Joyrex Tape
The Joyrex Tape is the name given to a collection of unreleased tracks from the early 1990s by Richard D. James, best known by his alias Aphex Twin. The original tape was copied from one of James' DATs sometime in the 1990s and was leaked onto the internet in 2011.[1] In January 2015, James began to upload high quality versions of the tracks to SoundCloud as part of a track dump.
Joyrex Tape | |
---|---|
Studio album (bootleg) by | |
Genre | Acid house, drum and bass, breakbeat |
Length | 53:56 |
Producer | Richard D. James |
History
The tape was reportedly found during a house party. Richard D. James had passed out, and one of the guests went into James' room and made a copy of one of his DATs.[1] Since it was hastily copied, the sound quality is poor and it plays at the wrong speed. Subsequent copying further degraded the clarity.
The existence of the tape was rumored for some time until the WATMM forum administrator Joyrex put up short snippets of the tracks, explaining the origins of the tape and his eventual possession of a copy.[1] Contrary to common belief, Joyrex did not leak the tracks online. Rather, this collection is referred to as the Joyrex Tape since it was Joyrex who verified their existence with the audio samples and via his communication with Richard D. James at the time.
Before the leaking of the full tracks, a WATMM user sent an email to Rephlex, who then emailed Joyrex the following response:[2]
Hi, hope u r [you are] well
someone just informed us via watmm , joyrex(?) was planning to release a load of afx old unrel trx [unreleased tracks], – don’t do that! they will come out with a load more on a boxset or something at some point, best quality. If they r bootlegged prior to this it will scupper any plans. Wot say thee?
Cheers
Best regards
High quality versions of tracks 1–6, 8-9, 13, and 14 were uploaded to SoundCloud in early 2015 by James. In response to a comment on "Gear Smudge", James said that track 11 was done with Cylob, and that he would need permission to post it.[3]
Track 7 is a demo version of "Praze-An-Beeble Mix" subsequently released on the Ventolin EP,[4] with very subtle differences between the two. Others tracks resemble the unreleased Melodies from Mars album.[4] Some of the tracks have been played live: "Clapstab" was played at the State-X New Forms festival, while "World Waver" and "Phuqed Up" were played at Melt 2006.[4] Tracks 2-5 are four of the seven Analogue Bubblebath 6 songs released on SoundCloud.
Track listing
All tracks are written by Richard D. James except where noted.
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Fresher + Cleaner" | 6:47 |
2. | "How To Science 2" | 4:57 |
3. | "Step Up To Cornwall" | 4:23 |
4. | "Clapstab" | 4:32 |
5. | "World Waver" | 2:58 |
6. | "Gear Smudge" | 2:27 |
7. | "[Ventolin (Praze-An-Beeble Mix) demo]" | 2:23 |
8. | "Phlangebeat" | 4:55 |
9. | "Phuqed Up" | 1:22 |
10. | "[unknown]" | 5:00 |
11. | "[unknown]" (Richard D. James, Chris Jeffs) | 5:07 |
12. | "[unknown]" | 6:07 |
13. | "Rogphlange 1[braiNfLOSS2]" | 2:55 |
14. | "DroneBReak" | 2:49 |
Note: The Joyrex Tape doesn't include track titles. The ones above (excluding track 7) are taken from the SoundCloud uploads.
Personnel
- Richard D. James – performance, production
- Cylob – performance on track 11
References
- Joyrex (16 November 2007). "Q-Chastic/Melodies From Mars". We Are The Music Makers Forums. Retrieved 19 October 2012.
- Joyrex (9 June 2008). "Q-Chastic/Melodies From Mars". We Are The Music Makers Forums. Retrieved 10 May 2015.
- user18081971 (1 May 2015). "6 gear smudge". SoundCloud. Retrieved 10 May 2015.
- "AFX Tape Trax". Rare AFX. Retrieved 10 May 2015.