Thanks to my brother for help with the first five scans on this page, like most of my articles I’m sure it will be updated as/if more content comes to light.
Melody Maker (5th March 1994)
APHEX DREAMS OF LEMONHEADS
THE LEMONHEADS are set for an unlikely collaboration with APHEX TWIN (Above). He intends to remix one of their songs by “lucid dreaming” – a technique which he used to write his own latest album.
Aphex claims that he “lucid dreamt” the melodies and soundscapes on “Selected Ambient Works Volume II”, and immediately committed them to tape upon waking up. He told The Maker this week: “The Lemonheads asked me to remix one of their songs.
“My idea is to tape it end to end on a DAT, play it to myself at full blast while I’m asleep and do the lucid dreaming trick!
“So I’d be listening to it while I’m asleep and composing it at the right time. They’ll probably explain (LC: complain?) it sounds nothing like the original.
“Normally, I only like to remix tracks I don’t like. If I like a track then I like it as it is, I don’t want to remix it.”
Aphex professes an antipathy for indie rock because “my sister used to listen to it all the time and it really annoyed me. She always had The Jesus And Mary Chain on.”
However, this hasn’t stopped him in the past from completing unorthodox remixes of tracks by Curve, Jesus Jones and Saint Etienne, among others.
Lime Lizard (May 1993)
Aphex On Seefeel
“I just thought it was smart. It’s like, droning music; it’s right up my street. That to me is not indie music at all – I don’t know how to describe it really; it’s just really atmospheric music; it’s real mood music and I like any sort of music that puts you in a mood.”
“I dunno what I’m gonna do with it yet; I just like to sort of plough in there and see what happens. I think it’s gonna be a weird kind of a mix because I really, really like their stuff as it is, and what I’m going to do is just add a groove to it. But I’m definitely gonna make it slow.”
“The main reason I like it is that as soon as you turn it off it leaves this big gap, this really big void. Fucking hell, that’s well intense, I love it!”
Seefeel On Aphex
Mark “He came to the studio and he was so quiet. he just sat there – really, really quiet. Ever time we spoke to him he was all ears; he was really interested in everything that was going on. Our computer screen had broken; he seemed absolutely fascinated by these wavy lines on it.”
Sarah: “He just stood there looking at it for ages. He could relate to that..
Sonic Envelope Interview (May 1998)
Tell me – how many remixes have you not really done?
(Richard makes a roaring noise and a scary face.) I don’t know. Fucking loads.
… that you’ve been paid for?
I’ve been paid for almost all of them, I think, apart from a couple.
Right. How many do you really do – a percentage?
Oh – a very low percentage.
… that you don’t do?
… that I do do.
So you do what – 80%, 90%? Most of them?
Oh no! Not at all. Fucking about 2 out of 20.
So roughly 10%. 90% you just what – throw ’em a tape, and get the check?
Yeah. Five grand usually, but ten grand sometimes. And I do it for nothing if I really want to do it and I like the people – I do it for nothing.
So you do it for nothing, but you actually do it, and other people give you five or ten grand and you don’t actually do it.
Yeah. I wouldn’t still get five grand for not doing it though. If you don’t do anything, you don’t get anything.
I thought you did.
No. Well, they’re not going to give you money for doing nothing, are they? Just for asking you.
But don’t you just hand them a tape of another track?
Oh, I see. Yes. If you give them another track, yeah. You still get paid for that. I’ve only done that a few times, though. Did that for Nine Inch Nails, and the Lemonheads was another one. That album – they didn’t release it. But they still paid me.
And the Nails?
Yeah. They released that, but they didn’t send me a copy though. But they did send me ten grand. But I didn’t even listen to the track – I still haven’t listened to the track, actually. I just gave them a track without listening to it. And they liked it, so …
What was it?
Just an old track of mine. I don’t know.
So basically, you gave them an old track of yours, claiming it was a remixed track of theirs – they gave you ten grand.
Yeah. Exactly.
Sonic Envelope interview (May 1998)
Hypno Magazine (Vol. 3, 1994)
Aphex Twin is also still taking remix jobs. In the past it’s been for bands like Meat Beat Manifesto and Jesus Jones. He once turned down U2, but he’s spun 180 degrees and just finished a mix for the Lemonheads, which Dando and Co. have yet to hear. Concerning which remix jobs he’ll take, Richard picks the songs he hates the most so he faces a challenge when he goes about fixing them. “The Lemonheads are…it was so shit,” Richard says. “There was nothing in it that I could be fucked to like.” So what did Aphex twin do to it?” “I just speeded the whole thing up so it was like a half-second long – which took ages – but I made it into one sound: a snare drum.” All the better to beat the Lemonheads with.
