The Aphex Twin top 200

It is arguable that for a four-year period in the 1990s, Richard David James was the most important musician working in Britain. Between 1992 and 1996, he released seven albums, two compilation long-players and a string of EPs and singles. The material was dazzling in its range, from the stark industrial techno of the R & S EPs to the blissful, beatless soundscapes of Selected Ambient Works II. It was also striking in its craft and originality. This was music borne of the rave scene, but music that went so far beyond that genre's narrow limits that it really had nothing to do with it at all.
His prodigiousness was incredible, with a new record seemingly coming out every other month, not to mention a stream of remixes of sometimes staggering quality. Over this period, he was using at least eight different pseudonyms and, for a time, it almost seemed true to say that James was modern electronic music.
He was not the only performer producing interesting music in this field. Far from it. But while the likes of Orbital, Autechre, the Warp Records artists, the Mo' Wax collective, Ninja Tune and others were all part of an incredible wave of new music being brought into the world at this time, Aphex was the era's figurehead. Maybe it was the tank he drove, or the perverse precocity - some of his music was produced in the mid-1980s, when he would have been in his mid-teens. But there was something different about Aphex. Certainly there was hype, much of it generated by indie magazines like NME that had only a perfunctory interest in electronic music. But like a boxer that talks a big game and then hammers his opponents, Aphex was one of those cases were the hype had to be believed.

Simply listing some of the records released during this time makes its own point. In 1992, Selected Ambient Works, Joyrex J4 and J5, Digeridoo and Xylem Tube. In 1993, On, Surfing on Sine Waves, Analogue Bubblebath 3 and Joyrex J9. In 1994, Selected Ambient Works II and Analogue Bubblebath 4. In 1995, Ventolin, Donkey Rhubarb, I Care Because You Do and the Hangable Auto Bulb EPs. And in 1996, Mike & Rich, Girl/Boy and the Richard D James Album. And that is not to mention James' involvement in the Universal Indicator series, nor his Bradley Strider EPs, and it is to ignore also the numberless remixes and countless appearances of his original material on compilation albums of the time.
There were, of course, low-points even in what was his creative high watermark. Throwaway records like Gak and Powerpill served to suggest that James was making more music than the world needed to hear.
And yet, following the critical clamour of the release of the Richard D James Album, the prolific James fell quiet.
In the following five years, he released just two EPs and a 15-minute remix CD before Drukqs hit the shelves in late 2001.
Its release met with both rumour and mixed reactions. Had the album been rushed out to defy thieves who had got hold of the master tapes? Was it supposed to come out in this form - or was it merely a work in progress? The album was an uneven mixture of piano and percussion-led composition on the one hand, and warped drill 'n' bass on the other. Some thought it was a work of genius. Some did not. But what it clearly marked was a shift from the period when Aphex could do no wrong in anyone's eyes.
Ten years on and James has still yet to release another album. The music has not died out entirely. Analord - a series of 12"s released in 2005 - showed to the world that James was at the very least still making records, while the mysterious and occasionally brilliant Tuss releases of 2007 were also widely assumed to be James.
But apart from these salient releases, a gap of 15 years has passed since James's period of astonishing prodigiousness came to an end. Will he ever return? That is a question many Aphex fans will now have given up trying to answer. Perhaps James, as he often used to claim, is still making three or four records in his room every day. He would often say that he derived no pleasure from releasing music anyway - only from listening to what he produced. If that is so, perhaps one day, many years from now, when James is long gone, an archivist will uncover 50 or 60 albums of unreleased material that will stun the world. Maybe James is in some confused way electronica's own take on the myth of JD Salinger.

Or maybe not. Maybe James has given up, or moved on to other things. He is still a presence in the music world, both through DJ sets and his Rephlex record label. He can already rightly claim to be one of the most original voices in modern music. He can already take his place as the most important pioneer in modern electronics - the heir to Brian Eno, at the very least. Without him, many of the disparate sub-genres that exploded out of the rave scene in the early 90s would either not exist or would be less interesting for his absence.
All the same, fans want him back. There are rumours all the time that a new album is imminent. Serious, credible references have assured us that material is on its way. And yet it never arrives.
Maybe we should give up even hoping for it. Modern music has moved on without him. The release of Analord six years ago - an indulgent, nostalgic pastiche of acid house records - even suggested that James might have nothing original left to offer. Dubstep in all of its variants was born without his guidance. Laptop music got by without him. Even performers who grew up in his shadow, such as Mike Paradinas, have become serious figures now in their own right, while James skulks in self-imposed exile.
But while modern electronic music remains compelling, there is certainly something lacking at times. Is it personality? Is it a maddening gift for playfulness? Is it an ability to laugh at yourself? Aphex had all of these qualities in abundance, and modern music seems slightly the poorer without him.
So what follows is my own paean to the Aphex Twin. It is a detailed, catalogued, lovingly pored over list of all of what I maintain are the finest pieces of music he ever released.
It is incomplete - with nothing from the Universal Indicator series or the recently unearthed Joyrex tapes. It is individual - downgrading some of the totemic records of the Aphex canon, while playing up some of the less heralded material. It is erratic and perverse, too - with some records given less credit simply because I have had them and listened to them for too long. But it is my list, honestly made, and that is that.