A treasure trove of electronic tunes from Aphex Twin and his aliases

July 21, 2017 11:01 AM

Aphex Twin recently launched a countdown on his website. It began on the same day he performed at Field Day festival in London, where he sold a mysterious 12" and, for the first time in his career, live-streamed his set. And then he dropped the biggest bomb: an expanded collection of the Richard D. James releases since 1991, even pulling from some of his alternate alias side projects (AFX, Polygon Window, The Tuss, etc). You can buy FLAC or MP3s, or use the embedded streaming audio player with unlimited access to the entire catalog, and there's still more to come...
posted by filthy light thief (21 comments total)

My god, it's full of stars.

Seriously as a recovering AFX completist who obsesses over cassette tape auctions for SAW2 and such, this is amazing.
posted by dis_integration at 11:18 AM on July 21, 2017

I think in the background it lists the referrer. This is so cool!
posted by northtwilight at 11:22 AM on July 21, 2017

For a long time, I was also an Aphex completist. I wonder if he is going to put all of his side projects up, like the Mike and Rich album. I still consider Selected Ambient Works II as one of my favorite albums of all time. Thanks for the heads up to all the new tracks!
posted by Benway at 11:23 AM on July 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Note: not all releases are expanded, but some have a handful of new tracks added, plus there are wholly new collections/albums, including AFX - Korg Trax+Tunings for falling asleep, afx - orphans, and his London 03.06.16 [Field Day] show plus 3 bonus beats. He's also adding some commentary here and there, dropping some random things he's found while digging around, and there's a note that "ALL Rephlex material will be going up here in due course+xtras"

Parting note: The Tuss - Rushup Edge is listed as all new, but that EP was released in 2007, but this version is significantly expanded.

OK, final-final note: the Ars Technica article that lead me to make this post erroneously calls this "a near-complete collection of James' recording output since 1991 ... and even myriad side projects recorded under weird aliases." But if you check out Discogs, you'll see he has a ton of aliases and additional material, and then there's the opening of his archives onto Soundcloud, covered previously.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:30 AM on July 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Most artists of his stature and/or their labels tease this stuff out for years of hyped special edition releases. No one could ever accuse Aphex Twin of doing things traditionally, that's for sure.
posted by naju at 12:13 PM on July 21, 2017

IDM never EDM... ... ... ... ...
posted by zippercollider at 12:24 PM on July 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

naju - this only appears to be about 50% of his "official" output, if you ignore the soundcloud dump a couple of years back. I've just purchased three albums off there I don't have, which takes my aphex twin music folder up to 54 sub-folders, which is by no means complete.

I'm not sure what the deal is here with Bleep/WARP as the store is run by Bleep, so not sure if it will include all the various side projects, aliases, bootlegs, etc. Although like it says Rephlex material to come. I think it's more of a clever marketing ploy than anything else, although the unreleased work seems up to the usual RJD standard so no complaints from me :)
posted by lawrencium at 1:24 PM on July 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

It's also really cool to have this all in lossless WAV / FLAC, especially since his music uses every bit of that extra sonic material. I'm not even an audiophile who fusses over quality, but that's gotta be the ideal way to listen to this stuff.
posted by naju at 1:57 PM on July 21, 2017

From a friend, a bit more context on why this is exciting: "In case you haven't heard, RDJ just launched a new webstore and it's NUTS. [Nearly] every single album now has all sorts of bonus tracks, demos, alternate versions, there's a freaking video of how he made freaking "vordhosbn" in a tracker, he's finally outing himself as The Tuss (and there's NEW TUSS TRACKS), and more more more."
posted by naju at 2:00 PM on July 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

AFAIK the Bleepstores thing- which is also used by other artists, like Autechre, and other labels like Planet Mu and On-U Sound- is kind of like Bandcamp? In that artists can sell stuff that isn't on Warp but that they own (like the Autechre live recordings, or this huge trove of RDJ material, including his Rephlex work). I doubt we'll get Expert Knob Twiddlers here, but that was just reissued on CD & vinyl by Planet Mu a couple months ago...
posted by Merzbau at 2:01 PM on July 21, 2017

