Maurits Cornelis Escher ( /ˈɛʃər/, Dutch: [ˈmʌurɪts kɔrˈneːlɪs ˈɛʃər] ( listen);^[1] 17 June 1898 – 27 March 1972), usually referred to as M. C. Escher, was a Dutch graphic artist. He is known for his often mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints. These feature impossible constructions, explorations of infinity, architecture, and tessellations.

Early life[link]

Maurits Cornelis, nicknamed "Mauk",^[2] was born in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands, in a house that forms part of the Princessehof Ceramics Museum today. He was the youngest son of civil engineer George Arnold Escher and his second wife, Sara Gleichman. In 1903, the family moved to Arnhem, where he attended primary school and secondary school until 1918.

He was a sickly child, and was placed in a special school at the age of seven and failed the second grade.^[3] Though he excelled at drawing, his grades were generally poor. He also took carpentry and piano lessons until he was thirteen years old. In 1919, Escher attended the Haarlem School of Architecture and Decorative Arts. He briefly studied architecture, but he failed a number of subjects (partly due to a persistent skin infection) and switched to decorative arts.^[3] Here he studied under Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita, with whom he would remain friends for years. In 1922 Escher left the school, having gained experience in drawing and making woodcuts.

Later life[link]

In 1922, an important year of his life, Escher traveled through Italy (Florence, San Gimignano, Volterra, Siena, Ravello) and Spain (Madrid, Toledo, Granada). He was impressed by the Italian countryside and by the Alhambra, a fourteenth-century Moorish castle in Granada, Spain. The intricate decorative designs at Alhambra, which were based on mathematical formulas and feature interlocking repetitive patterns sculpted into the stone walls and ceilings, were a powerful influence on Escher's works.^[4] He came back to Italy regularly in the following years. In Italy he met Jetta Umiker, whom he married in 1924. The young couple settled down in Rome where their son, Giorgio Arnaldo Escher, named after his grandfather, was born. "In 1935, the political climate in Italy (under Mussolini) became totally unacceptable to him. Escher had no interest in politics, finding it impossible to involve himself with any ideals other than the expressions of his own concepts through his own particular medium, but he was averse to fanaticism and hypocrisy. When his eldest son, George, was forced, at the age of nine, to wear a Ballila Facist Youth uniform in school, the family decided to leave Italy. The family moved to Château-d'Œx, Switzerland, where they remained for two years. ^[5]

Escher, who had been very fond of and inspired by the landscapes in Italy, was decidedly unhappy in Switzerland, and in 1937, the family moved again, to Uccle, a suburb of Brussels, Belgium. World War II forced them to move in January 1941, this time to Baarn, the Netherlands, where Escher lived until 1970. Most of Escher's better-known pictures date from this period. The sometimes cloudy, cold, wet weather of the Netherlands allowed him to focus intently on his works, and only during 1962, when he underwent surgery, was there a time when no new images were created.

Escher moved to the Rosa Spier house in Laren in 1970, a retirement home for artists where he had his own studio. He died at the home on 27 March 1972, at age 73.

Works[link]

Escher's first print of an impossible reality was Still Life and Street, 1937. His artistic expression was created from images in his mind, rather than directly from observations and travels to other countries. Well known examples of his work also include Drawing Hands, a work in which two hands are shown, each drawing the other; Sky and Water, in which light plays on shadow to morph the water background behind fish figures into bird figures on a sky background; and Ascending and Descending, in which lines of people ascend and descend stairs in an infinite loop, on a construction which is impossible to build and possible to draw only by taking advantage of quirks of perception and perspective.

He worked primarily in the media of lithographs and woodcuts, though the few mezzotints he made are considered to be masterpieces of the technique. In his graphic art, he portrayed mathematical relationships among shapes, figures and space. Additionally, he explored interlocking figures using black and white to enhance different dimensions. Integrated into his prints were mirror images of cones, spheres, cubes, rings and spirals.

In addition to sketching landscape and nature in his early years, he also sketched insects, which frequently appeared in his later work. His first artistic work, completed in 1922, featured eight human heads divided in different planes. Later around 1924, he lost interest in "regular division" of planes, and turned to sketching landscapes in Italy with irregular perspectives that are impossible in natural form.

Although Escher did not have mathematical training—his understanding of mathematics was largely visual and intuitive—Escher's work had a strong mathematical component, and more than a few of the worlds which he drew are built around impossible objects such as the Necker cube and the Penrose triangle. Many of Escher's works employed repeated tilings called tessellations. Escher's artwork is especially well liked by mathematicians and scientists, who enjoy his use of polyhedra and geometric distortions. For example, in Gravity, multi-colored turtles poke their heads out of a stellated dodecahedron.

