Who is Aphex Twin?

The creativity of Richard D. James starts with his artist name- Aphex Twin, his number one name. The word “Aphex” was taken from the audio signal processing gear brand called “Aphex Systems Limited”. The word “Twin” was used to pay a lifelong tribute to his older brother, who died at birth.

Aphex Twin, is an expert sound designer, master of noise who over the years sculpted sound within divers musical genres (from Jungle to Ambient) and composed musical masterpieces which revolutionized electronic music. Within the genre of IDM (Intelligent Dance Music - terrible name), Aphex Twin is famous for impeccable programming of drum rhythmic patterns. In the genre of IDM where quantity of drum hits and kicks has a stronger, more overloaded noisy presence rather than quality, he was able to engineer meaningful and beautifully sounding melodic drum patterns, where every drum hit has a legitimate presence within the musical track. Take a listen to “Alberto Balsalm” from the album “I Care Because You Do” which was released in 1995 and experience a great track where Aphex Twin demonstrates his musical genius and his skills as an incredible writer of distinct melodies, unique sounding synth melodic loops and ever evolving drum patterns.

At Pretty Samples, we have studied the full spectrum of Aphex Twin's works while designing and developing the Electronic Voyage sound pack. Check it out.

There is a constant mystique that surrounds the personality of Aphex Twin as he appeared on interviews only several times throughout his career. Focused only on music, he was able to develop multitude of distinct styles through continuous experimentation. Make sure to check out the track “Avril 14th “, which is a very calm instrumental composition that shows the other, more melancholic side of the musical genius.

Aphex Twin