Aphex Twin

Richard David James (born 18 August 1971), known professionally as Aphex Twin, is an Irish-born British musician, composer and DJ.

He is known for his idiosyncratic work in electronic styles such as techno, ambient, and jungle.

Journalists from publications including Mixmag, The New York Times, NME, Fact, Clash and The Guardian have called James one of the most influential and important artists in contemporary electronic music.

James was born on 18 August 1971 in Limerick, Ireland, to Welsh parents.

He has said that he had a stillborn older brother also named Richard whose name he inherited.

Raised in Cornwall, James began DJing at free parties and clubs in the area and around the South West in the late 1980s.

In the late 1980s, James became involved in the Cornish free party scene, putting on raves at "secret coves along the coast and behind sand dunes".

He studied at Cornwall College from 1988 to 1990 and graduated with a National Diploma in engineering.

According to one lecturer, he often wore headphones during practical lessons and had a "kind of mystique about him ... I think some of the other students were a bit in awe of him."

The first party he DJed at was in a barn in 1988.

Parties were also known to take place at Gwennap Pit.

They mainly attracted local youths and travellers, with entrance donations taken in cannabis.

The tight-knit community would also put on nights at small clubs in towns around the county, including St. Ives, Porthtowan, and St Austell.

James would later refer to this scene as the "best he's ever been involved in".

James started a regular DJ slot in 1989, playing alternate weeks at the Bowgie nightclub in Crantock.

There he met Tom Middleton and Grant Wilson-Claridge.

Impressed by James's music, Middleton played a tape James had given him to a free party organiser in Exeter, who eventually convinced James to release a record on his fledgling record label Mighty Force Records.

James was initially resistant, but while he was tripping on acid backstage at a DJ gig, Darby and Middleton convinced him to release the record.

Darby later said: "I think if he had not done that trip that night there may have never been any Aphex Twin."

James has given a similar account: "...they made me sign the contract when I was off my face. I was tripping and they're waving this money and a pen at me. It's a bit clichéd but it's the way they got me to sign."

His debut EP Analogue Bubblebath, released in 1991 on Mighty Force Records, brought James an early following; he began to perform across the UK and continental Europe.

James co-founded the independent label Rephlex Records the same year.

His 1992 debut album Selected Ambient Works 85–92, released by Belgian label Apollo, garnered wider critical and popular acclaim.

James signed to Warp in 1993 and subsequently released charting albums such as ...I Care Because You Do (1995) and Richard D. James Album (1996), as well as Top 40 singles such as "Come to Daddy" (1997) and "Windowlicker" (1999); the latter two were accompanied by music videos directed by Chris Cunningham and brought James significantly wider international attention.

In a 1997 interview with Alternative Press, James stated that this death occurred while his family had moved to Canada in 1968 for his father's mining work; it led his mother to reuse the name because "she didn't want to accept the death of the child."

James grew up in Cornwall, where he lived in Lanner while attending Redruth School in Redruth.

James said he liked growing up there, "cut off from the city and the rest of the world".

He became interested in making sounds before writing music, and as a child he played with the strings inside his family piano and disassembled tape equipment.

After releasing Drukqs in 2001 and completing his contract with Warp, James spent several years releasing music on his own Rephlex label, including the 2005 Analord EP series under his AFX alias and a pair of 2007 releases as the Tuss.

In a 2001 interview, James said that at age 11, he won £50 in a competition for producing sound on a Sinclair ZX81, a home computer with no sound hardware: "I played around with machine code and found some codes that retuned the TV signal so that it made this really weird noise when you turned the volume up."

In 2014, he made available a previously unreleased 1994 LP as Caustic Window.

He returned later that year with the Aphex Twin album Syro on Warp, winning the Grammy Award for Best Dance/Electronic Album.

He has since released charting EPs including Cheetah (2016) and Collapse (2018).

In 2023 he released the EP Blackbox Life Recorder 21f / In a Room7 F760; its leading single got nominated for the Grammy for Best Dance/Electronic Recording.

However, Fact Magazine reported in 2017 that this contest story is dubious, and likely based on a program published in Your Computer Magazine 1982, for which the author (G. N. Owen) was paid £6.

James states that he bought his first synthesizer at age 12 and after taking an interest in electronics would modify analogue synthesisers "and junk" to make noise.

James began making music aged 14, partially as a refuge from the "bloody awful" Jesus and Mary Chain albums played by his sister.

Cornwall had few record shops, but a thriving nightlife in which acid house was popular.

James claimed to have been making music with similarities to acid and techno for years before hearing the genres, leading him to purchase every record he could find in the styles.

In his late teens, James began DJing at clubs and raves, and included his own tracks in his sets.