The mathematical influence in his work emerged around 1936, when he was journeying the Mediterranean with the Adria Shipping Company. Specifically, he became interested in order and symmetry. Escher described his journey through the Mediterranean as "the richest source of inspiration I have ever tapped."

After his journey to the Alhambra, Escher tried to improve upon the art works of the Moors using geometric grids as the basis for his sketches, which he then overlaid with additional designs, mainly animals such as birds and lions.

His first study of mathematics, which would later lead to its incorporation into his art works, began with George Pólya's academic paper on plane symmetry groups sent to him by his brother Berend. This paper inspired him to learn the concept of the 17 wallpaper groups (plane symmetry groups). Utilizing this mathematical concept, Escher created periodic tilings with 43 colored drawings of different types of symmetry. From this point on he developed a mathematical approach to expressions of symmetry in his art works. Starting in 1937, he created woodcuts using the concept of the 17 plane symmetry groups.

In 1941, Escher summarized his findings in a notebook, which he labeled Regelmatige vlakverdeling in asymmetrische congruente veelhoeken ("Regular division of the plane with asymmetric congruent polygons").^[6] His intention in writing this was to aid himself in integrating mathematics into art. Escher is considered a research mathematician of his time because of his documentation with this paper. In it, he studied color based division, and developed a system of categorizing combinations of shape, color and symmetrical properties.

Around 1956, Escher explored the concept of representing infinity on a two-dimensional plane. Discussions with Canadian mathematician H.S.M. Coxeter inspired Escher's interest in hyperbolic tessellations, which are regular tilings of the hyperbolic plane. Escher's wood engravings Circle Limit I–IV demonstrate this concept. In 1959, Coxeter published his finding that these works were extraordinarily accurate: "Escher got it absolutely right to the millimeter."

Escher was awarded the Knighthood of the Order of Orange Nassau in 1955. Subsequently he regularly designed art for dignitaries around the world.

In 1958, he published a book entitled Regular Division of the Plane, with reproductions of a series of woodcuts based on tessellations of the plane, in which he described the systematic buildup of mathematical designs in his artworks. He emphasized, "Mathematicians have opened the gate leading to an extensive domain."

Overall, his early love of Roman and Italian landscapes and of nature led to his interest in the concept of regular division of a plane, which he applied in over 150 colored works. Other mathematical principles evidenced in his works include the superposition of a hyperbolic plane on a fixed 2-dimensional plane, and the incorporation of three-dimensional objects such as spheres, columns and cubes into his works. For example, in a print called "Reptiles", he combined two and three-dimensional images. In one of his papers, Escher emphasized the importance of dimensionality and described himself as "irritated" by flat shapes: "I make them come out of the plane."

Sculpture of the small stellated dodecahedron that appears in Escher's Gravitation. It can be found in front of the "Mesa+" building on the Campus of the University of Twente.

Escher also studied the mathematical concepts of topology. He learned additional concepts in mathematics from the British mathematician Roger Penrose. From this knowledge he created Waterfall and Up and Down, featuring irregular perspectives similar to the concept of the Möbius strip.

Escher printed Metamorphosis I in 1937, which was a beginning part of a series of designs that told a story through the use of pictures. These works demonstrated a culmination of Escher's skills to incorporate mathematics into art. In Metamorphosis I, he transformed convex polygons into regular patterns in a plane to form a human motif. This effect symbolizes his change of interest from landscape and nature to regular division of a plane.

One of his most notable works is the piece Metamorphosis III, which is wide enough to cover all the walls in a room, and then loop back onto itself.

After 1953, Escher became a lecturer at many organizations. A planned series of lectures in North America in 1962 was cancelled due to an illness, but the illustrations and text for the lectures, written out in full by Escher, were later published as part of the book Escher on Escher. In July 1969 he finished his last work, a woodcut called Snakes, in which snakes wind through a pattern of linked rings which fade to infinity toward both the center and the edge of a circle.

Legacy[link]

The Escher Museum in The Hague

The special way of thinking and the rich graphic work of M.C. Escher has had a continuous influence in science and art, as well as being referenced in popular culture. Ownership of the Escher intellectual property and of his unique art works have been separated from each other.

