Aphex Twin (born Richard D. James, 1971 ) is a UK-based electronic music artist working notably in the techno and ambient music styles.
Born to Welsh parents in 1971, James spent his childhood in Cornwall. He experimented with electronics from an early age, winning a competition to make a Sinclair Spectrum play a tune by setting the connected television's volume to full and alternating the colours on the screen, producing different pitches of noise.
He became a DJ and musician on the local rave scene, taking on the monicker "Aphex Twin" from the name of a manufacturer of signal processing equipment combined with the word "twin"; this was because the original Richard James, his brother, had died before Richard D James was born. James uses the "D" of his middle name to distinguish himself from his late brother.
He was a founding partner in the Rephlex Records label in 1991 and released his first records on this label, as well as Mighty Force and R&S Records of Belgium. James soon moved to London and released a slew of albums and EPs on the Warp Records label. He was also responsible for a number of disturbing music videos in collaboration with director Chris Cunningham.
Aphex Twin is credited with pushing forward the genres of techno, ambient and drum and bass and has created a vast amount of music, much of it unreleased. Recent experimentation on his album Drukqs included use of a prepared piano in the style of composer John Cage.
He owns a 1950s armored scout car (a Daimler Ferret Mark 3), a submarine, and lives in a converted bank. Aphex Twin continues to create records at the boundaries of the accepted norms of music.
Richard D. James has also released a large amount of material under various aliases:
AFX:
Discography
Aliases
Brad Strider:
Caustic Window:
GAK:
Polygon Window:
Power Pill:
Q-Chastic:
In the Universal Indicator series:
See Also
External Links