Sweater: Have you heard the new Plastikman album yet?
Richard James: No, but I'm looking forward to it. Is it out yet?
Richie Hawtin: It just came out this week.
RJ: I've been spending all of my time and money on new computer software.
RH: Are you using a Mac or PC?
RJ: I'm working on four different Macs, but I'm about to get a PC.
RH: Let me know when you do, because I've got some stuff to send you.
RJ: Wicked. [The two go off on an unintelligible jag talking excitedly about new programming tricks and gear.]
RH: Hey Sweater, you better ask some questions, or we'll go on like this for hours.
Sweater: Okay. So Richard [James], you're recording now, right?
RJ: Yeah, I'm in the studio messing about. I'm gonna release two more albums and that will be that.
Sweater: What do you mean?
RJ: No more releases.
Sweater: You're retiring?
RJ: [Laughing] Hardly. I'm just over the whole music business aspect of it. I've made more than enough money. I really enjoyed all of it; meeting so many industry pricks and winding them up has been immensely entertaining, but its gotten old.
RH: Tell me about it. After five years in the business, you figure out who's cool and who's not and you meet everyone you want to meet.
RJ: It affects the music, too. When I think in terms of singles and albums, I work differently. Like "Come To Daddy." That was something I put together really quickly without even thinking about it. Music like that is such a cop-out. It's too easy. There's no challenge there. That was just me being aggro.
RH: I love that song. Most people don't like to think about their music. They want it handed over on a silver platter. The words to "Come To Daddy" are so brilliant because that's exactly the type of person the song is talking about. Richard uses lyrics really well. But I agree with him; I'd rather just make music and not have to worry about release schedules and promo tours. I release things when they feel right, not when some record company thinks it's most profitable.
Sweater: Wasn't there talk of you two working together?
RJ: Yeah, we met up some years ago and talked about it.
RH: That was more at the beginnning of our careers, and we had more time. We both got really busy really quickly. I think the last time we hung out was at that laser park in London where I almost got killed.
RJ: Now that's a story. A bunch of us went to this laser-tag park, where people get all kitted up and chase each other around with laser guns. I guess this guy thought that Rich hit him in the face or something...
RH: ...And he put me in this choke hold until I nearly passed out.
RJ: He was this massive bloke that threatened to take all of us on.
RH: Hey, maybe it's better that we don't hang out too much!
RL: Have you been playing a lot of gigs?
RH: Not really.
RJ: Neither have I. The stuff I'm doing now seems to be way too experimental to subject on other people.
RH: Same here. I had some live gigs lined up, but I cancelled most of them. It's still too soon.
RJ: I've been doing a lot of DJ gigs, though. I get bored at night. If I play a gig, then everyone gets together and we have a laugh.
Sweater: Did either one of you attend Jeff Mills' recent art opening in London?
RL: No, but I did run into Jeff in Cannes recently. My mate Chris and I won some video award and they put me and my girlfriend up in this really nice penthouse for four days. We hung out in the room until we got bored, then we just came home. We didn't even go to the awards show.
RH: [Laughs.]
RJ: But I ran into Jeff and he was like this total businessman in a suit and everything. I found it very amusing.
RH: The two sides of Jeff. When he's in business mode, he's really in business mode.
RJ: I just heard that he's getting married.
RH: Maybe you should take him and his fiancé out for an afternoon of laser tag.
RJ: Sadly, all of the laser tag parks are closed now. There are a few paintball places, though.
RH: Paintball can get pretty violent.
RJ: The last time I went I caught one of the balls with my face. Nothing quite like a mouthful of paint.
Sweater: Was the Cannes award for the "Come To Daddy" video?
RJ: Yes, it was directed by Chris Cunningham, who I first met about five years ago at this party where I was heavily tripping. I just kept bumping into him, and it was really weird because he looks a lot like me.
RH: That's a great video.
RJ: Thanks. He's gonna do one for my next single, which will probably be my last proper single.
Sweater: So if you're not going to make records, what are you going to do?
RJ: Focus on my label, RePHlex Records. I've been neglecting it for a while, and my partner Grant works really hard on it. It's time I gave him some support.
Sweater: You both run record labels on top of everything else.
RJ: Yeah, it's weird for me especially since I only employ my friends.
RH: It's the same for me. You just have to remind them who's the boss.
RJ: [Laughs.] That part is so funny. We'll all be up late getting stoned and someone will say, "I've gotta pack it in so I can get up for work tomorrow," and I'll just give them the day off. I'm not a very good boss.
RH: I heard that you live in an old bank these days. What's that like?
RJ: It's great. A really solid structure, as you can imagine. It's in a great area, mainly because everyone else seems to think that it's shit.
RH: Why's that?
RJ: It's not trendy at all, and it's quite grey and industrial. But I like it that way. No one bothers me, and I get left alone. It's a challenge every time I go outside. This guy tried to kill me a few weeks ago for looking at him.
RH: What?
RJ: I was eating dinner at this restaurant and I was sitting by the window. This guy walks up to the window and just stares at me. I was already in a pissy mood, so I just stared right back at him. The longer I stared back, the madder he got until he just started pounding on the glass. Then he shattered the window.
RH: So what happened next?
RJ: Security had to come and haul the guy off. I could've averted the whole thing by just looking away, but it was just like fuck him, you know?
RH: So I want to see this bank.
RJ: It's actually right around the corner from Ministry of Sound, this famous club I just hate. It's horribly cheesy. The queue to get in goes right by my front door. I throw water balloons down on their heads from the roof.
RH: [Laughs.] Are you coming over here anytime soon?
RJ: I'm actually trying to put together a RePHlex Records tour of the States, and then use that money to tour South America. I love playing shows where the audience is 10 people that have absolutely no idea who you are. Those are the best. And I love riding in those massive rock 'n' roll tour buses.
RH: There are plenty of those going around. I got stuck on one with the Prodigy and Moby once.
RJ: Moby actually rode the bus?
RH: For a few dates, anyway. He started flying because he couldn't deal with people smoking.
RJ: When I toured with him, he wouldn't even get on the bus. [Laughter all around.]
RH: My favourite gigs are in towns like Lubbock, Texas, or anywhere in Mississippi. The people there are just as freaked out by us as we are of them, which always makes for a better show.
RJ: My best gig ever was at the Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas. Just complete bullshit. There's this giant guitar out front and everything. That place was a nightmare, just pure hell.
RH: I guess Speedy J just got married in Vegas.
RJ: Much respect is due for a daft move like that! Nice one, Speedy!
Interview taken from Sweater, August 1998.
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