In 1969, Escher's business advisor, Jan W. Vermeulen, author of a biography in Dutch on the artist, established the M.C. Escher Stichting (M.C. Escher Foundation), and transferred into this entity virtually all of Escher's unique work as well as hundreds of his original prints. These works were lent by the Foundation to the Hague Museum. Upon Escher's death, his three sons dissolved the Foundation, and they became partners in the ownership of the art works. In 1980, this holding was sold to an American art dealer and the Hague Museum. The Museum obtained all of the documentation and the smaller portion of the art works.

The copyrights remained the possession of the three sons – who later sold them to Cordon Art, a Dutch company. Control of the copyrights was subsequently transferred to The M.C. Escher Company B.V. of Baarn, Netherlands, which licenses use of the copyrights on all of Escher's art and on his spoken and written text, and also controls the trademarks. Filing of the trademark "M.C. Escher" in the United States was opposed, but the Dutch company prevailed in the courts on the grounds that an artist or his heirs have a right to trademark his name.

A related entity, the M.C. Escher Foundation of Baarn, promotes Escher's work by organizing exhibitions, publishing books and producing films about his life and work.

The primary institutional collections of original works by M.C. Escher are the Escher Museum, a subsidiary of the Haags Gemeentemuseum in The Hague; the National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC); the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa); the Israel Museum (Jerusalem); Huis ten Bosch (Nagasaki, Japan); and the Boston Public Library.

Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter,^[7] published in 1979, discusses the ideas of self-reference and strange loops, drawing on a wide range of artistic and scientific work, including the art of M. C. Escher and the music of J. S. Bach, to illustrate ideas behind Gödel's incompleteness theorems.

Selected works[link]

Art portal

See also[link]

• Asteroid 4444 Escher was named in Escher's honor in 1985.

References[link]

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: M. C. Escher

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: M. C. Escher

• "M.C. Escher official website". http://www.mcescher.com/. 
• "Math and the Art of M.C. Escher". USA: SLU. http://mathcs.slu.edu/escher. 
• Artful Mathematics: The Heritage of M. C. Escher. USA: AMS. http://www.ams.org/notices/200304/fea-escher.pdf. 
• Escherization problem and its solution. CA: University of Waterloo. http://www.cgl.uwaterloo.ca/~csk/projects/escherization/. 
• "Escher for Real". IL: Technion. http://www.cs.technion.ac.il/~gershon/EscherForReal/.  — physical replicas of some of Escher's "impossible" designs
• "M.C. Escher: Life and Work". USA: NGA. http://www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/ggescher/ggescher-main1.html. 
• "US copy right proctection for UK artists". UK. http://www.artquest.org.uk/articles/view/us-copyright-protection-for-uk-artists1.  Copyright issue regarding Escher from the Artquest Artlaw archive.
• Schattschneider, Doris (June/July 2010). "The Mathematical Side of M. C. Escher" (PDF). Notices of the American Mathematical Society (USA) 57 (6): 706–18. http://www.ams.org/notices/201006/rtx100600706p.pdf. Retrieved 2010-07-09. 
• Gallery of tessellations by M.C. Escher

For Real was an American R&B and soul quartet, that formed in 1993.^[1] In the latter part of that decade they were nominated for a Grammy, Billboard Music Award, and Soul Train Music Award.

Biography[link]

For Real secured their recording contract by accident. "We were picking up our manager from the airport. So we decided to greet him with an acappella song. Someone from A&M Records just happened to be in the airport and heard them perform. Not long after, they were signed," said Latanyia Baldwin.^[2]

The band released their debut album, It's a Natural Thang, with production from Brian McKnight on A&M Records in 1994, and it became a critical success, including a rare four stars from Rolling Stone magazine.^[3] Their first single, "You Don't Wanna Miss" hit #28 on the Billboard chart, courtesy of a danceable new jack swing remix by Steve "Silk" Hurley, which was featured in the song's video. A second single, "Easy to Love", peaked at #65 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The album scored another chart hit with the a cappella love song, "You Don't Know Nothin'", which was written and produced by Mervyn Warren, and which peaked at #27. The song peaked at #54 in the UK Singles Chart in July 1995.^[4] The album sold over one million copies worldwide, and peaked at #80 on the Billboard 200.

In 1995, the band appeared in Italian Vogue, modeling men's suits. They toured alongside Stevie Wonder,^[5] and lent their voices to the Martin Scorsese film project Grace of My Heart. The foursome also forayed into acting with appearances in the film Shake, Rattle and Rock! starring Renée Zellweger and Howie Mandel^[6] on Showtime.

