Richard D James & Videogames

Many thanks to SYROBONKERS for finding the Select Magazine excerpt and allowing me to reproduce it here!

I intend to fill out this article in the future, with screenshots of the games mentioned and possibly some video footage too!

As a child of the 70s and growing up during the advert of the home microcomputer, no doubt Videogames, their abstract images and sounds had an important impact on Richard during his formative years. His music is replete with bleeps and other sound effects that could come straight out of an arcade cabinet, and in some cases that’s exactly were they came from.

Over the years Richard has touched upon the subject of computers, consoles, arcade cabinets and hand held electronic devices several times in interviews/SoundCloud comments, so I thought it would be interesting to assemble some of those references here.

Firstly is this fun interview from Issue 43 (March 1999) of Official PlayStation Magazine. This interview also features Tom Jenkinson AKA Squarepusher amongst other Warp artists:

APHEX TWIN

DRAFTSMAN OF WARPED BEATS AND NIGHTMARE-ISH VIDS, APHEX TWIN KNOWS HIS POPULOUS FROM HIS PONG. BE AFRAID. BE VERY AFRAID…

WORDS: MIKE GOLDSMITH

PICTURES: MARTIN BURTON

If it’s Friday, it must be Sheffield. If it’s Sheffield, it must be raining. And if it’s raining, then get the hell out of the wet. And what better way to remain dry than to spend the day at Warp Records, PlayStation-ing it up with the finest beat boffins in the land? Scene duly set, here be the Warped runners and riders.

Richard D James: AKA Aphex Twin, strategy phreak.

Tom Squarepusher: Old skool fella, scary noises.

Rich and Ali Red Snapper: Drum’n’ (double) bass duo.

George Nightmares On Wax: Soul/rap bleepking.

Tekken 3 (SCEE)

“Have you got any racing games?”

Tom Squarepusher doesn’t like Tekken 3!

“it is good,” he recants. “it’s just a bit more realistic than I want it to be. [Capcom games] are really unrealistic but that’s what I want to play.”

Elsewhere, people are killing each other, including PlayStation virgins Rich and Ali. The Capoeira moves of Eddy Gordo predictably go down a storm.

“C’mon Eddy, get a punch in!”

It’s George’s birthday and he’s destined to be king. Unfortunately, Ali is enjoying himself a bit too much.

“I was too busy admiring the knopfler headband.”

Hwoarang’s choice of headgear ushers forth notions of Dire Straits providing in-game music (shudder…), a proposition that requires a game far more surreal than Tekken.

“Jigsaw War!”

Tom, you’ll only encourage him.

“Hedge trimmers, Black and Decker sander…”

Aphex Twin has sat down surveyed the carnage and, in the spirit of a man who once DJed with sandpaper rather than vinyl, is suggesting beat ’em up madness. Meanwhile, back in reality…

“Can we have a Binatone challenge?”

Oh Dear.

Music (Codemasters)

“In Japan, they’ve got them everywhere. The disco dancing arcade game is the best game I’ve ever seen in my life! You select your music and step on the pads in time to the music. We played it and got stuck on it for ages. If you did a club and wired it up to the floor, you could get the whole club doing the same dance…”

The above rant is one Richard D James, Not only had this man just completed Populous: The Beginning in 19 hours straight, he has played Beatmania and Dance Dance Revolution in Japan, Strewth.

“Metallurgy? Let’s have a bit of that…”

Meanwhile, Tom has discovered Music and is intent on crafting a gabba track. Unfortunately, instructions mean nothing and our man is not happy.

“Where’s the bassline? Where’s the play button? Why isn’t it looping?”

Niggles aside, a brief tune is created with the working title, Ravelution 309. It’s um, interesting but the lack of a two-player mode (“Battle of the Sequencers!”) means heads turn to the next offering.

“Has it got random garage on it?”

Richard really would prefer to be playing Beatmania.

TOCA 2 (Codemasters)

“Can you get Defender on the PlayStation?”

What was to have been a serious discussion of the merits of TOCA 2’s idiosyncratic control system has turned into a Q&A session. Yes, Richard, you can.

“When’s the PlayStation 2 coming out?” continues George. “Is it gonna be 300 quid? is it gonna be 64-bit?”

“Do you need to bother with the brakes?”

At last, a serious question from Tom.

“Has it got a gun?”

Bah. What should have been a bout of rally realism has degenerated into madness. The mick is taken out of TOCA’S intro, the steering is roundly described as “too sensitive” and the game is duly renamed “TOCA’s Revenge, More Like.” Catchy, non?

“Have you got any football games?”

