Haircut Mix

Far as I can tell, James -- aka Aphex Twin -- is talking about "Richard's Hairpiece," a remix of "Devil's Haircut" that appeared on the flipside of the extended single for "The New Pollution," a track from Beck's album Odelay (Geffen/Bong Load).

The EP-ish single includes the original "LP Version" of "The New Pollution" and two remixes, one credited to Mickey P. and one credited to Mickey P. and Mario C.

That's Side One. Side Two has two songs: "Lemonade," a previously unreleased track recorded in March 1994, featuring Joey Waronker (drums), Rebecca Gates (background vocals), and Beck (vocals, guitar and piano), produced by Brian Paulson and Beck, and "Richard's Hairpiece."

     > James: Yeah, I did it -- I did the mix ages
     > ago, but, um, I didn't like it. I thought I
     > was just doing it for the money. But when I
     > chilled out and listened to it about a week
     > later, I really loved -- I really liked it.

James' initial ambivalence registers. "Richard's Hairpiece" is "Devil's Haircut" spun at 45 rpm, with a tambourine bashed repetitively like some petty trinket. A mechanical rhythm machine (Jews harp-cum-vocoder) parallels Beck's singing. Best part of the remix is the extended, vocal-free bridge, which fades, for a time, into something worthy of Aphex Twin's Richard D. James album.  

Copyright © 1996, 1997 Marc Weidenbaum. All rights reserved.
 

The complete transcript of the interview