The near transcendentally awful cover art of this 38-track compilation, which was released with little fanfare this week, has already become familiar to hardcore Aphex Twin fans. Intriguingly, a crappy southern hip-hop-style knockoff T-shirt started flooding Etsy. Team AFX simply made their own "meme top" to sell at recent festival appearances. Since the superb last album Syro in 2014 and the extensive 270+ track deck clearing of his 2015 SoundCloud dump, Richard D James has shifted most of his restless creativity to festival sets. He has transitioned into a credible old-school DJ headliner, similar to how Four Tet has, sharing billing space with Peggy Gou, Arca, and Bicep. This transition occurred without toning down his style or intensity, providing a new gen Z audience with an experience that, even before getting to the music, stands somewhere between a Flaming Lips show, the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and a cocaine/LSD-induced heart attack. All thanks to the visuals by the mysterious artist Weirdcore.

Limited-Edition Vinyl Releases and Their Allure

In 2016, a practice emerged of releasing new material, often tracks that James would drop into DJ sets, as limited-edition vinyl releases. These releases were available only from the merch desk of select shows. These EPs and LPs became legendarily hard to obtain. By the time most regular fans (like me) reached the festival merch desk in the mid-afternoon, the only thing left would be the meme shirt in XXL and a beanie hat priced as if it would bestow magical powers on the wearer.However, happy Aphexmas has arrived, and staring bitterly at Discogs is over. What would have cost a lot more than two grand to own physically can now be streamed to one's heart's content. While one or two tracks here might be fillers, and a couple could be characterized as raw AFX sketches, this is a wonderful present for fans. It is similar to "new" Bob Dylan bootleg tracks or Taylor Swift's vault tracks, rather than those seeking another "Come to Daddy".

Highlighting the Musical Gems

If the Cornish producer was part of a British generation that, as critic Dan Sicko wrote, "mutated, co-opted, and just plain misunderstood" the music's origins in Detroit, it is hard to fathom in tracks like the voluptuous No Stillson 6 Cirk or the night-time drive of SOOG e. And while James was responsible for spearheading the "daft and undanceable" drill'n'bass movement, there are functional dancefloor-elevating bangers here. One shining highlight is Nightmail, a late-90s hardcore battle weapon that places WH Auden into a breakbeat acid context. The hypnotic vocal loop - "This is the night mail crossing the border / Bringing the cheque and the postal order" - becomes chopped up like a processed Amen break as it completes its journey. While the torrid P-funk of Soundlab20 could easily have found a home on Syro, fans of RDJ at his Drukqs prettiest will probably dig Em2500 M253X and its combination of gently tape-manipulated piano minimalism and bird song. Those who like to track his kit will enjoy the jaunty modular acid of 4x Atlantis Take 1 and the martial techno of T05 Tx16w Marion MT***,e.

Uncovering Aphexian Lore

Several tracks contain odd bits of Aphexian lore. The very jolly, extremely flanged hyperpop of T13 Quadraverbia N+3 is named for a cherished 1989 effects unit and takes us back in spirit to James's early days as a "bedroom bore" working in Lannerlog, his Heath Robinson-esque homebrew studio in his parents' house in Lanner. At that time, he was still only dreaming of changing the face of modern electronic music. And the regal drum'n'bass Spiral Staircase (AFX Remix) is the result of him secretly entering a magazine competition in 2004 to rework a track on pal Wagon Christ's new album. He won but gave the prize to the runner-up. This track, like many others here, shows that Aphex Twin was always an artist with one foot in Düsseldorf and another straddling the Chicago/Detroit divide - but importantly with a spirit that was rebelliously Cornish and a heart floating across the surface of an imaginary Mars.