As far as I can tell, this EP was essentially a teaser for the upcoming Richard D James Album, which on its US release included some of these tracks. Something I can’t really fathom, as aside from the title cut, they’re largely sketches or jokey pieces. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still a huge amount of creativity on display, but as a collection the Girl/Boy EP doesn’t really have any substance or coherence.
The titular piece, Girl/Boy Song is obviously an absolute classic – sliced, diced, stretched and manipulated breakbeats and joyful strings that pirouette in a delightful ballet; it could be the soundtrack to the courtship of two fairies in Disney’s Fantasia. Given the harsh extremes breakbeat manipulation would reach in the next few years, Girl/Boy Song sounds incredibly light-footed and naive in comparison. Although at the time, it was probably held up as the logical conclusion of a particular form of IDM-geekery.
Milkman has some notoriety having featured in Salad Fingers, and along with Beetles contains a rare James vocal performance. Neither are particularly memorable (though Beetles does have an interesting melodic refrain), and the lyrics about wanting some milk from the milkman’s wife’s tits are only amusing at a very base level. I suppose if one considers the RDJ Album to be an autobiographical tour of the James psyche then Milkman offers an authentic window into an idle teenage childhood fantasy, recounted in his own relatively untreated voice.
In typical Aphex fashion, the two ‘remixes’ of Girl/Boy Song sound nothing like the original but are both decent enough breakbeat workouts, drawn in harsher shades from the sound palette he was using at the time. Inkey$ threatens to pop off into an all-out acid carve-up in the classic Aphex mold but like the two remixes the track is finished in less than two minutes.
A final note on the cover art, picturing a grave marked Richard James. This apparently belongs to James’ brother who died at birth, and who inspired him to use the Twin appellation. As with all Aphex lore, I’ve no idea how much of this is true…it could just be a random grave.
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