Did we mention George likes FIFA?

LiberoGrande (SCEE)

“Get bloody footy on!”

George is happy because George is playing his preferred PlayStation game – football. Not that this stops him appropriating the rest of the games…

“This takes a lot of getting into,” he surmises. “I’s alright when you get used to the controls.”

Despite goals slamming in (George choosing to play as England vs America -“I’m on a hattrick!”), LiberoGrande goes down like a lead balloon. Tom doesn’t like football, Ali is still in Tekken 3 mode (“it’s so immediate”) and the split-screen two-player option confuses all. Rich agrees.

“If I was given time, I think TOCA would be my favourite,” The Red Snapper declares. “But Tekken has got to be the best so far. I wouldn’t mind another go on that snowboarding one though.”

Unfortunately, Cool Boarders 3 has already been swiped by George. Back to beat ’em ups then.

Dead Or Alive (SCEE)

“How do you do that lunge thing? Is it up and back and then kick? Can you do the Honda 1000mph Handstand? Remember that in Street Fighter?”

Despite preferring the delights of Stella Artois to LiberoGrande, Aphex is soon prostate on the floor for the titular Dead Or Alive.

“How do you jump on top of him on the deck? I can’t do any moves at all. This Dual Shock thing is weird. It’s like twiddling analogue nipples…”

“This game is pretty cool,” declares the Pusher of Squares. “It’s a bit snappier than Tekken.”

“What were those mincing blokes who used to knock around on the Tube called?”

Rich has just made an observation. Beret-wearing Bayman looks like a Guardian Angel from the ’80s. He also fights like one so the considerable assets of Lei-Fang are called upon. The need for in-game sports bras is obvious..

Games hammered and thumbs pulsing, the day has been a success. What more is there to say?

“Do you need any game testers?”

All interested developers, please contact Tom Squarepusher via Warp Records…

_{PSM’s collective brain is currently haemorrhaging to Aphex’s Windowlicker, Squarepusher’s Budakhan Mindphone, Red Snapper’s Making Bones and Nightmare On Wax’s Carboot Soul, Help us!}

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Early on in the same issue of Official PlayStation Magazine is a small article where Richard professes his love of classic games of the past, now commonly referred to retrogames ( LC: something which I am a massive fan of myself). A crossover of two of my favourite interests makes for an especially interesting read!

“He bought a pub table top version of Galaxian from Loot. It was up in the bedroom. The room was quite large, double bed, modular ‘70s Habitat sofa, his decks and records, a TV and video.”

Michael Gillette speaking to the Lanner Chronicle about Richards gaming habits at 36 Clissold Crescent

Much adored by the Twin they call Aphex are Mr Defender and Mrs Crystal Castles….

OLD SKOOL DAYS

CELEB SPECIAL! APHEX TWIN REMEMBERS THE DAYS OF GAMING YORE…

“I like really old games, I’m not into new games that much. I’ve got the MAME arcade emulator for my PC. It’s got every arcade game ever made. Defender is my favourite. I’m better than average, but I’m not that good. That’s why I like it – it’s so hard. I’ve been trying to get an original cabinet for about three years. All the people who sell them are really dodgy. I’ve had a Phoenix table-top for six years now. I got it for 50 quid. Bargain. They’re no worth about 300 quid.

“I really liked Crystal Castles. Gorf was great with the speech – it had a really weird joystick, a bit like Discs Of Tron. Actually, I wrote a new Tron game with my mate. You had two lines racing against each other, but we filled it with different coloured dots. When you hit certain dots, they did different things 0 mental-fast mode, hyperspace or make the other player’s controls reverse. It was so lush.

“I did win a game competition in a magazine when I was ten. I wrote a game for the ZX-81. It was a skiing game. You were a number ‘8’ and the ski poles were ‘lesser’ and ‘more’ signs. Llamatron for the ST was great – a Jeff Minter game exactly like Robotron. There was once called Trailblazer on some 0obscure Atari computer. It was really lush – unbelievably fast.

“Where I live, there’s a big skyscraper-y building with a absolutely huge blank wall. I think it would be so lush to project a Binatone on there. Playing Ping with 20-foot bats. I don’t think the police would appreciate it, but I’m sure there’s no law against it. People crashing cars because you’ve amplified the sound really loud. I’ve got about six Binatones now…”

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Below is an excerpt from Axcess Mazgazine (February 1997). In which Richard and the interview briefly discuss video games:

“POWER DROID.”

“Maybe you should think about buying a PlayStation or something.”

“No, I was gonna wait for those other ones to come out. I’ve been waiting for ages now. But there’s already some good games for that PlayStation so I just might get one.”

