Aphex Twin - Richard D. James Album -

Deconstructing the Drill ‘n’ Bass Lullaby: Nostalgia, Aggression, and Post-Digital Identity in Aphex Twin’s Richard D. James Album

The accompanying music video for “Come to Daddy” (released the following year, but conceptually tethered to this album’s aesthetic) literalizes this: evil, grinning children speak with the voice of an old man. On the Richard D. James Album , the opposite occurs: a grown man speaks with the voice of a child. This inversion suggests a regression to a pre-Oedipal state, where the boundaries between self and other, body and machine, are fluid. The strings on “Girl/Boy Song” (sampled from a piece by composer Michael Nyman) are lush, romantic, and decidedly classical. When paired with the drill’n’bass breakbeats and the “cute” vocal chipmunk, the track becomes a sonic representation of the adolescent psyche: one part romantic longing (the strings), one part chaotic energy (the breaks), and one part performed naivety (the voice). Aphex Twin - Richard D. James Album