Aphex Twin - Digeridoo (Expanded Edition 2LP) [R&S Records]

 "It's too easy to make a standard dance track," Aphex Twin said of his mindset in 1992. "You have to put a bit of thought into achieving something different."

‘Digeridoo’ was released by Belgian label R&S Records in 1992, originally peaking at #55 on the UK singles chart in May of that year. Over the last 32 years, the track has become one of Aphex Twin’s essentials in a gigantic back catalogue that continues to amaze and inspire.

“I wanted to have some tracks to play at the end of the raves I used to play in Cornwall, to really empty everyone out so they couldn’t dance,” Richard D James, AKA Aphex, told Select magazine in the 90s. “Digeridoo came out of that.”

Released as a 4-track EP that also featured early Aphex productions (now classics) such as the industrial and acidic clangour of ‘Flap Head’ and the hyperbolic futurism of ‘Isopropanol,’ the release cemented a relationship with the R&S label that went on to release the ‘Xylem Tube’ EP and the seminal album ‘Selected Ambient Works 85-92’ in the same year. Label owner and A&R, Renaat Vandepapeliere, reflected: “When I first heard Aphex Twin’s music I said, ‘This is it!’, and everyone else said, ‘You’re crazy!’... many of the die-hard R&S fans left us. For them, it was not music.”

‘Digeridoo’ (Expanded Edition) is the first time the EP has been reissued with additional material. Whilst surveying his DAT archive (reportedly stored in an airtight military ammo box), Richard James revisited the recordings, encoding them through a Nakamichi CR7e deck, using the customized vari-speed deck to encode at speeds that “felt right at the time.” Alongside these CR7e versions, the original mixes have been remastered by Beau Thomas at Ten Eight Seven Mastering, offering an expanded perspective on one of electronic music's most enduring releases.