Easy Magazine (Winter 1996)
APHEX CORNER
FLOWERED UP
Richard James, alternatively known as The Aphex Twin has perhaps unwittingly released one of the most important records of this year. In an era of such rapidly converging musical styles, Easy Listening’s inevitable fusion with techno was delayed for only as long as each could hold it’s last breath. To Richard, his creation merely forms yet another incidental sub-title amidst his vast and ever increasing library of material, which already includes several hundred tracks that are as yet unreleased. Easy conversed with the Aphex one via the suitably digitalised medium of the fax machine.
You recently remixed the Mike Flowers track ‘Freebase’. Why?
I really liked his friendly, warm, (slightly nervous) smile and his wig I thought was really lovely. I thought it really suited him and I used to enjoy going down to Madame JoJo’s and watching him perform all the classics before he hit the BIG TIME. Combined with the fact that I thought the track was good, loads of nice sound to sample.
How do you feel about the results?
I felt really, really happy about the results. A bit too trebly though and that kit drum I used was a little weak and could have been a bit more aphexed.
Is Easy Listening a realm you would like to explore further?
It is a realm isn’t it? Yes, lot’s of things to learn from it. I’ve got bags of sorted tunes from over the years from around the world. When I toured the USA with Björk I treated it as an easy listening record buying tour.
Did you receive any feedback from Mike?
The feedback I received from Mike was put into my ring piece modulator and then filtered into a beautiful smile.
What are your next plans?
I don’t know.
The Mike Flowers Pops Meets The Aphex Twin – “The Freebase Connection” is available at most outlets and features additional mixes by The Mellowtrons, Luke Vibert. Slang, Funki Porcini & Perry De Chico. (12″”/CD Single)
Aphex Twin releases a single “Girl/Boy” in October and an album ‘Richard D. James’ in November, both available on Warp Records.
The Lizard Magazine (April/May 1995)
“Gavyn Briars asked me to do a remix.” The interviewer looked surprised. “Has he written something new?”
“No, it’s that Sinking Of The Titanic. It was really bizarre ’cause I’d already remixed Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet just for a laugh.”
Lime Lizard (May 1993)
“I think The Aphex Twin is incredible,” chime Curve, St Etienne and Jesus Jones in unison. “He’s the Hendrix/Kraftwerk/Eno of the future,” they declare, usually a sure way of nobbling a blossoming talent. But with James you sense, at least you hope, he can emerge unscathed from the current spotlight.
Mojo Magazine (November 2021)
THE REMIXES of Richard ‘Aphex Twin’ James could be atomising things, as he dynamited songs to remake them in his own image. But when he took on Journey, 1995’s galactic debut by The Gentle People, he seemed in awe. He built carefully on the vaporous original, adding extra dimensions to its Latin trance-into-infinity. Besotted, James told Rephlex Records artist P.P. Roy that the group “give me all the love I need.”
Music & Media (19th June 1993)
THE PRODIGY versus JESUS JONES
THE APHEX TWIN versus JESUS JONES
Zeroes And Ones – Food
PRODUCER: Warne Livesey
Mixes of the forthcoming Jesus Jones single commence with The Prodigy and a characteristically frenetic piece of hardcore without the usual commercial edge. Binary beats abounding. Follow it up with the restive Aphex Twin mix, ambiently tribal with dream vocals washing soothingly over you. Definitely a good late set tune.
Music & Media (24th August 1996)
The Aphex Twin has remixed a song by Mike Flowers Pops. The single Freebase will appear on Lo Recordings.
Music & Media (28th October 1995)
ELECTRONIC RESCONSTRUCTIONS: The music of Japanese pop duo Nav Katze (or “Nervous Cat”) was placed in the competent remixing hands of Aphex Twin, Ultramarine, Black Dog Productions, Global Communication and Reload. The result, Never Mind The Distortion (SSR), is seven high-quality reconstructions which bare little resemblance to the original tracks, and add up to some of the finest electronic music of 1995. A smooth techno-based flow is created, while Japanese lyrics float in and out of these intricately-woven tracks.
Billboard (9th October 1993)
The duo draws influences from such trance (LC?) club icons as the Aphex Twin, the Orb, and Fluke. Indeed, the dance edge of Curve’s modern rock sound was accentuated last year by a white-label Aphex Twin remix of “Falling Free,” from its “Horror Head” EP; “Rising,” from the second U.K. edition of the band’s “Blacker-threetracker” EP, was a “Headspace” mix by the similarly influential Future Sound Of London.
