My avatar/Richard D James

[Vincent]

My old avatar (the face) was the cover of an Aphex Twin album that was called "Richard D James Album".

Richard D James is the man behind Aphex Twin who also goes under the names:

Polygon Windows
Gak
afx
Caustic Window (see new avatar :-D )

It's hard to describe his music though...  Some is just weird, some is acid dance/trance, some is ambient but quite a bit is just noise :-D

Oh, he's from Cornwall and owns a tank :-o

If you want to check out his stuff try Selected Ambient Works 1985-1992, Surfing on Sine Waves, Richard D James, Ventolin and Druqks for quite a range of his styles.

--edit--

If you've seen the videos for Come to Daddy and Windowlicker, Richard is the faces on the kids in the first and the guy in the limo in the latter.

[Karlos]

Somewhat off topic...

Ventolin is atually a preset on the VA (virtual accoustic) synthesis plugin in my synth. Sounds plain weird :-D so it's somewhat fitting.

Allegedly (in VA terms), it combines a wind "driver" and a string "resonator" and body, which along with a good many of the other VA sounds are combinations not possible in real life.

"Aphex Twin" maybe comes from the Aphex Corporation who produced (and trademarked) a lot of sound effects processing techniques.

[Vincent]

Karlos wrote:
"Aphex Twin" maybe comes from the Aphex Corporation who produced (and trademarked) a lot of sound effects processing techniques.

Interesting :-)

Ok Mr Brainy, how about telling us how he got the other names :-P

Oh, and I missed a few names:

Power-Pill (only used for a Pac-Man remix)
Tan 109 (only for the Universal Indicator single sets)

[Karlos]

One can advance no rationale to elucidate Richard James' naming strategy :-D

I only guessed at the Aphex thing - there's a "Aural Exciter is trademark of Aphex Corporation" note on the back of my rackmount. I later checked them out and discovered they make all sorts of gear, a lot of which I can easily imagine the guy has owned ;-)

Presumably Power Pill relates to the power ups in Pac Man?

[blobrana]

Hum,
@Vincent

Anyone who owns a tank, can`t be all bad...

[Karlos]

blobrana wrote:
Hum,
@Vincent

Anyone who owns a tank, can`t be all bad...

His style varies a fair bit as Vincent says, but it's invariably imaginative. I don't necessarily like all of it, but I can say even those tracks I like the least are pretty interesting :-)

-edit-

Just listening to "Outside Kick Ass Violin Solo" - the double tempo jungle-esque rhythm / jazz piano at the end is pretty damn cool :-D

[X-ray]

Richard's Ferret...
It's more like an armourd scout car than a tank...but if it's tanks that you want, they are surprisingly easy to get:

http://www.milweb.net/classifieds/class2.php?type=1

I wouldn't mind getting that 8 wheel drive SKOT amphibious vehicle, although I might get into trouble taking it down the Thames.

[Vincent]

Karlos wrote:
One can advance no rationale to elucidate Richard James' naming strategy :-D

:lol: You just need to look at the names of the songs on Drukqs to see that :-D

Presumably Power Pill relates to the power ups in Pac Man?

Yup, that's the only thing he's rel;eased under that name, a four track single of mixes of the original tune, I think his mix is slightly faster than the original, but the original tune is the main basis, unlike many other remixes :-D

@blob

:lol:

[Cyberus]

I got into Aphex Twin in about 1996, I was a metaller then, and all my mates said "What's this bleepy {bleep}". I bought 'On' and totally fell in love with it. In fact, along with 60s/70s rock, Floyd, Beatles etc, it was the first music that I got into that wasn't metal/grunge. From there I got into Squarepusher - who I sa live with the Chemical Bros at 'Sankey Soaps' in 1997 in Manchester when I was a student there, {bleep}ing awesome, u-ziq, plaid etc.

By the way, one of the CDs I own AFX : Analogue Bubblebath, has another release version called 'Hangable Autobulb' - I though that was class when I heard it!

One of personal faves is Bucephalus Bouncing Ball.
And I can always get my mates who like that {bleep} Trance music (they all take acid and go to dirty clubs) to ask me 'what's this?' when I put on Didgeridoo.

[Karlos]

Cyberus wrote:
One of personal faves is Bucephalus Bouncing Ball.

Wasn't that also used in the soundtrack for "Pi"?

-edit-

First got into Aphex Twin in early 1993 when someone brought a copy of "selected ambient works" along and played it. Some of the stuff on there was mesmerising to listen to. So I've been a bit of a fan since then :-)

[Vincent]

Cyberus wrote:
By the way, one of the CDs I own AFX : Analogue Bubblebath, has another release version called 'Hangable Autobulb' - I though that was class when I heard it!

Ah, Hangable Autobulb 1, nice EP that :-)

There's also a Hangable Autobulb 2, and there's been 5 different releases for Analogue Bubblebath (Vol 2, 3, IV and 5) I think 3 is the most common one on these shores.  All of them are great buys (Vol 2 has Digeridoo as the first track).

The Joyrex series is another good one (Caustic Window - Joyrex J4, J5 and J9... don't know if there's a J1, J2 etc or if they're by someone else).

For your friends who like trance, try and get Universal Indicator - Green (only avaliable as a 12", 10" and 7" set).  There's also Red and Blue releases too (both normal 12"s).

I first really got into Aphex when I heard Ventolin.  I know most of it was just noise, but it was so different to anything else :-)

After that it was Analogue Bubblebath 3, Surfing on Sine Waves and Selected Ambient Works 85-92.  Been grabbing anything I could ever since then :-D

--edit--

If anyone wants a list of the stuff I know that's been released under any of his pseudonyms (I've always had trouble spelling that :-D) I can post one here... But there's about 40 releases :-o

:-D

[golem]

Glad to see other people are into this kind of music. I agree that not all of it is pleasurable to listen to but it is interesting. I also agree that Richard James picture from the RDJ album is very disturbing and the Come To Daddy video was in a TV poll of most scary things on TV. I think it beat Davros and the Daleks!

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Cyberus wrote:
One of personal faves is Bucephalus Bouncing Ball.

"Bucephalus"
IIRC that's the name of the horse of Alexander the Great. One here on Aorg had an av of Alexander. Link?

[bloodline]

I got into Aphex Twin at uni. I would probably sight Richard James as an influence on my own music, but you would have to be very astute to hear it :-)