Richard D. James (album)

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Richard D. James
Richard D. James cover
Studio album by Aphex Twin
Released November 4, 1996
Recorded 1995/1996
Genre Drill n' Bass
Techno
Electronic Music
Length 32:03
41:49 (non-European version)
Label Warp Records
WARP043 (Europe)
Sire/Elektra Records
62010 (rest of world)
Producer Aphex Twin
Professional reviews
Aphex Twin chronology
Girl/Boy EP
(1996)		 Richard D. James Album
(1996)		 Come To Daddy
(1997)

Richard D. James Album is an album by Richard D. James under his pseudonym Aphex Twin. Released in 1996 on Warp Records, the work features novel use of software synthesizers and is an archetype in the drill 'n bass genre.

Contents

[edit] Overview

James named the album after himself for two main reasons: the first being that he had released so much material under his various guises, that he thought he should have a self-titled album, and the second being that he had an older brother that died at birth also named Richard James. Richard D. James may have released the album as a form of tribute to him (Richard James' memorial is displayed in the album insert of the US edition, as well as on the cover of the UK-only Girl/Boy EP, and the story of James' brother was featured heavily in press articles about the release).

Richard D. James Album is influenced by the works of James' friends, including Luke Vibert's Plug series of EPs and Squarepusher's Feed Me Weird Things and other early works. James avoided the cliched and copyrighted breakbeats often used on drum and bass recordings, such as the Amen break, and instead programmed Apple computers' software synthesizers—a novel approach at the time[citation needed]. On "Logan Rock Witch", James sampled children's toys as percussion instruments. Some of the tracks, including the single "Girl/Boy Song", play plucked and bowed string sounds. A review by the Chicago Sun-Times' Jim Deragotis said of the album: "James has turned inward for inspiration, painting aural pictures of real and imagined scenes from his West Country childhood."

[edit] Track listing

Tracks from the original European release:

  1. "4" – 3:37 (sample (help·info))
  2. "Cornish Acid" – 2:14
  3. "Peek 824545201" – 3:05
  4. "Fingerbib" – 3:48
  5. "Carn Marth" – 2:33
  6. "To Cure a Weakling Child" – 4:03
  7. "Goon Gumpas" – 2:02
  8. "Yellow Calx" – 3:04
  9. "Girl/Boy Song" – 4:52
  10. "Logan Rock Witch" – 3:33

The American and Australian versions of this album contain five extra tracks that had previously been released in the UK as the b-sides of the Girl/Boy EP.

  1. "Milkman" – 4:09
  2. "INKEY$" – 1:24
  3. "Girl/Boy (£18 Snare Rush mix)" – 1:57
  4. "Beetles" – 1:31
  5. "Girl/Boy (Redruth mix)" – 1:37

[edit] Notes

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The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • As can be seen above, many of the songs are kept short, and the original album was just over half an hour long, supposedly because James claimed that anything over half an hour in length bores him, and he cannot concentrate.[citation needed]
  • This album contains at least two sounds from the Spectrum home computer: a program being loaded from a tape, and sound effects from the game Jetpac. The tape noise in "Carn Marth" is the loading screen data for the game Sabre Wulf, and "Peek 824545201" contains the header block from Starstrike 3D. The tracks "INKEY$" and "Peek 824545201" are themselves named after keywords in the Spectrum's Sinclair BASIC programming language. This theme is continued in the later album drukqs, which features the Sinclair ZX81 keyboard font in its artwork - the ZX81 having been the forerunner to the Spectrum.
  • The album was followed by Come to Daddy, which included a remix of "To Cure a Weakling Child", dubbed the "Contour Regard" mix. The original album mix was used in a high-profile UK TV advertising campaign for the mobile phone company, Orange. The song "4" was used in a US government anti-drug advertisement spot, as well as an advertisement in the United States for the Special Olympics. "Girl/Boy Song" was used in the US in a Bank of America commercial [1].
  • David Firth, the creator of the online series "Salad Fingers", has used "Milkman", "4" and "Girl/Boy Song" in his own unofficial videos. ([2])
  • "Carn Marth" is frequently, albeit incorrectly, referred to as "Corn Mouth", a mistake possibly attributable to James' handwriting.

[edit] Charts

Year Chart Peak Position
1997 Heatseekers #20

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Richard D. James
As Aphex Twin
Digeridoo (1992) – Selected Ambient Works 85-92 (1992) – Xylem Tube EP (1992) – On (1993) – Selected Ambient Works Volume II (1994) – Classics (1994) – Ventolin (1995) – ...I Care Because You Do (1995) – Melodies from Mars (unreleased) (1995) – Donkey Rhubarb (1995) – Girl/Boy EP (1996) – Richard D. James (1996) – 51/13—Aphex Singles Collection (1996) – Come to Daddy (1997) – Windowlicker (1999) – drukqs (2001) – 26 Mixes for Cash (2003) Analord 10 (2005) – Chosen Lords (2006)
As AFX
Analogue Bubblebath (1991) – Analogue Bubblebath 2 – (1991) – Analogue Bubblebath 3 (1993) – Analogue Bubblebath 4 (1994) – Analogue Bubblebath 5 (unreleased) (1995) – Hangable Auto Bulb (1995) – Analogue Bubblebath 3.1 – (1997) – 2 Remixes By AFX (2001) – Smojphace EP (2003) – Analords 1-9, 11 (2005) – AFX/LFO (2005) – Chosen Lords (2006)
As Polygon Window
Surfing on Sine Waves (1993) – Quoth (1993)
As Power-Pill
Pac-Man (1992)
As Bradley Strider
Bradley's Beat (1991) – Bradley's Robot (1993)
As Caustic Window
Joyrex J4 EP (1992) – Joyrex J5 EP (1992) – Joyrex J9i (1993) – Joyrex J9ii (1993) – Untitled (unreleased) (1994) – Compilation (1998)
As GAK
GAK (1994)
As Q-Chastic
Q-Chastic EP (unreleased) (1992)
As Green Calx
Green Calx (unreleased) (1993)
With Mike & Rich
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