They also hit the US Top 20 with the single "Freedom (Theme from Panther)" featuring Aaliyah, TLC, En Vogue, BlackGirl, SWV, and Vanessa Williams from the film Panther. They also recorded a duet with Stevie Wonder called "Stubborn Kind of Fellow", which appeared on the Marvin Gaye tribute album, Inner City Blues: The Music of Marvin Gaye.^[7] For Real also recorded songs for the soundtracks of the films Waiting to Exhale and Fled.

After a label change from A&M to Dallas Austin's Arista imprint Rowdy Records in 1996, For Real struck again with the Austin-produced, 60s-leaning single "Like I Do", from their second album Free. "Like I Do" hit #10 on the Billboard singles chart. The video also earned a Billboard nomination for Best R&B Clip; the album made the Top 100, and sold nearly 400,000 copies in the US. The album's next and last single was the Diane Warren-penned pop ballad "The Saddest Song I Ever Heard" which hit #65 on the Top 100 singles chart. The band performed "Saddest Song" on the TV series All That. Free included production from top R&B/pop producers like Babyface, Mario Winans, and Jon B..

The band also recorded three songs ("I Do", "Born to Love That Boy" and "Unwanted Number") and appeared in the critically acclaimed film Grace of My Heart. The film's soundstrack won a Satellite Award in 1997.^[9][10]

In January 1997, the band won an American Music Award for their work on the Waiting to Exhale soundtrack, in Summer 1997, the group earned a Soul Train Award nomination for Album of the Year (By a Group, Band or Duo) for Free.

In 1999, Wendi Williams lent her voice to the Emmy-winning film Introducing Dorothy Dandridge with Halle Berry, in which Berry plays a singer but Williams is behind her singing voice.^[11]

In 2002, their song "Love Will Be Waiting at Home" appeared in the film Two Can Play That Game, which starred Vivica A. Fox and Morris Chestnut.

In 2009, CoryLavel began to work with Josina Elder on her new album.

Discography[link]

• It's a Natural Thang (1994)
• Free (1996)

Awards and nominations[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• SingingFool.com Streaming music videos for "Like I Do" and "The Saddest Song I Ever Heard"
• Allmusic^{[dead link]} Discography, biographies, and pictures
• IUMA Group photos, lyrics, message board, audio streams, and biography
• Google Album info, photos, and lyrics

Aphex Twin
In Turin, Italy in March 2007.
Background information
Birth name	Richard David James
Born	(1971-08-18) 18 August 1971 (age 40) Limerick, Ireland
Origin	Lanner, Cornwall, United Kingdom
Genres	Electronic, ambient, IDM, acid techno
Occupations	Musician, composer, remixer
Instruments	Synthesizers, piano, electronics, harpsichord, organ, percussion, laptop, softsynth, turntables, drum machine, guitar, bass guitar, computer, sequencer, sampler
Years active	1985–present
Labels	Warp Records Sire Records Rephlex Records
Associated acts	Universal Indicator, Mike & Rich

Richard David James (born 18 August 1971), best known under the pseudonym Aphex Twin, is a British electronic musician and composer. He founded the record label Rephlex Records in 1991 with Grant Wilson-Claridge. He was described by The Guardian as "the most inventive and influential figure in contemporary electronic music."^[1]

Aphex Twin has also recorded music under the aliases AFX, Blue Calx, Bradley Strider, Caustic Window, DJ Smojphace, GAK, Martin Tressider, Polygon Window, Power-Pill, Prichard D. Jams, Q-Chastic, Tahnaiya Russell, The Dice Man, Soit-P.P., and speculatively The Tuss.

Aphex Twin has released recordings on Rephlex, Warp, R&S, Sire, Mighty Force, Rabbit City, and Men Records.

History[link]

Early years[link]

Richard David James was born to Welsh parents Lorna and Derek James in St. Munchin's Limerick Regional Maternity Hospital, Ireland. He grew up in Lanner, Cornwall, enjoying, along with two older sisters, a "very happy" childhood during which they, according to James, "were pretty much left to do what [they] wanted."^[2] He "liked growing up there, being cut off from the city and the rest of the world".^[3] James attended Redruth School, located in Redruth, Cornwall.^[4]

According to musician Benjamin Middleton, James started producing music at the age of 12.^[5] As a teenager he was a disc jockey at the Shire Horse Inn in St Ives, with Tom Middleton at the Bowgie Inn in Crantock, and also along the numerous beaches around Cornwall. James studied for a National Diploma in Engineering from 1988 to 1990 (aged 16 to 18) at Cornwall College. Talking about his studies, James has said that "music and electronics went hand in hand."^[6] James graduated from college; according to an engineering lecturer, however, he often had his headphones on during practical lessons, "no doubt thinking through the mixes he'd be working on later".^[7]

Early career: early 1990s[link]

In 1989 James met and befriended Grant Wilson-Claridge when working as a DJ on alternate weeks at the Bowgie pub, near Newquay in Cornwall. Wilson-Claridge was intrigued by James's sets and was surprised to discover that James was playing tapes of his own music.

