The history of so-called intelligent dance music began with Polygon Window’s Surfing On Sine Waves. As influential as the album was in 1992, the campaign behind it was just as deeply misunderstood.
Richard D. James’ story on Warp Records began as confusingly as his autobiography and enduring legend-building. Born in Ireland to Welsh parents, he spent his youth in Cornwall and became the spearhead of a tongue-in-cheek marketing concept by Warp Records in 1992—and thus the decades-long poster boy of a genre designation intended as a joke: IDM, or Intelligent Dance Music.
Since its founding in 1989, Warp Records had developed into the label for Bleep Techno, which was exploding in Great Britain. But by 1992, the momentum had faded. The warehouse rave scene was beginning to burn out. Excessive drug use was seeking new spaces where people could chill out rather than tear things down. Electronic music was no longer just meant to shred subwoofers but also to be listened to on home stereo systems.
In 1992, Warp Records slowly moved away from Bleep Techno and created one of the most iconic series in electronic music history: the Artificial Intelligence series. Despite their short lifespan, the eight releases had a seminal influence on electronic music. Between 1992 and 1994, two still-timeless compilations and six albums by Polygon Window, Black Dog Productions, B12, F.U.S.E. (aka Richie Hawtin), Speedy J, and Autechre were released under this marketing umbrella. At the time, the press and fans gratefully embraced the new framing of electronic music, which was coming under massive pressure in the UK with the Criminal Justice Bill.
The spirits I summoned
At least the label played the ball skillfully. They must have known back then who they had just headhunted from R&S Records, and what potential lay in the strange long-haired raver from the countryside called Richard D. James (aka Aphex Twin, AFX, Polygon Window, and a dozen other pseudonyms).
It was Richard D. James under the on-off moniker The Dice Man who opened the initial compilation Artificial Intelligence (1992) with the track “Polygon Window.” A few months later, the song became the project name, and Surfing On Sine Waves became the first artist album in the series. It was the initial spark for what Warp Records itself framed as Electronic Listening Music, but which years later became known as the love/hate genre IDM.
Surfing On Sine Waves bleibt durch sein Position als Verbindungsstück zugleich eigenständig und abschließend im Oeuvre von James.
The fact that Richard D. James only used the name Polygon Window for this album and one single release (Quoth EP, 1993) may have been due to contractual details—after all, he had been with R&S shortly before. Perhaps James was simply following a whim to distance himself from the success of his debut album. Perhaps the album represented a transition and a farewell for him—not only stylistically, but also in terms of sound and production quality.
Surfing On Sine Waves can be heard in two parts. LP1 is still strongly infused with the atmospheric but simplistic Ambient Techno that made James famous on 1992’s Selected Ambient Works 85–92 (Apollo/R&S). “Quoth” once again breaks down the hardcore continuum that had characterized his first EPs. Overall, the tracks remain simple, accessible, and even tame for James.
The missing link
On LP2, the sound becomes more layered and darker, pointing toward what was to come. The viscous Acid Techno delirium of “UT1 – dot” and the brilliantly harrowing untitled seventh track foreshadow the “On EP”, released shortly afterward. The synthesizer work on the five tracks on LP2, and not least the closer “Quino – phec”, give a foretaste of Richard D. James’ unparalleled ambient album “Selected Ambient Works 2”, released in 1994.
This position as a connecting piece allows Surfing On Sine Waves to remain both distinct and conclusive in James’ oeuvre. It marks a departure from the simple Techno structures with clear references that still dominated the album. Perhaps this was also a reason for the game of hide-and-seek behind Polygon Window. At the time of its release, James was already exploring completely different soundscapes as Aphex Twin.
