The story of how electronic legend Aphex Twin’s ‘long-lost’ 1994 album Caustic Window has found its way onto YouTube is either a cautionary modern tale about the craziness of the online world we now live in, or an exciting development in ‘crowd-funded’ music.

If it wasn’t for Kickstarter, Caustic Window would only have been available to someone willing to pay the extortionate fee of $13,500 that the ‘owner’ of the test-pressing was hawking it for. Thanks to the crowd-funding site, and the dedicated Aphex Twin fan-community at We Are The Music Makers, the album is now available to stream.

Backers on Kickstarter have raised a total of $67,424 to pay the original owner of the test pressing as well as royalties to Aphex Twin and his Rephlex label. Now all that has been sorted out, the 4,000 or so backers have started to receive their digital versions of the album – so naturally it went straight onto YouTube!

Listen to Caustic Window below:

For the full story on Caustic Window and how it came about, read this on Fact Mag.