Richard next to the obtuse glyph that is his logo.
Richard D. James, who is more famous under the name Aphex Twin, is an avant garde electronic musician who plays with sound by means and to ends that few other artists can or will strive for. He has been releasing music officially since 1991, and has released six studio albums, among various compilations, extended plays (EPs) and singles. If the title of his album Selected Ambient Works 85-92 is to be believed, then Richard was making music at the age of fourteen. He did not set out wishing to become famous and make the world hear his sound, but instead made his art to satisfy his own musical itch. Even as he worked as a DJ, dishing out his and others’ tracks for raving crowds, he was resistant to officially releasing his music.
Aphex Twin does not purchase a new piece of equipment and head straight into using it in a song. For him there is not a need to seek out the right tool for the job, but rather to craft it. The things that he makes his synthesizers, modulators, sequencers, and amplifiers do cannot be accomplished without modifications, bodges, and sometimes total reconstructions. If Richard judged a tool in his possession as one he could not make use of in its current form, it would be pulled apart to have its sliders, jacks, and switches reassigned until nothing under the hood was the way it looked in the manual. Only then would it be a fit asset in his eclectic arsenal.
The Twin creates music that is jarring and fast paced, such as Bucephalus Bouncing Ball and afx237v7. He also creates slow and somber songs. Aisatsana [102] and A Stone in Focus come to mind. The former of that pair is a piano piece, something oddly approachable for a discography such as his but well at home in the album Syro from which it is sourced. Richard D. does not make songs with lyrics, but instead allows for the emotions in his pieces to come through on their own terms.
Make the weirdest art you can bring yourself to make. If your heart’s in it, people might recognize it, but who needs people anyway? Make art for you. Tear your tools apart and stick them back together until they can bring about the vision you seek. Make a sound nobody has heard before, then play it a hundred different ways over seven minutes. Be the beeping, pulsing, and droning you want to hear in the world.
I would like you all to meet Noreen Davies, an 84 year old who decided to pick up learning the trombone at age 72. I don’t know about you, but I rarely hear about people learning new skills at age 72. In fact, I often hear that if I haven’t started a skill (whether it be an instrument, sport, or something else) at a young age, I have missed my chance to learn it. So, it was a pleasant surprise for me to learn about someone who decided not to listen to the narrative and pick up a new skill anyway. And not only did Davies pick up a new skill; she got good enough to pick up gigs at local shops with other musicians.
