- Richard D. James’s influence on the past two decades of music (and handsome ponytails) is difficult to overstate.
For the 1984 film Amadeus, Tom Hulce got an Oscar nomination for playing Mozart, and his portrayal is a stunningly idiosyncratic take on the legendary composer. Instead of trotting out some tired “tortured genius” shtick, Hulce donned an outsize white wig and hammed it up hard, playing Mozart as a giggling man-child, equally at home making fart jokes as he was effortlessly penning the most gorgeous melodies known to man. His professional rival, Antonio Salieri, is slowly driven mad by jealousy of Mozart’s talents, asking God how he could bestow “the gift” on such a lewd and lowly cretin.
There’s an uneasy fascination that comes from grappling with the idea that both sides—the unhinged bacchanalia of the id and the celestially sensitive composer—could exist simultaneously in the same man. And if there’s one present-day artist who embodies this stark juxtaposition, it would have to be Richard D. James, the godfather of modern electronic music, also known as Aphex Twin…