I’d been poised to move into Aphex Twin’s ‘imperial phase’ in the latter part of the 90s before realising there were a couple more obscure releases to cover. And what’s the point of doing a deep dive if you don’t go deep?
Bradley’s Beat and Bradley’s Robot are the only two releases Richard D James put out under the Bradley Strider alias, on his own Rephlex Records. And with a cheeky touch reminiscent of the changing photo in Back to the Future, these were seemingly retrospectively inserted earlier in the Rephlex catalogue, with release dates of 1991 and 1993 printed on the respective labels…despite the fact they seem not to have emerged into the world before 1995.
Anyway, whenever they were truly launched, these two time capsules are both full of wobbly, speedy techno, with Aphex’s distinctive eerie melodies.
Bradley’s Beat part 1 is driven by a funky bassline and leggy kickdrum, easily the catchiest track here. Part 2 is a slab of harder and heavier Millsian techno, straight from the warehouse. Bradley’s Robot opens with a fairly chill track that would go down well around sunrise. Whereas the B-side kicks off with a more stripped-down tribal pounder. The production is sparser and easier on the ears than much of Aphex’s very early output, but there’s no less of that speedy rave energy.
I doubt many of the lucky few who bagged physical copies of these (whenever they came out) would put them up for sale too often, so these are likely to be super rare. Fortunately for the rest of us, the audio can be found over on YouTube. Nice little find if you want some unpolished, off-kilter but on-point rave fuel.
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