James' first release was the 12-inch EP Analogue Bubblebath on Mighty Force Records in 1991. It was first released under the moniker Aphex Twin, later changed to AFX. The track "En Trance to Exit" was made in collaboration with Tom Middleton, also known as Schizophrenia.^[8] The EP got on the playlist of Kiss FM, an influential London radio station, which helped the release to become a success.^[9]

In 1991, James and Wilson-Claridge founded Rephlex Records to promote "innovation in the dynamics of Acid — a much-loved and -misunderstood genre of house music forgotten by some and indeed new to others, especially in Britain."^[10]

Between 1991 and 1993, James released two Analogue Bubblebath EPs as AFX, and an EP under Bradley Strider, Bradley's Beat. James moved to London to take an electronics course at Kingston Polytechnic, but at the time admitted to David Toop that his "electronics studies were already slipping away as a career in the techno business took precedence." After quitting his course, James remained in London and released a number of albums and EPs on Warp Records and other labels under many aliases including AFX, Polygon Window, and Power-Pill. A number of James' tracks (released under the aliases Blue Calx, The Dice Man, and others) appeared on various compilations. Local legend has it that James lived on the roundabout in Elephant and Castle, South London during his early years in the capital - in fact he lived in a nearby disused bank.^[2][11]

Gaining success: 1992–1995[link]

	"Ageispolis" noicon Sample of "Ageispolis" from the album Selected Ambient Works 85-92.
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	"Ventolin (Video Version)" noicon Sample of "Ventolin (Video Version)" from the album ...I Care Because You Do.
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The first full-length Aphex Twin album, Selected Ambient Works 85–92, was released in 1992 on R&S Records. It received high ratings and praise from critics. John Bush of Allmusic described it as a "watershed of ambient music".^[12] In 2002, Rolling Stone wrote of the album: "Aphex Twin expanded way beyond the ambient music of Brian Eno by fusing lush soundscapes with oceanic beats and bass lines."^[13] Pitchfork Media's review called it, "among the most interesting music ever created with a keyboard and a computer."^[14] Critics also noted that the songs were recorded on cassette and that the sound quality was "relatively poor".

In 1992, he also released the EPs Xylem Tube EP and Digeridoo (first played by DJ Colin Faver on London's Kiss FM) as Aphex Twin, as Power-Pill the Pac-Man EP based on the arcade game Pac-Man, and two of his four Caustic Window EPs. "Digeridoo" reached #55 in the UK Singles Chart, and was later described as foreshadowing drum and bass by Rolling Stone.^[15] "Digeridoo" was recorded initially for the benefit of FIZZ-BOMB (at the Shire Horse, St Ives, Cornwall). These early releases came out on Rephlex Records, Mighty Force of Exeter, and R&S Records of Belgium.^[16]

In 1993, James released Analogue Bubblebath 3. He also released a single titled "On"; his second Bradley Strider EP, Bradley's Robot; two more Caustic Window EPs; and his first releases on Warp Records, Surfing on Sine Waves and "Quoth" under the alias Polygon Window.

Warp Records pressed and released a follow-up to Selected Ambient Works 85-92, Selected Ambient Works Volume II in 1994. The sound was much less beat and melody-driven than the previous volume. All of the track names were described with pie chart symbols, each of which was meant to be paired with a corresponding image in the album jacket, with exception for one song, which was named "Blue Calx". To decipher song titles, listeners had to compare the length of each track with the size of each pie chart symbol. For example, the first title, which is often labelled cliffs, is realised by pairing the first symbol with the first image, which is that of a rocky cliffside.^[17] James claimed in The Wire magazine and other media that these songs were inspired by lucid dreams and synaesthesia. Other releases are a fourth Analogue Bubblebath; GAK, derived from early demos sent to Warp Records; and Classics, a compilation album that includes "Digeridoo" and the Xylem Tube EP.

