Aphex Twin on harnessing the power of dreams… [April 1995]

Aphex Twin, aka Richard D James, has been behind some of the most dramatic soundscapes and piercing noise of the past 25 years, and as the Limerick-born impresario’s interview with The Wire’s Rob Young, from April 1995, illustrates, much of the inspiration in his music comes when the lights go off…

“I think dreams are a bit more honest, because you don’t lie to yourself in dreams,” he explains. “I don’t think you have an ego and all this business; it all seems to disappear.

“The way you are in a day is basically the way you were shaped the night before when you were sleeping; and when you’re asleep, that’s when all your thoughts are put into order – it’s when your brain does all its filing; prepares you for the next conscious day. You could argue that when you sleep that’s when all the shit goes down.”

The interview [which can be found here, subscription required], was recorded just after I Care Because You Do was released, now considered a seminal piece of work, which contained the tracks Ventolin, Alberto Balsam and others. Elsewhere in the interview, Young asks James the reasoning behind his ‘prickly yet somehow admirable logic, not caring who hears his music, only releasing records and doing the promotional rounds in order to make a living’:

“The only reason I’m putting records out is to make some money, and I don’t reckon people would get into it if I released some of the more unconventional stuff that I do. My friends want to hear things that I’ve done, and that’s cool, but I don’t particularly want to hear it again, I just like making new stuff.”

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