Here's that "vordhosbn" tracker video, which first of all, holy shit,
posted by naju at 2:03 PM on July 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

Aphex Twin gave us a peek inside a 90s classic. Here’s what we learned.
posted by naju at 2:11 PM on July 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

Trackers remain the only pure and good way of making electronic music. ..7F..
posted by Jimbob at 2:35 PM on July 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

His (?) recently created vimeo profile: https://vimeo.com/user68205945/about
posted by uffda at 2:46 PM on July 21, 2017

Never really a completist, but a fairly hardcore fan who went all-in after hearing Didgeridoo on Peel and drifted off after Drukqs (got excited by The Tuss. though). So, great that this stuff is out there and will be playing close attention, but suspect that RDJ's original curatorial instincts were sound enough that it'll be pleasant but not ball-tingling.

We shall see.

(Am completist for, in decreasing order of commitment required: Eno, BoC, Nick Nicely, Dukes of Stratosphear, Geranium Pond)
posted by Devonian at 2:51 PM on July 21, 2017

As much as I can only handle Aphex Twin et al. in measured doses, I'm finding this really exciting and can't wait to dig in.

I hope to see more of the same coming from other good artists whose prolificness exceeded their ability to release new records.
posted by ardgedee at 6:36 PM on July 21, 2017

As someone who spent a possibly unhealthy amount of time with trackers in high school, I appreciate that video...
posted by kaibutsu at 7:01 PM on July 21, 2017

This is incredible. I fell asleep listening to SAW Vol. II all throughout HS in the late 90s. It is my favorite album of all time. I can’t wait to see what else he adds to this already amazing site.
posted by vkxmai at 7:31 PM on July 21, 2017

There's precedent - he did this with the Analord collection when they were on sale digitally, adding some bonus tracks.

My internal trainspotter is most pleased by the fact that finally the Spiral Staircase Remix identity is officially cleared up.
posted by solarion at 8:23 PM on July 21, 2017

Here's that "vordhosbn" tracker video , which first of all, holy shit

Here's Venetian Snares showing off renoise
posted by filthy light thief at 5:43 AM on July 22, 2017

A new Aphex Twin record has surfaced ... in Ypsilanti, Michigan. How A Small Town Record Store Quietly Released An Exclusive Aphex Twin Record.
The store is Technical Equipment Supply, run by Todd Osborn, possibly best known for his output on Ann Arbor-based Ghostly International and its imprint, Spectral Sound.

In both Aphex Twin and Osborn's customarily understated style, the record went up on the store's shelves with no announcement of any kind, just sitting there alongside the store's other sweeping mix of music. Aphex Twin's obsessive fan base guaranteed that word would get out — and it eventually did, igniting a firestorm of Internet chatter on sites like Resident Advisor, which covers electronic music with exhaustive detail.

"Richard [James, Aphex Twin's real name] and I have been friends forever. I used to record under the alias Soundmurderer, on his label Rephlex. There's a whole bunch of stuff lined up for my label, and it's all just friends I've helped in different ways over the years. Favors I've never called in, but with this one it was something my son was interested in. That's what inspired it. The whole plan was to just put it out there and not say anything," he explains.

And that's what happened. His shop was quiet, until someone noticed and online sites like Resident Advisor posted about it. Then there a line down the block and into the parking lot of people waiting for the shop to open, including a bloke from Finland who wanted 25 copies. He got 3. -_-

The record features "3 Gerald Remix" and "24 TSIM 2," it's a record so exclusive that it can only be purchased inside this one store, tied as it is to a licensing agreement that forbids any mail-order or online sales of the release. (Both tracks initially debuted in 2015 on a since-deleted SoundCloud page used to release a slew of Aphex Twin material).
posted by filthy light thief at 1:16 PM on August 4, 2017