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Richard D. James Album
 
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Richard D. James Album

~ Mike & Rich, Aphex Twin
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
Price: £9.98 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
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Frequently Bought Together

Richard D. James Album + I Care Because You Do + Drukqs
Price For All Three: £26.94

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  • This item: Richard D. James Album ~ Mike & Rich

    In stock.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

  • I Care Because You Do ~ Aphex Twin

    Usually dispatched within 1 to 4 weeks.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

  • Drukqs ~ Aphex Twin

    In stock.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
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Product details

  • Audio CD (4 Nov 1996)
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Label: Warp
  • ASIN: B000006Z4J
  • Other Editions: Audio CD  |  Vinyl
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 25,999 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Listen to Samples and Buy MP3s

Songs from this album are available to purchase as MP3s. Click on "Buy MP3" or view the MP3 Album.

Samples
Song Title Time Price
Listen  1. 4 3:37£0.69
Listen  2. Cornish Acid 2:14£0.69
Listen  3. Peek 82454201 3:05£0.69
Listen  4. Fingerbib 3:48£0.69
Listen  5. Carn Marth 2:33£0.69
Listen  6. To Cure A Weakling Child 4:03£0.69
Listen  7. Goon Gumpas 2:02£0.69
Listen  8. Yellow Calx 3:04£0.69
Listen  9. Girl/Boy Song 4:52£0.69
Listen10. Logan Rock Witch 3:33£0.69

Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

A native of Cornwall, Richard James is obsessed with the mechanics of music making: As a kid, he took apart and reassembled the living room piano. Under the names Aphex Twin, Polygon Window, AFX and other aliases too numerous to mention, he showed that he could make entire tracks with the sounds produced by tapping on a Coke can. Like the indie rockers of yore, he revels in his marginality because of the creative freedom it gives him. None of his recordings have captured the competing impulses to lull you to sleep and blast out your eardrums as well as Richard D. James, his third and best album. As the title indicates, James has turned inward for inspiration, painting aural pictures of real and imagined scenes from his west country childhood. "Goongumpas" is a fanciful, playful tune that wouldn't sound out of place on the soundtrack to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. As his adventures with the family upright indicate, James was a bit of a devil even as a child. "Beetles" is the sound of a boy frying bugs on the sidewalk with a magnifying glass and "To Cure A Weakling Child" shows flashes of the sort of sadism found only on primary school playgrounds. If you still doubt that young Richard developed early on, the romantic Nino Rota-style strings on "Girl/Boy Song" are just made for passionate seductions, and the tune appears in three mixes, each one hot and hornier than the one before. The raucous undercurrents of even his calmest tunes and the sources of many of his most common sounds are what link James to the rock tradition. With Richard D. James, the artist solidifies his position as an electronic music mastermind who has earned a spot beside such well-respected innovators--whether or not he's destined for stardom. --Jim Derogatis


CD Description

In a career filled with re-invention, Aphex Twin comes fullcircle, with an album named after his real-life identity, RICHARD D. JAMES. James performs his usual boundary-jumping, genre-crashing magic, constantly changing gears and never standing still. Melodies are drawn from an infinite variety ofsonic sources and juxtaposed with harsh, stuttering breakbeats and placid keyboards in ever-changing permutations.
James manages to coax a wide range of emotion from his synthesizers, from the whimsical, playful melodic line which introduces "4". to the harsh beat and angular accompaniment of "Cornish Acid". "Peek 824545201" throws down a skittish, slithering beat, while "Corn Mouth" is a jumble of techno shrapnel. "To Cure A Weaking Child" makes haunting use of sampled voices of children, reassembling them into words and repeatedphrases. Drums and keyboard sounds meld into one another freely and playfully. James further showcases his ability to recycle traditional sounds into altogether new forms with thestring arrangements of "Goon Gumpas" and "Girl/Boy Song", but nowhere is this gift utilised more effectively than in "Logan Rock Witch", whose goofy rhythm and church organ support a chiming, sparse, guitar-like melody line.

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Customer Reviews

17 Reviews
5 star:
 (12)
4 star:
 (4)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.6 out of 5 stars (17 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Soundtrack to my life, 7 Jan 2005
This was the first 'Aphex' album I ever bought and it led me to seeking out every piece of sound created by the man that I could get my hands on. The first few listens caused me alot of confusion and brow lowering I must admit but one thing it wasnt was boring or unoriginal, quite the contrary.
The melodies and strings are so emotional and catchy yet the beats are a jungle of mashed up beats and mettalic futuristic sounds. Ive been listening to this album almost every day for the past 6 years as I find it very theraputic, despite all the noise! I listen to it whenever I feel down or even angry.
My mates hate it and think its just simplistic noise but it is so deep and beautiful I cant descibe it.
My favourite album of all time without doubt.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Greatest work of instrumental electronica?, 31 Mar 2006
By D. Yates (England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Brian Eno and John Carpenter aside, this is as good as electronic music gets. In some ways it's better, with the busy mix providing such a headrush of sound that Eno's approach of presenting music as an ambience that you can phase in or out of becomes redundant. The melodies that Aphex Twin uses on so many of these tracks would be sickly sweet under any other circumstances, but in his hands they are something else: enigmatic, eerily double edged, but poignant. The fact that the underlying beats are diametrically opposed to the album's tunefulness in their skittish frenzy doesn't detract from the appeal at all: the percussion, by virtue of MIDI moves at such breakneck pace that it all seems to merge into one great haze. With the airy, nostalgic synthwork the effect is futuristically pastoral, like a British (and far more schizophrenic) personal take on Kraftwerk's 1975 classic 'Autobahn'.