Billboard (9th December 1995)
JAPAN/UK: The latest Japanese act to get the U.K. remix treatment is Nav Katze. Tracks from the female duo’s excellent 1994 album “Uwa No Sora” (Which corresponds to the Anglo-American expression “out to lunch”) have been transmogrified by such British artists as Aphex Twin, Ultramarine, and Global Communication. The result is an intriguing album titled “Never Mind The Distortion,” released in Japan by Victor Entertainment and in Europe by Crammed Discs’ SSP label. According to Victor, the project began when Nav Katze members Miwako Yamaguchi and Naoko Timura sent a copy of “Uwa No Sora” to various British remixers with the hope of introducing their music to a European audience. The original tracks sounded like a cross between the Cocteau Twins and My Bloody Valentine: breathy, mixed-down vocals overlaid with great washes of distorted guitar (including contributions from former Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera). Already worlds away from everyday Japanese pop, the remixed versions sound a lot weirder still, not the least being the Black Dog Productions remix/deconstruction of “More Than A Feeling.” Nav Katze’s original version of this old Boston Chestnut was pretty radical to begin with, but by the time Black Dog finished with it, it could have been a remix of just about anything short of an Ethel Merman tune.
Music Week (19th June 1993)
SEEFEEL: Plainsong EP (Too Pure PURE 023).
Described as a cross between My Bloody Valentine and The Orb, the space-out Londoners get even more minimalist and ambient with their second EP. Another EP of remixes by the Aphex Twin is to follow next month alongside a combined CD of both. An underground hit, but a sizeable one at that.
Music & Media (9th December 1995)
PHILIP BOA & THE VODOO CLUB
Deep In Velvet Remixes – Motor/Polygram
PRODUCERS: Microwave Prince, G-Man, Aphex Twin, Acid Jesus, Patrick Lindsey
German cult figure Philip Boa left his guitar at home when he started this remix project. He have renown producers like Aphex Twin carte blanche to remodel his material to their desire. The result is an interesting mixture of Boa’s rock background, embedded in techno, house and ambient.
Music Week (19th September 1992)
Meanwhile – Meat Beat Manifesto are getting on famously with The Aphex Twin who’s remixed their forthcoming ‘Mindstream’ single. More collaborations with the didgeridoo wielding Twin are in the pipeline.
The Wire (August 1996)
The Mike Flowers Pops
The Freebase Connection
LO RECORDINGS LOEP 02 CD/12”
Almost a meeting-of-worlds too far, but Lo Recordings’ creative interventionism here achieves a disorientating sleight of hand trick, rescuing Flowers from our collective postmodern nightmare and repositioning him amongst cutting edge remix wizards Aphex Twin, Mellowtrons, Luke Vibert and Funki Porcini, while at the same time building on said mixers’ open admiration for all the music Flowers apes. The slight disappointment – that no one quite distorts the available material enough – is swiftly brushed aside by the energy pulsing through the mixes, especially Procini’s Jungalist hustle and stellar trumpet break. Aphex’s clattersome “Debase” is his best since “Hangable Auto Bulb”.
Paper Magazine (June 1995)
Recently he doctored Gavin Bryar’s sublime experimental classical recording, The Sinking of the Titanic. “I couldn’t do it for ages because I really liked the original. I usually don’t remix things I like. But I always find that [original] version really depressing, and I wanted to turn it around, to make it a bit happy. That’s why I call [my remixes] “The raising of the Titanic.”
Alternative Press (May 1997)
In addition to remixing a Future Sound Of London track, James recently finished a remix for Beck’s “Devil’s Haircut. ” He once stated that he only remixed songs he didn’t like, but Beck’s material is another story.
“Sometimes I will only do stuff I dislike, but if I am in a good mood then I’ll do something I like, I did ‘Devil’s Haircut,’ but it was doing my head in. [Beck’s label, DGC] gave me like five grand [to remix the song]; that was smart. I thought the song was okay, quite average. It got it in my head that I was only doing it for the money. Usually, that doesn’t really bother me, but for some reason, this time it did. I just didn’t giver it to them. Then I heard a tape of Noel Gallagher’s remix of the same song, and when I went back to hear mine I really liked it. I might give it to them anyway now.”
Option Magazine (December 1997)
Aphex Twin (Richard D. James) calls himself “a non-musician playing music. I’m a fucking twat, mucking around on my computers.” Although he’s worked with Glass, and is currently remixing Reich’s 1971 recording of “Drumming.” 1972’s “Clapping Music” and “Music For 18 Musicians” (for a proposed album of Reich remixes by techno artists)
Lanner Chronicle 