Using synth gadgetry which he wires and manufactures himself, Richard D. James has explored the experimental possibilities of the two major movements in techno during the late '80s: acid and ambient-house. Though his first major single "Digeridoo" was a piece of acid thrash designed to tire dancers during his DJ sets, the ambient-house genre later took him under its wing for his first volume of Selected Ambient Works. James reacted to the exposure with increasingly experimental and harsh works that portrayed an artist unwilling to become either pigeonholed or categorizable.

He was born August 18, 1971 in Cornwall, England, and began taking apart electronics gear as a teenager. (Just do the math on the title Selected Ambient Works 85-92—his first recordings were made at the age of 14.) Inspired by acid-house in the late '80s, James began DJing raves around Cornwall. His first release—recorded with Tom Middleton and credited to Aphex Twin Featuring Schizophrenia—was the Analogue Bubblebath 1 EP, which appeared on the Mighty Force label in September 1991. Middleton left later that year to form Global Communication, after which James recorded a second volume in the Analogue Bubblebath series. This release—the first to include "Digeridoo"—got some airplay on the London pirate radio-station KISS-FM, and prompted the Belgian R&S label to sign him early the following year. A re-recording of "Digeridoo" made number 55 in the British charts just after its April 1992 release, and James followed with the Xylem Tube EP in June. He also co-formed (with Grant Wilson-Claridge) his own Rephlex label around this time, releasing the Joyrex series of singles as Caustic Window during mid-1992. These limited-edition recordings continued the cold acid precision of "Digeridoo."

The electronic climate had begun to warm in the early 1990s, though; the Orb had proved the commercial viability of ambient-house in June 1992, and R&S scrambled to find useful material from its own artists. In November 1992, James acquiesced with Selected Ambient Works 85-92, an album of home material recorded during the past seven years. Simply stated, it became an ambient-house masterpiece, the genre's second work of brilliance after The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld. As his star began to shine, several bands approached him to remix their work, and he complied, with mostly unrecognizable reworkings of tracks by St. Etienne, the Cure, Jesus Jones, Meat Beat Manifesto and Curve.

Early in 1993, Richard James signed to Warp Records, the influential British label that introduced 'electronic listening music' with the Artificial Intelligence series of albums by ambient-techno pioneers Black Dog, B12, FUSE (aka Richie Hawtin) and Autechre, among others. James' release in the series, titled Surfing on Sine Waves, was recorded as Polygon Window and released in January 1993. The album charted a course between the raw muscle of James' nose-bleed techno and the understated minimalism of Selected Ambient Works. A deal between Warp and TVT gave Surfing on Sine Waves an American release—James' first—by the summer of 1993.

In December of 1993, the new single "On" resulted in James' highest chart placing, a number-32 spot on the British charts. The resulting album, Selected Ambient Works Volume II, appeared to be a joke on the ambient-house community. So minimal as to be barely conscious, the quadruple-album left most of the beats behind, with only tape loops of unsettling ambient noise remaining. The album struck out with critics, but hit number 11 on the British charts and earned James a major-label American contract with Sire soon after.

James began 1995 with the January release of Classics, a compilation of his early R&S singles. Two months later, he put out the single "Ventolin," a harsh, appropriately wheezing ode to the asthma drug on which he relies. ...I Care Because You Do followed in April, pairing his ambient material with a form of techno experimentalism which allied itself both with his hardcore roots and the work of many post-classical composers—including Philip Glass, who arranged an orchestral version of the album's "ICCT Hedral" on the single, "Donkey Rhubarb." The fourth proper Aphex Twin album, Richard D. James, continued his forays into acid-jungle and experimental music.

Article taken from All-Music Guide.