Personal favourites include the chirpy 'Cornish Acid' which burbles away like some memory of a childhood summer to a merrily skipping beat. It's about the only unambiguous track here, but no less beguiling for it. 'Fingerbib' is a comically manic percussive onslaught which kicks in with barely a warning and doesn't let you off the ride until it culminates with the sound of smashing glass. It's similar to being savaged by a rabid shih-tzu... and liking it. 'Girl/Boy' song is a real work of beauty, as immersive in its own way as anything on 'Selected Ambient Works Vol. 1'. The delay-soaked synth strings manage to sound both melancholic and wondrous, and the scratchy, jittering rhythms that are present on every piece bar 'Goon Gumpas' actually drive the emotion to greater heights.

That's what's interesting about this album in particular. Despite it's roots in the hard, glitchy offshoot of dance, this is pure head music. The effect is memorious, even if it has no precedent in music. The closest works I can pinpoint in sound or approach are Bjork's roiling, confessional 'Homogenic' and Kate Bush's heady, enthrallingly zany 'The Dreaming', but that's not to say they much resemble this. If, like me, you're fascinated by the potential of machines in the creation of music but you find so much modern electronica uniform in its quantised blandness, I dare you to give this a try. It's commendably unhinged, soaked in the thrill of being able to make any sound, however personal or downright bizarre and going right ahead in doing it. And men with machines don't get any more inspirational than that.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars The future of pop music, 18 Jan 2002
It is easy to be put off by the mere thought of abstract electronica, but here, Aphex dispels any myths that it is anal and obtuse. While often disturbing, particularly on 'To Cure A Weakling Child', every track on this album demonstrates a keen sense of melody. The opener, '4' in particular uses a beautiful wash of strings to addictive effect. The rhythms are very strong on the album, as you would expect, but they are never obtrusive. The music itself is difficult to describe, but there is a signature use of strings on nearly every track, the best use being on the single 'Girl/Boy Song'. The beats crackle in the background, and the general impression is of an ironic naivete, with playground melodies used against the dark undercurrents of each piece to create one very unsettling movement. Unlike recent album, 'Drukqs', this is a very succinct listen, and you will not be pressing the skip button. Indeed, it's brevity is this album's one disappointment, but otherwise is a very good introduction to Aphex.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A modern day classical masterpiece!
This is quite unlike much of Mr James' music, simply put this album could be classed as a modern day piece of classical music!
I love it!
Published 20 months ago by L. D. Overton

4.0 out of 5 stars His Best Album
I know what your thinking, if this is the great one's best album's then why just the 4/5 rating?

Pretty Simple Explanation really, the album's he releases are simply... Read more
Published on 21 Oct 2007 by Quemeelsol

5.0 out of 5 stars Tip-Top Electronica
Aphex Twin is my favorite electronic musician. And this is my favorite Aphex Twin album. It's so glorious that words aren't good enough to describe it. Read more
Published on 12 Oct 2007 by Steven M. Quinn

5.0 out of 5 stars A Dazzling Half Hour
Don't be fooled by the evil grin on Mr James's face on the cover of this CD; the `Richard D James' album is alive with mischievous melody, warmth and nostalgia. Read more
Published on 6 Sep 2007 by D. Newton

5.0 out of 5 stars Astonishing!!
From the opening strings and ridicuosly complex yet simple drum machine loops and beats you know this is going to be a special musical journey. Read more
Published on 5 April 2005

5.0 out of 5 stars D-d-d-drum and baaasss-s-s-s?
There are two types of people who listen to music - those who appreciate tunes, and those who look upon it as a medium to express talent and emotion in whatever way the musician... Read more
Published on 14 Feb 2003 by robojam

2.0 out of 5 stars I'm the odd one out...
...because I can't appreciate this album as much as his others. It's over before you have time to get into it, and upon repeat listens it seems to do very little but show off... Read more
Published on 1 Dec 2002 by Mr. R. Baker

4.0 out of 5 stars 20lb. sledgehammer of musical genious.
First and formost Richard D. James is a mathematics and sound genious. The musical master mind calling himself "Aphex Twin" is truely straight out of left-field. Read more
Published on 24 Mar 2002

5.0 out of 5 stars Refreshingly different
"Richard D James" by Aphex Twin in my humble opinion is a truly complete work of art. Although there are no tracks here that could sit comfortably in todays music chart,... Read more
Published on 19 Mar 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy this album, dance/classical/drum and base at its best.
Aphex twin has come up trumps again, giving the world his new album. Right from the start, you get the feeling of what its about. 4 brings you into the world of Richard D. Read more
Published on 29 Dec 2000

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