You never can tell what the whimsical Richard D. James will get up to next. For most artists, putting out previously unreleased tracks, especially alternate versions of cuts from their classic albums, is a big to-do, accompanied by plenty of fanfare. Such tracks will often get rolled out as bonus-track enticements for hardcore fans to plunk their money down on either an expanded reissue or a hefty box set. But not your old pal Aphex Twin.
Not only have unreleased AT tracks been popping up for free lately without any warning, James hasn’t even been putting his name on them. Now, since tracks like the alternate version below of “Avril 14th,” a tune from Aphex Twin’s Drukqs album, have been uploaded to SoundCloud anonymously, under a series of unidentifiable usernames (hello, user18081971) and James hasn’t taken credit for them so far, it can’t technically be proven that they’re legit. But the experts agree that they are, so unless we hear otherwise, hell, why look a gift horse in the mouth?