For his 1995 release, ...I Care Because You Do, James used an image of his face for the album cover, a motif that would continue on many of his later records. The album was a compilation of songs composed between 1990 and 1994 and represented a mish-mash of Aphex Twin's various music styles. This was James's last record of the 1990s to use mostly analogue synthesizers. He commissioned Western classical-music composer Philip Glass to create an orchestral version of one of the songs from this album, "Icct Hedral", which appeared on the Donkey Rhubarb EP.^[18]

Jungle, DSP, and laptops: 1995–1999[link]

In 1995 (primarily with Hangable Auto Bulb, a near anagram of Analogue Bubblebath), James began releasing more material composed on computers, combining a jungle sound with nostalgic childhood themes and computer-generated acid lines.

James's early adoption of software synthesizers predated the later popularity of using computers to make music. In the mid-to-late 1990s, his music gradually gained more mainstream appeal, as he released Richard D. James Album and Expert Knob Twiddlers (a collaboration with fellow dance producer µ-ziq) in 1996, "Come to Daddy" in 1997 (#36 on UK charts) and "Windowlicker" in 1999 (#16 on UK charts). Two pop songs that heavily use Digital Signal Processing (DSP) techniques, "Come to Daddy" and "Windowlicker" were shown on MTV and became cover features for music magazines such as NME. The videos for both singles were directed by British artist Chris Cunningham and caused controversy on release because of their disturbing images and themes.

In 1998, Aphex Twin's track "[rhubarb]" (from Selected Ambient Works Volume II) appeared as part of the BBC's digital widescreen test transmission, which was on loop for many months as the service was introduced across the UK.^[19]

Prepared piano, laptops, and more DSP: 2000–2003[link]

In 2001 Aphex Twin released drukqs, a two-CD album that featured computer controlled piano songs influenced by Erik Satie and John Cage. Many of the tracks' names are written in the Cornish language (i.e., 'jynweythek' translatable as 'machinemusic'). Also included were abrasive, fast, and meticulously programmed computer-made songs. Rolling Stone described the piano songs as "aimlessly pretty".^[20] Some reviewers concluded that drukqs was released as a contract breaker with Warp Records—a credible guess, as James's next big release was released on his own Rephlex label. James claimed to interviewers he had accidentally left an MP3 player labelled "Aphex Twin—unreleased tracks" on a plane, containing a large set of new songs, and rushed the album release to preempt an Internet leak.^[21] He also released a short EP titled 2 Remixes By AFX the same year as Drukqs. It featured two remixes, the originals being from 808 State and DJ Pierre. In addition, there is one untitled third track that consists of an SSTV image, which consists of mostly of high-pitched sounds, which can be decoded to a viewable image by proper software such as MultiMode (for Macintosh) or MMSSTV (for Windows).

Synthesizers and drum machines: 2004–present[link]

In late 2004, rumours of James's return to an acid techno-based sound were realised with the Analord series, an 11-part series of EPs with 42 total tracks, averaging 2–4 tracks per EP. The series was created by playing and sequencing analogue and digital electronic music equipment such as synthesizers and drum machines. The series was recorded on magnetic tape and then later pressed on vinyl.

James was meticulous about the whole process of recording, mastering, and pressing. James has said Rephlex Records was strict on quality control, trying out various pressing-plant companies until they felt it sounded perfect. To James's ears, vinyl or tape is better than digital, as no two copies are the same. However, label co-owner Grant Wilson-Claridge convinced James to release a CD compilation, Chosen Lords, which included 10 selected tracks from the Analord series. For the Analord series James used his collection of vintage synthesizer and drum machines, some of which were quite rare by that time. Some of the record inserts have pictures of rare synthesizers like the Synton Fenix, and the notoriously difficult-to-program Roland MC-4 sequencer, as well as the legendary Roland TB-303.

In 2007 media reports indicated that Aphex Twin was recording under a new alias called The Tuss. Rephlex Records has denied that Aphex Twin is The Tuss, but Aphex Twin fans and the media have ignored Rephlex's denial and The Tuss is treated as yet another Aphex Twin project;^[22][23] further evidence being provided by the fact that all Tuss tracks are published in the BMI Repertoire under the name JAMES RICHARD DAVID.^[24]

Some of Aphex Twin's music was featured in the award winning documentary about the atrocities of shark finning, Sharkwater.

In March 2009 Steve Beckett of Warp Records announced a new album for a possible release but the album never materialised.^[25] However, 20 more tracks were added to the Analord series in December 2009, only available through download from the Rephlex Records website.

