Drukqs

Drukqs (stylised as drukQs) is a double album by English electronic musician Richard D. James, released under his most frequently used pseudonym, Aphex Twin. It is his fifth studio album under this alias. The album peaked at number 22 on the UK Albums Chart, selling 11,476 copies in its first week of release.

Notes

James has stated that the title is not related to drugs, and is "just a word [he] made up."

Reception

Initial critical response to drukQs was positive, though not as much as his previous albums under the Aphex Twin name. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average score of 66, based on 21 reviews.

Track listing

CD

All songs composed by Richard D. James.

Vinyl

Media references

"Avril 14th" was sampled in the digital short "Iran So Far" on a Saturday Night Live episode that aired on 2007-09-29. There were complications of this—NBC didn't get the rights to use the song. However, rights were eventually garnered by Chrysalis Music, Aphex Twin’s publishing company, for television and DVD usage, but The Lonely Island was not allowed to include the track on its album Incredibad

Avril

Avril means April in French and other languages. It may also refer to:

People

Places

Aphex Twin

Richard David James (born 18 August 1971), best known by his alias Aphex Twin, is an English electronic musician and composer based in London. He is best known for his influential and idiosyncratic work in electronic music styles such as IDM and ambient techno in the 1990s, for which he won widespread critical acclaim. He is also the co-founder of Rephlex Records with Grant Wilson-Claridge.

Initially releasing acid and techno records as AFX and under other aliases, James's first received widespread acclaim for his 1992 album Selected Ambient Works 85-92 and his subsequent 1993 release Selected Ambient Works Volume II. He rose to mainstream popularity with his 1997 EP, Come To Daddy and his 1999 single "Windowlicker". Taking a 14-year hiatus following the release of his 2001 album Drukqs to mixed reviews, James returned in 2014 with a new album, Syro, earning him critical praise and a win for Grammy Award for Best Dance/Electronic Album.

History

Early years

James was born in Limerick, Ireland, but he grew up in Lanner, Cornwall, UK, with two older sisters, in a "very happy" childhood during which they "were pretty much left to do what [they] wanted". He enjoyed living there, feeling apart from nearby cities and the rest of the world. James attended Redruth School in Redruth, Cornwall, and claimed to have produced sound on a Sinclair ZX81 (a machine with no sound hardware) at age 11: