user48736353001 – 28 Organ
In 2015, an anonymous Soundcloud user posted cryptically named tracks — tons of them — to their account page which sounded suspiciously like the work of electronic music pioneer Aphex Twin. The album Syro (Richard James' first released work under the Aphex Twin name in 13 years) had just come out in the proceeding months, so while his music by no means had faded from consciousness, the community had recently regrouped to a degree at this point in time and was relatively active. I was doing my daily trawl through my corner of the internet when I came across the dump on an electronic music subreddit, and from what I remember about the initial post people were immediately excited but absolutely no one could say if these tracks were truly legit. The music sounded unmistakably his though, and you could even place certain songs in distinct periods of the Aphex Twin discography. Everything from early 90s acid techno and ambient experiments to more refined productions that felt like cut content from the recent Syro. It all just fit together too well for it to be a random dude posting his songs in an almost throw away manner on a Soundcloud page that no one would ever see.
Over the next few weeks, user48736353001 kept uploading songs, sometimes multiple per day. Internet electronic music nerds were scrambling to listen, discuss, and archive everything from the dump, and being a bit of a digital hoarder myself, I made an active effort to keep up with the drops and grab what I could as things hit. If it was real, this stuff could be taken down at any moment and if it wasn't, it was still really great music that may evaporate into the digital aether like so much anonymous music before it.
Eventually the pieces came together, as the story got picked up by media outlets like Pitchfork and details started to emerge. People who were professionally familiar started to verify the authenticity of some of the material and Richard James himself confirmed in interviews that he was indeed behind the account.
"It was really just a spontaneous thing, and the label, Warp, were like 'Uh... what the fuck are you doing?' That made me think it was even a better idea at that point. If the suits are getting annoyed then it's definitely a good idea." - Richard James
While the user48736353001 account was active (about a year), Richard engaged with fans in the comments section of the uploads, answering questions, sharing production details, and even taking requests for re-uploads when tracks were removed. It was genuinely a neat moment in time to be present for, and incredibly apt for an artist as enigmatic as Richard James. It was completely in character for the guy who embedded images into his music and generally fucks around.
The closest thing I could compare it to would be an ARG, but one with an actual tangible reward and not a url that takes you to a teaser for a release date announcement. That very real reward being an absolute flood of unreleased work from a legendary artist, which any other group of fans would have to buy in a $150 boxed set that would go out of print a year after release. All in all the dump comprised of unreleased music from the late ‘80s through the aughts, and included alternative versions of released tracks and totally unheard compositions.
After a bit, a large chunk of the tracks were taken down. People like me had already archived and shared them in many, many places, however, so thankfully the full content will never be lost. Soon after the takedown though, a curated selection of 110 tracks was officially released on his Bandcamp page as Aphex Twin – SoundCloud Tracks. Some of these later made their way into official retail releases as bonus tracks like on 2017's re-release of the 1997 mini album Come to Daddy, which added four songs from the Soundcloud dump in modified forms.
"I've got all this music and I thought if I died what the fuck would my kids do? What would my wife do? They'd get really stressed out and they wouldn’t know what to do with it all. So I just thought I'd give it away, then they don't have to think about it." - Richard James
I need to emphasize again how damn cool this whole event was. It was as pure of a surprise as you could experience as a fan, purer in the fact that it wasn't some shitty attempt at viral marketing. He just gave it to us. The cooperative element of collectively refreshing the page and coordinating uploads, sharing and speculating, the direct fan interaction and the sheer volume of music to come out of it really made it special, and as a result, this event is one of my fonder internet community related memories.
Also, did I mention that the music is fucking great? While the quality of the dump at it's worst bottoms out at merely "interesting because of the context" there are some real works of art buried in those bits. 28 Organ is one I am particularly fond of, and one that I continually come back to time after time to get obsessed over and repeat constantly for a week, almost as if is the song version of a vacation. From the first note, I can feel myself relax, in what I can only compare to a sort of auditory manifestation of mournful peace. It's nebulous and hard for me to convey, but the layering and arrangement almost feel like EMDR therapy if it could be delivered via song. It's gentle but keeps you mentally active as you listen, switching up at just the right times and then it's over and seven minutes have somehow passed. I seriously recommend taking some time and giving it a listen, ideally with nice headphones and with your eyes closed.
Legitimately one of my favorite songs ever and it barely got released.