Aphex Twin gigs are pretty rare these days - the storied producer and DJ surfaces once every few years to deliver a handful of head-spinning performances before swiftly returning to his Cornish hideout.
Imagine our surprise, then, when we learned that Richard D. James had delivered a rare DJ set over the weekend, not as a festival headliner or at a sold-out arena show, but at a friend's wedding.
A short video posted to Twitter/X appears to show James spinning tunes to a rather empty-looking dancefloor, with a set-up comprised of two CDJs, a laptop and an Allen & Heath Xone:96 mixer atop a folding table, and some typically glitchy visuals going on behind.
Reports suggest that James is a friend of the groom and played the set as a gift; the line-up for the evening's proceedings, which hosted around 100 attendees, also featured British electronic artist Luke Vibert.
Aphex Twin's Forwards Festival set was a divisive, high-octane victory lap
We wondered if James might have opted for some of the gentler and more romantic cuts in his record collection to suit the occasion, but it seems that he was - perhaps unsurprisingly - reaching for the higher end of the BPM range; the track in the video is veteran DnB producer Jonny L's The Bells, a frenzied affair that might be a bit too much for a first dance.
We've no word on whether James was taking requests, though we sincerely hope that a non-musical attendee drunkenly stumbled up to what they believed was a hired wedding DJ to ask for Uptown Funk or Mr. Brightside, only to be rebuffed with some 200bpm breakcore.
aphex twin playing his friends wedding party yesterday. (luke vibert also played). currently drowning in an endless sea of envy. pic.twitter.com/RjLZ0rLXI8August 18, 2024