In an October 2010 interview with British magazine Another Man, James stated that he had completed 6 albums, one of which was a remake of the unreleased Melodies from Mars, originally produced around the time of Richard D. James Album.^[26] In June 2011, he spoke to Spanish magazine EL PAIS. When asked about the 6 albums, he answered 'More than 10 or 11 are already compiled, and many more songs are orphans.' He also revealed that a new album 'will show in a while' and that the reason there has been so long since his last album was that he was waiting for a divorce from his wife.^[27]

Background details[link]

	"Jynweythek" noicon Sample of "Jynweythek" from the album Drukqs.
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	"Vordhosbn" noicon Sample of "Vordhosbn" from the album Drukqs.
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	"Fenix Funk 5" noicon Sample of "Fenix Funk 5" from the EP Analord 10.
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	"VBS.Redlof. B" noicon Sample of "VBS.Redlof. B" from the EP Analord 11.
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The Aphex Twin name[link]

The name Aphex is derived from Aphex Systems Limited, a brand of audio signal processing equipment (itself derived from "analogue effects").^{[dubious – discuss]} It is used with permission, as acknowledged on the back sleeves of Richard D. James Album and drukqs. He has explained in interviews that the Twin portion of his moniker is used in memory of his brother, also named Richard James, who died at birth in 1968.

Artwork[link]

James's own face, grinning or distorted in some way, is a common theme in his album covers, his music videos, and the songs themselves. The cover of I Care Because You Do features a painting of James, while the cover of Richard D. James Album presents a close-up photograph. His face is transplanted onto other peoples' bodies in the music videos of "Come to Daddy" and "Windowlicker". Near the end of the second track of the "Windowlicker" single (commonly referred to as "Equation"), a photo of James' face is embedded as a steganogram which is revealed when run through spectral analysis.^[28] Another embedded image of James, along with collaborator Tom Jenkinson, appears in the third track of 2 Remixes by AFX, "Bonus High Frequency Sounds", encoded in SSTV format, with text relating to the release.

James has used his own photography for some of his releases, such as the elaborate album sleeve for Selected Ambient Works Volume II.

Braindance[link]

Richard's own Rephlex Records label, which he co-owns with Grant Wilson-Claridge, coined the term Braindance in 1991 to describe Aphex Twin's music.^[22][29][30] Rephlex Records' official definition of Aphex Twin and his followers' music is quoted as follows: "Braindance is the genre that encompasses the best elements of all genres, e.g traditional, classical, electronic music, popular, modern, industrial, ambient, hip-hop, electro, house, techno, breakbeat, hardcore, ragga, garage, drum and bass, etc."^[31]

Braindance applies to forward-thinking electronic music that can appeal to the mind as well as the desire to dance and party. Examples including Ed-DMX's Breakin' records label, µ-ziq's Planet-mu label, the Aphex Twin EP Come to Daddy and Astrobotnia Parts 1, 2 & 3.^[32]

Influences[link]

At age 17, Richard D. James mentioned these influences: "Phonic Boy, Computer World, Mental Telepathy, Industrial Inc., Tomita, Tangerine Dream". Mixmaster Morris mentions on the "I Luv AFX" BBC Radio 1 Breezeblock session that James' preferred moniker while working as a DJ in Cornwall was Phonic Boy on Dope. More recently, he has said that he gets inspiration from "everyday sounds that can be emulated/reconstructed electronically, quality techno, especially from Europe, which overshadows the current hardcore pop crap." When asked about what is next for electronic music, he said "acid-techno, ambient-techno." Avant-garde music has been an influence on James, including artists such as Kraftwerk, Can, Tangerine Dream, Tod Dockstader, Xenakis, Piero Umiliani, Bernard Parmegiani, Karlheinz Stockhausen,^[33] John Cage, and the French composer Erik Satie for his piano works and his ideas for furniture music.

In acknowledgment of another influence, James released Music from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, a compilation of music recorded by the pioneers of BBC Radiophonic Workshop, which included artists such as Delia Derbyshire,^[34] on his own label, Rephlex Records.

Aphex Twin has said, "I don't really like rock & roll." Despite this, he has mentioned being a fan of Led Zeppelin, citing their use of breakbeats as an influence, as well as Pink Floyd for their psychedelic music.^[35]

Many songs include sounds from and references to the ZX Spectrum. For instance, "Carn Marth" from Richard D. James Album includes the tape-loading noise of the game Sabre Wulf.

