AFX

Early career: Early 1990s



According to Benjamin Middleton, James started producing music at the age of 12. As a teenager he DJed at the Shire Horse in St Ives, with Tom Middleton at the Bowgie Inn in Crantock, and also along the numerous beaches around Cornwall. His first record was the 12-inch EP Analogue Bubblebath, the last two tracks of which were made with Tom Middleton.



In 1991 James formed Rephlex Records with his friend Grant Wilson-Claridge to promote



"Innovation in the dynamics of Acid - a much loved and misunderstood genre of house music forgotten by some and indeed new to others, especially in Britain."



Between 1991 and 1993 Richard James released three Analogue Bubblebath EPs under the AFX name, two Bradley Strider EPs, and three Caustic Window EPs. Under the Power-Pill name he released the Pac-Man EP based on the arcade game Pac-Man. Under the Aphex Twin name he released the Xylem Tube EP and Didgeridoo, a fast-paced song designed to tire dancers at the end of a DJ set. These early releases came out on Rephlex Records, Mighty Force of Exeter, and R&S Records of Belgium.



Early in his career, James moved to London to take an Electronics course at Kingston Polytechnic, but at the time admitted to David Toop that his "electronics studies were already slipping away as a career in the techno business took precedence". After quitting his course, James remained in London and released a number of albums and EPs on Warp Records and other labels under many aliases, including AFX, Polygon Window, Blue Calx, The Dice Man, and Power-Pill. Local legend has it that James lived on the roundabout in Elephant and Castle, South London during his early years in the capital.



Gaining success: 1992-1999



The first Aphex Twin album, Selected Ambient Works 85-92, was released in 1992 on R&S Records. John Bush of the All Music Guide described it as a "watershed of ambient music". Pat Blashill of Rolling Stone wrote of the album: "Aphex Twin expanded way beyond the ambient music of Brian Eno by fusing lush soundscapes with oceanic beats and bass lines". Critics also noted that the songs were recorded on cassette and that the sound quality was "relatively poor".



Warp Records pressed and released Selected Ambient Works Volume II in 1994. The sound was much less beat-driven than the previous volume, and the track names were mainly described with circles and pie charts rather than song titles in words. James made unverifiable claims to The Wire magazine and other media that these songs were inspired by lucid dreams and synesthesia.



For his 1995 release, .I Care Because You Do, James used an image of his face for the album cover, a motif that would continue in his later records. The album was a compilation of songs composed between 1991 and 1994, and represented a mish-mash of Aphex Twin's various music styles. This was Aphex Twin's last record of the 1990s to use mostly analogue synthesizer; later releases made more use of computers and software synthesizers. Aphex Twin collaborated with minimalist composer Philip Glass to make an orchestral version of one of the songs from this album.



In 1995 (primarily with Hangable Auto Bulb), he began releasing more material composed on computers, and embraced a drum and bass sound combined with nostalgic childhood themes and strange computer-generated acid lines. Aphex Twin's early adoption of software synthesizers predated the later popularity of using computers to make music. The late 1990s saw his music become more popular and mainstream, as he released the Richard D. James Album and two singles, "Come to Daddy" and "Windowlicker", which were shown on MTV and were cover features of music magazines including NME.



Current work: 2000-Present



In 2001 Aphex Twin released his most personal album yet, drukqs, a 2-CD album which featured prepared piano songs influenced by Erik Satie and John Cage. Also included were abrasive, fast and meticulously programmed computer-made songs. Rolling Stone described the piano songs as "aimlessly pretty". drukqs is perhaps Richard's most controversial album to date; the album lacked the novelty found in his other albums, so reviewers guessed that it was released as a contract breaker with Warp Records—a credible guess, as James' next big release came out on his own Rephlex label. It was also rumoured that he had left almost all the album's tracks on an MP3 player that he accidentally left on a plane, and rushed its release to pre-empt an Internet leak.



In late 2004, rumours of James' return to an acid techno based sound were realised with the Analord series. This series concentrated on producing fully analogue pieces of music, written and recorded on analogue equipment and pressed to vinyl. James was very meticulous about the whole process of recording, mastering and pressing. However, label co-owner Grant Wilson-Claridge convinced James to release a digital CD, Chosen Lords, which included a selection from the Analord series, with some tracks slightly altered to improve the flow of the album.



For the Analord records, James used his extensive collection of Roland drum machines which he bought when they were still at bargain prices. He also used one of the rarest and most desirable synthesizers of his generation, the Synton Fenix, and the notoriously difficult to program Roland MC-4 sequencer (a sequencer with a reputation for excellent timing), as well as the famous Roland TB-303 for his trademark acid melodies.



James usually creates his own photography for his releases' artwork. Many of these photos show James' own face, grinning or slightly distorted in some way, as it can be seen in some of his videoclips ("Come to Daddy", for example). Towards the end of the second track on the "Windowlicker" single (commonly referred to as "[Formula]", "[Symbol]", or "[Equation]") a photo of James' face is revealed when run through spectral analysis. The picture illustrates his famous toothy, evil grin (with a spiral also visible at the end of "Windowlicker"). In addition to this, the cover of "Two Remixes by AFX" is actually contained only on the CD, encoded in SSTV format.