“You’ll want to wait for the Nintendo 64” I say. “It’s really cool.”

“Is it out over there yet? What do you think of the Saturn? They’ve got that Virtual On game haven’t they? Is that two players or just one?”

“For the Saturn? Probably just one.”

“Yeah, fuck that. I quite like video games, though. That’s what Power Droid is. That’s why I just said Power Droid really loud and distortedly. I love computer games and I’d probably still be playing them all the time if most of them weren’t shit now. They’re all really simple. They may look fancy but most of them just get boring after five minutes. So what they can talk now? Yeah they talk. They say the same things over and over again.” Irritated, James says “No, I hate things repeating, it’s rubbish. They should program it so that they generate different bits of speech every time. Program the syllables instead of just sample. That would be wicked.”

“Stop complaining and make your own video game.”

“I did when I was younger. I won a competition as well.” James proudly chirps. “I won fifty pounds and came in second. It was a skiing game where you were a number 8 and had to go down a ski course of, like, arrows.”

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In a YouTube video, Tim Cain the creator of the truly excellent Fallout series of video games discusses Aphex Twin’s influence on the soundtrack for the first game in that series:

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Next is a short feature from the excellent Retrogamer Magazine (Issue 16)

Pac-Man – Powerpill

Better known as Richard D James or Aphex Twin, Powerpill released the Pac-Man EP in 1992 and the title track went on to become a short-lived rave hit. The track mixed the main theme from the arcade sensation with sound effects from the game a a sample of James himself saying “Pac-Man” over and over. Like all the best rave tunes it was incredibly annoying and not one of the Aphex Twin’s better efforts, but it did get the pill munchers going in the early 90s and is perhaps one of the clearest examples how well a videogame tune can be appropriated into another culture. Now it’s only a matter of time before the World Cup opens to the Sensible Soccer theme tune.

Here is a short feature from the 17th issue of Total! Magazine from (May 1993):

Star Gamers

Famous Nintendo Gamer Number 15 The Aphex Twin

Who? Well, Mr Twin is the techno electro music who’s going to be the next big thing on the dance floors. (Probably.) Aphex (real name Richard James) loves to play his Game Boy, especially Tetris, when he’s not working at the studio. Richard says ‘I used to write my own sequencing programs on the Spectrum, believe it or not.’ and he’s recently done remixes for indie band St Etienne. Look out for him in the charts soon.

Next we have a excerpt from Select Magazine (May 1994), The track Phlid was included with the cassette compilation Secret Tracks 2, which was bundled with this issue of Select. Thanks to SYROBONKERS!

THE APHEX TWIN

Phlid

He could knock this stuff out in his sleep! And he probably did! Another nocturnal emission from Aphex, with a spooky, post-millennium jazz vibe…

Richard James’ flatmate: “Basically, mate, he’s just got this new batch of video games and you’ve got as much chance of getting him on the phone as his Mum has. He says to tell you he’s playing Elite 2. He’s sweating like a pig up there, spinning around on his chair and he’s shouting, I can’t think, I can’t think! (distant shouting) Hang on…(two minutes elapse) He’s just shouted down, Get the fuck out cos I’m going down, down, down… Sorry, mate.”

(L.C: Frontier: Elite 2 is a classic game me and my brother played continuously in 1994 when he brought a copy and his Atari ST home from Bristol university , halcyon days! I wonder if Richard ever ended up with a Panther Clipper.)

The following are a selection of small snippets and references to Aphex in various computer/console magazines:

Official PlayStation 2 Magazine issue 71 (April 2006).

Kloppjob is one of my faves!

CU Amiga Magazine Issue 71 (January 1996)

Aphex Twin as a level code!

CU Amiga Magazine Issue 46 (December 1993)

A review of the excellent Eurotechno by Stakker with a brief mention of Aphex.

Play Magazine Issue 273 (September 2016)

Aphex being cited as an influence for Crash Bandicoots soundtrack

Hyper Magazine Issue 143 (September 2005)

A rundown of the soundtrack from the PlayStation Portable Wipeout Pure, which included Naks Acid

Wipeout, one of the best!

Finally a brief mention of Quoth in Issue 46 of CU Amiga Magazine (December 1993). As an example of a “…a track that’s been stripped down to just the beat.

and article called “Amiga workshop Sound Lab”

Quoth (by Polygon Window A.K.A The Aphex Twin) is a good example, it doesn’t have a melody, a bassline, chords or vocals, but it does have a driving beat made from weird clangs and deep synthesised pulses, and it’s actually pretty good, especially as a D’J’s mixing toy.