Influence on others[link]

The London Sinfonietta has performed arrangements of Aphex Twin tracks.^[36] In 2005, the orchestra Alarm Will Sound released Acoustica: Alarm Will Sound Performs Aphex Twin. The album consists of acoustic arrangements of some of James's electronic tracks. He has also had an influence on rock bands like Radiohead.^[37] However, he has dismissed the notion of going on tour with them: "I wouldn't play with them since I don't like them."^[35] Despite his previous comments, he premiered new music alongside Radiohead guitarist/composer Jonny Greenwood in a 2011 collaboration with Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki.^[38] The animator David Firth has much of his work influenced and soundtracked by Aphex Twin.^[39]

Intelligent Dance Music[link]

The term 'intelligent dance music', or IDM, was coined in August 1993 by the IDM mailing list based at hyperreal.org, as a term to describe the sound pioneered by the Warp Records Artificial Intelligence Series. The series featured Aphex Twin tracks (under a different pseudonym), as well as early productions from labelmates such as Autechre and LFO. The usage of this term spread in the USA and on internet messageboards, but the term is still a source of controversy and derision amongst the artists and fans, including Aphex Twin. As of October 2011 the list is still active.

I just think it's really funny to have terms like that. It's basically saying, 'this is intelligent and everything else is stupid.' It's really nasty to everyone else's music. (laughs) It makes me laugh, things like that. I don't use names. I just say that I like something or I don't.

—Aphex Twin^[40]

Aphex Twin refers to his own breakbeat tracks as breakbeat, jungle, or drum and bass interchangeably. Other genres that he indulges in include acid, ambient, ambient techno, noise, and many more.

Equipment[link]

During an interview with Future Music, Richard said he likes using Ableton Live but prefers Liveslice for beat editing/stretching. Asked what equipment did use, he responded "Raveolution 309, the Raven Max, MC-909 limited edition, Quasimidi Van Helden, MAM Freebass 383, Roland DJ-70, E-15, SP-808, Akai S3200, Behringer MX602A and all the Behringer effects that copy other things."^[44]

Aphex Twin's press[link]

James described himself in The Guardian as follows: "I'm just some irritating, lying, ginger kid from Cornwall who should have been locked up in some youth detention centre. I just managed to escape and blag it into music."^[1]

James said he composed ambient techno music at the age of 13; he claims to have "over 100 hours" of unreleased music, and to have made his own software to compose with, including algorithmic processes that automatically generate beats and melodies; in addition he claims to experience synaesthesia, and that he is able to incorporate lucid dreaming into the process of making music.^[45]

He lives in southeast London in a converted bank, which was formerly the Bank of Cyprus and then HSBC. Contrary to popular opinion, however, he does not own the silver structure in the centre of the roundabout at Elephant and Castle. This is, in fact, the Michael Faraday Memorial, containing a power transformer for the Northern Line, which James jokingly claimed to be buying in an interview with The Face magazine in 2001.^[2] Some of these rumours are hard to confirm as he has been known to spread mistruths in the prankster tradition, making such claims as only sleeping two to three hours a night.^[46]

Stockhausen vs. The Technocrats[link]

In November 1995, The Wire published an article titled "Advice to Clever Children". In the process of producing the interview, a package of tapes containing music from several artists, including Aphex Twin, was sent to Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Stockhausen commented:

I heard the piece Aphex Twin of Richard James (sic) carefully: I think it would be very helpful if he listens to my work "Song of the Youth," which is electronic music, and a young boy's voice singing with himself. Because he would then immediately stop with all these post-African repetitions, and he would look for changing tempi and changing rhythms, and he would not allow to repeat any rhythm if it varied to some extent and if it did not have a direction in its sequence of variations.^[47]

Aphex Twin, a fan of Stockhausen, responded:

"I thought he should listen to a couple of tracks of mine: "Digeridoo", then he'd stop making abstract, random patterns you can't dance to".^[47]

ZX81 competition[link]

Richard claims to have produced sound on a Sinclair ZX81 (a machine with no sound hardware) at the age of 11:

When I was 11, I won 50 pounds in a competition for writing this program that made sound on a ZX81. You couldn't make sound on a ZX81, but I played around with machine code and found some codes that retuned the TV signal so that it made this really weird noise when you turned the volume up.^[2]

Discography[link]

Studio albums (as Aphex Twin)

• Selected Ambient Works 85–92 (1992)
• Selected Ambient Works Volume II (1994)
• ...I Care Because You Do (1995)
• Richard D. James Album (1996)
• Drukqs (2001)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Aphex Twin

• Aphex Twin at Warp Records
• Aphex Twin at the Open Directory Project
• Aphex Twin discography at Discogs.