113: Aphex Twin - Richard D. James Album (1996)

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“Forget all the equipment, forget the music, at the end of the day it's just literally frequencies and their effects on your brain. That's what's everyone's essentially after.”

—Aphex Twin

Even if you’ve never heard the music of Richard D. James, alias Aphex Twin, you’ve probably heard music that bears his stamp: he’s influenced artists as wide-ranging as Radiohead, Björk, Skrillex, and Billie Eilish, and his warped approach to electronica has become part of the fabric of popular music writ large. Every Aphex Twin album is a little different from his others, including the airy soundscapes of Selected Ambient Works Volume II and the ear-splitting tinnitus of I Care Because You Do, and his eponymous 1997 release Richard D. James Album features an intriguing mix of ethereal strings layered over dirty drum-and-bass beats. An expert knob twiddler himself, Producer Mike has long admired Aphex Twin’s skill at conjuring up sounds and textures you’ve never heard, and he’s invited Rich, Phil, and returning guest Shivam Bhatt to discuss Cornish geography, the milkman and his wife, and snare drums that go BRRRRRRRRR!

Miscellany

• The website Lanner Chronicle: An Aphex Twin Resource features an exhaustive archive of Aphex Twin articles and interviews, including scans from the original magazines, and was an extremely valuable resource in preparing for this episode. 

• There are lots of fun Aphex Twin stories that we didn’t have the time to talk about, including that he bought a 9,500-pound armored car with a mounted machine gun and would drive it around Cornwall. “I bought it because it's a fucking wicked car, the coolest car of all time,” he says.

• The intro comes from a product spot for the Aphex Type-C Aural Exciter. As Glen Banks wrote in to WFMU, “The Aural Exciter could take any sound (or instrument) run through it, and change the EQ by emphasizing ONLY the harmonics and overtones but not any of the original sound. It had an odd way of 'opening up' things and making them sound more airy and spacious.”

• In the spirit of Aphex Twin, the electronic noise after the closing credits is the Discord & Rhyme logo converted into a spectrogram.

• The “post-African repetitions” that Stockhausen found so irksome were also a major influence on minimalist composers like Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Terry Riley, who in turn were far more influential on modern music than anyone from the Darmstadt School. So it’s possible that someone might have been a little jel.

• We are aware that Shivam said Schopenhauer when he meant Schoenberg, so no need to correct us, pedants. 

Other links 

• Aphex Twin's official website (aphextwin.warp.net)

• "Come to Daddy" music video (YouTube)

• “Windowlicker” music video (YouTube)

• Richard D. James Album 33 RPM playlist (YouTube)

• SNL’s “Simon: A Little English Boy” (YouTube)

• Discord & Rhyme’s Richard D. James Album playlist (Spotify)

• Discord & Rhyme’s Patreon

Discord & Rhyme Roll Call 

• Mike DeFabio (host)

• Rich Bunnell (moderator)

• Phil Maddox

• Shivam Bhatt

Richard D. James Album tracklist 

1. 4

2. Cornish Acid

3. Peek 824545201

4. Fingerbib

5. Carn Marth

6. To Cure a Weakling Child

7. Goon Gumpas

8. Yellow Calx

9. Girl/Boy Song (NLS mix)

10. Logan Rock Witch

11. Milkman

12. Inkey$

13. Girl/Boy (£18 Snare Rush mix)

14. Beetles

15. Girl/Boy (Redruth mix) 

Other clips used 

Aphex Twin:

• Come to Daddy (Pappy Mix)

• Pac Man (released as Power Pill)

• AFX237 V7

• Analogue Bubblebath

• Didgeridoo

• Xtal

• Alberto Balsalm

• Ventolin

• Laughable Butane Bob (released as AFX)

• To Cure a Weakling Child (Contour Regard)

• To Cure a Weakling Child (33 RPM)

• Green Calx

• Blue Calx

• Red Calx

• Icct Hedral (Philip Glass Orchestration)

• Come to Daddy (Little Lord Faulteroy Mix)

• Come to Daddy (Mummy Mix)

• Avril 14th

• Mt. Saint Michel + Saint Michaels Mount

• Flim

• Windowlicker 

Others:

• The Moody Blues - Question

• Alarm Will Sound - 4

• David Rees - T4ouble

• Maurice - This Is Acid

• Radiohead - Idioteque

• Namyu - Bloodline vs. Peek 824545201

• Kraftwerk - Morgenspaziergang

• Mike & Rich - Mr. Frosty

• The Residents - Smelly Tongues

• Karlheinz Stockhausen - Gesang der Jünglinge

• Jerry Gerber - Gumby Adventures Closing Credits

• Toby Fox - Snowdin Town

• Philip Glass - The Grid

• James Brown - Soul Pride

• Toby Fox - Undertale

• Def Leppard - Pour Some Sugar on Me

• Mike Myers - Simon: A Little English Boy

• Keiichi Suzuki & Hirokazu Tanaka - The Tendas Cave

• Squarepusher - E8 Boogie

• Cylob - Rewind! (Vocal)

• Kraftwerk - Autobahn

• Alarm Will Sound - Fingerbib

Band/album personnel 

• Aphex Twin – writer, producer

Credits 

“Discord & Rhyme (theme),” composed by the Other Leading Brand, contains elements of: 

• Duran Duran - Hungry Like the Wolf

• Amon Düül II - Dehypnotized Toothpaste

• The Dukes of Stratosphear - What in the World?? ...

• Faith No More - Midlife Crisis

• Herbie Hancock - Hornets

• Kraftwerk - Autobahn

• Talking Heads - Seen and Not Seen

• Aphex Twin - Milkman (this episode only) 

You can buy or stream Richard D. James Album and other albums by Aphex Twin at aphextwin.warp.net, your local record store, or the usual suspects such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and Amazon. Follow Discord & Rhyme on Twitter @DiscordPod for news, updates, and other random stuff. Editing is by Rich Bunnell, and special thanks to our own Mike DeFabio, the Other Leading Brand, for production and original music. See you next album, and keep as cool as you can.