Aphex Twin and Phillip Glass: the story of a perfect collaboration
When Philip Glass came to work alongside Aphex Twin on a rework of the latter’s track, ‘Icct Hedral’, for the Donkey Rhubarb EP, many might have turned their heads at the idea of a modern classical composer working with someone who was so ingrained in the world of dance music and techno. However, if you give it a moment of consideration, you’ll realise that the two artists hold far more in common than one might initially presume.
Given that both have been labelled as avant-garde innovators in their own respective fields, it’s understandable that something would draw the two together, and their individual tastes for creating boundary-pushing compositions were what ultimately brought the two together, rather than the arguably contrasting ways in which they operated. While Glass was innovating in a field that had existed for many years and providing novel approaches to classical music, Aphex Twin, AKA Richard D James, was adding to the musical lexicon by conjuring up new sounds entirely.
The original version of the track taken from James’s 1995 album …I Care Because You Do was filled with strings and flutes, and despite one of its main characteristics being the use of bubbling synthesised noise that gave it a distinctive acid techno feel, the classical arrangement of the song lent itself to having Glass provide his interpretation of the song. Glass’s interpretation drives the already sinister-sounding track in an even eerier direction, and his commitment to minimalist approaches means that the lack of electronics creates a sparseness that isn’t felt in the original.
James himself was no stranger to creating minimalist works that eschewed electronic music conventions, and his previous album, Selected Ambient Works Volume II, did exactly what its title suggests. The two-and-a-half-hour album largely centred around droning soundscapes as opposed to the ambient techno of his debut album. While his earlier exploits had earned him praise for being a pioneering figure in the evolution of electronic music, this record caused people to reconsider his place in the musical landscape entirely, comparing the release to the works of Glass.
The two would meet around this time and struck up something of a relationship, despite the perceived gap in both their creative output and their difference in age. “He was about 22 or 23,” Glass recalls of their earliest meetings. “I was easily twice his age, if not older, and we started doing a record together.” What drew the American composer to the Cornish electronic artist was his lack of traditional experience in music and how he approached things from an entirely new perspective.
“I asked him what instruments he plays, and he said, ‘well I don’t really play anything’,” said Glass. Fascinated by where his ideas were coming from, James reportedly told Glass that he used to frequent junk stores and “buy whatever electronic junk there was” for him to create sounds with, and that, ultimately, that would lead to him making music using it. “With someone like Richard,” Glass continued, “He was willing to do anything. We didn’t have any rules about what we were doing.”
James’s childlike curiosity is something that has always been prevalent in his music, and Glass sees that same level of enthusiasm for intrigue in his own approach to making music: “What I liked about [Aphex Twin’s] music was that I liked it and didn’t understand it. I’m always attracted to things that I can’t understand. It’s a fundamental aspect of curiosity; when I don’t understand something, I get curious about it.”
It’s been almost 30 years since this track first arrived, and still, very few people have made sense of Aphex Twin’s musical output, which is exactly why he remains so fascinating and inspiring to so many listeners to this day.
