For a man who seems to have perfected the art of teasing his fanbase, it's somewhat incredible that it has taken this long for Richard D. James to join Soundcloud. Over the past couple of weeks, Aphex Twin (or should that be "user48736353001"?) has unleashed a treasure trove of previously unreleased material onto the audio cloud streaming service. The mind games began with a comment on a track on the official Aphex Twin soundcloud by user48736353001 which stated

"Would like to know the full setup for this track, brilliant music man. I love your early 90's stuff so much, I was doing stuff in the early 90’s, similar to you but I didn't know about you when I did it ! Im also 43 years old :) I’m going to be uploading it to soundcloud soon, gotta dust off the old DAT’s & cassettes!".

Despite continued denials and deliberately misleading statements (one response to a comment from the official PlanetMu account read "thanks, it's not rich though, wish i was!") the account's official status is all but confirmed having been followed by Richard's official Soundcloud and also tweeted out by the Aphex twitter page. The tracks seem to date from his earliest days as a teenage techno whizzkid right up to around the time of his last release for Warp (2001s 'Drukqs') before his self imposed exile from the world of recorded music (with a few notable exceptions, 2005's Analord series and the pair of EPs released under 'The Tuss' moniker in 2007). Here we take a look at some of the many samples unearthed from this mammoth 157-track data dump. No doubt there will be more to come!



In what may be the most uncharacteristic AFX sample ever, Richard borrows the distinctive pre-chorus from Joni Mitchell's 1970 hit 'Big Yellow Taxi'. Joni's angelic voice is laid over rolling machine-hats and an acidic bassline, indicative of the fact that the track most likely originates from the time period stated in the title of his debut record (85-92). This is seemingly confirmed by the description accompanying the track "Recorded off the radio, the sample..i think..this ones going out to damo, RIP mate your very missed. made in 1988-89"

The style of this track will sound eerily similar to anyone familiar with the two-part 'Hangable Auto Bulb' EP, released in 1995 under the AFX moniker, from which this tune was most likely an outtake. 'Make A Baby' utilizes a sample from the same spoken word record from which 'Children Talking' and 'Every Day' took their infantile vocal sample.

One of the many tracks in this unreleased collection that dates from his earliest years as a musician, 'Pump The Shit' samples the scripted studio banter between Dr. Dre and Eazy on 'Ruthless Villain' and integrates it into a pumping rave track, appropriately accompanied by the cryptic note "Plymouth Warehouse 1991" in the description.

Another out-of-character sample for Richard D. James, on '20 Pink Floyd' he borrows various melodic elements from the 5th track on 'Dark Side of the Moon'. The result is a beautiful ambient breakbeat piece (also samples the drum machine embellished Funky Drummer break from Run-DMC's 'Run's House') that was almost certainly made during his teenage years, this is backed up by the description included with the track - "Didn't have many records to sample back then and the girl who lived next door had a floyd lp, never listened to them then or since, just bagged the sample and made the tune, few different versions of it, been in the atic for all these years".



Richard issued a challenge to keen-eared listeners in the comments of this track - "anyone who guesses samples wins a prize". The user Levi Just duly obliged and replied "Hi Richard, the vocal samples used in this track are from side B of Breakthrough: An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication with the Dead by Konstantin Raudive. What do I win?", Aphex applauded the user and inquired as to how he had found to sample, which Levi Just chalked up to "Good ears, intuition, vast musical knowledge, and detective work."

The opening droning chord and robotic voice of Kraftwerks 'Uranium' is utilised in the opening of another RDJ late 80s/early 90s outtake. 'Uranium' has also found itself sampled by New Order and WestBam.

One of the most unusual and surprising inclusions in this mass of unreleased material is an alternate "dark" version of Girl/Boy song from the 'Richard D. James' album. Whilst the original was an emotionally honest major-key hectic Jungle workout, this version remains beat-less and takes unpleasant melodic turns wherever it can, turning one of Aphex Twin's most heartwarming tracks into one of his most unsettling.