I was going to do an On Second Thought on this one, but due to the tricky dual nature of the record over different continents it all got a bit unfocused. Still, I’d like to think the piece is mostly solid and so with encouragement from Todd I’m posting it here. Take from it what you will.

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Do you know what you get when you remove all the filler from Aphex Twin�s lauded Richard D James Album? Under twenty minutes. Six tracks.

I should make clear right at the start that I�m talking about the North American issue of the album with the near-worthless Girl/Boy EP appended: the only UK version I�ve actually been able to confirm the tracklisting for ends at ten tracks, and I have no beef with that one; six good tracks out of ten, with the other four being at worst adequate, is perfectly fine. Six good tracks out of fifteen, with some of those other nine being absolute shit, however, is not. Those fifteen tracks span forty-three minutes, and the fact that I can�t actually argue for the worth of less than half of that time is distressing. I guess it�s nice that someone (James? The record label?) gave us extra material, but it�s pretty uniformly worthless.

What makes it relatively hard to say bad things about the Richard D. James Album is that the parts that work are among Aphex�s best. I still, if asked to introduce someone to James� work, will play them �4�, which might be the most beautiful thing he�s ever done, or failing that �Girl/Boy Song�, its chief competition. In those songs, and a few others scattered about the record, James brings together the manic and sweepingly melodic aspects of his sounds and forges absolute gems, songs that deserve to be considered among not just the finest electronic music but the finest music period of the late 20th Century.

Which makes pisstakes like �Inkeys�, �Beetles� and the two �mixes� of �Girl/Boy Song� that are tacked on to the end of the LP even more infuriating. I don�t require that musicians keep a straight face all the time (that would be inutterably boring), but when you�ve already shown the absolute best of yourself on an album to end it with watered-down copies and pastiches of your own work is insulting. There is no reason for you to continue listening to Richard D. James Album after �Girl/Boy Song� ends, not the �whimsical� but pointless �Logon Rock Witch�, and definitely not the completely useless and overlong �Milkman� (I do remember finding it funny that he sang the word �tits� when I was sixteen, but the humour has faded with time, as it often does with novelty songs).

That rot extends further upwards the LP as well, although not as strongly. Take songs like �Cornish Acid�, or �Peek 824545301�; neither of them are as bad as the crap that clogs the end of the disc, but if you were to pare the material here down to only the truly great stuff, neither would deserve to stick around. What they do is accomplished better elsewhere in the disc (on �Yellow Calx� and �Corn Mouth�, respectively). The two songs where Aphex slows down and backs off on the excellently manic drum programming he employs for the rest of the disc (�Fingerbib� and �Goon Gumpas�) mark the last two tracks that would be worth retaining if the Richard D. James Album was divested of �extras� and pared down to the EP it so richly deserves to be.

I know �To Cure A Weakling Child� has its fans, and again if the North American version of the record was ten tracks long I could easily tolerate it. There�s definitely the kernel of something interesting there, and for the first, say, two minutes it holds my attention. But, as with �Milkman�, it�s too long at just over four minutes. It�s a perfectly passable album track, and if the worst songs here were as good as it is, I wouldn�t be doing one of these on the album. But the sheer amount of crap here makes me want to throw the middling out with the awful. I used to hear from everybody, magazines, friends, websites, etc, that this was the album to get if you were interested in Aphex Twin. He was �difficult�, sure, but this particular LP was the one to start with.

Well, no, it�s not, at least not if you�re in North America. The album to get if you�re interested in Aphex Twin and have never heard him is �I Care Because You Do. It�s devoid of the kind of juvenilia that clutters up this effort, and while the highs might not be quite as high as �4�, �Next Heap With� and �Icct Hedral� give it a decent run for the money. Or start with one of the two Selected Ambient Works albums � there�s a lot more there to take on, yes, but at least you can be assured that they�re solid. Someone who starts with the Richard D. James Album will come away with the conception that James can�t help but fuck up his own records with worthless filler. And yes, insert joke about Drukqs here, but you can�t really say the same for most of his work. Hell, the Come To Daddy EP is a more solid piece of work than the US Richard D. James Album. This disc has some of James� finest work, sure to be the highlight of a best-of if a proper one is ever assembled. But unless you already know and love Aphex Twin, and are willing to put up with a truly ludicrous amount of dross you should steer well clear of it.