If Richard D. James makes a statement, and nobody’s around to be confused, is it still witty?

The Come To Daddy EP, which I briefly mentioned a couple of articles ago, is a fascinating microcosm of James’ universe. None of the tracks are remotely similar— which, in the Twin’s twisted parlance, means they’re all very similar. You just have to look hard.

Consider, of course, “Come To Daddy (Pappy Mix).” The most well-known of any tracks off of the EP because of its definitive Chris Cunningham video, it’s a careening and furious song, blistering its melody onto the listener’s ears and destroying drum machines the world over. James himself claims it started as a “crappy death metal song” he came up with while bored, and it blossomed and grew and eventually overwhelmed anything he had previously done. Forcing oneself to watch the infamous clip reveals why; not only did Cunningham work with James to create an epic shocker, he also made sure that the music video fit the song remarkably.

If you haven’t seen the video, well, it involves “children” wearing Richard D. James’ face while tormenting an old woman and, separately, a young fellow in a parking garage. Then a monster emerges from a TV set and screams at the aforementioned old woman. While this happens, a distorted Richard D. James face sings from another TV. By the end, the monster has James’ face too, and is gathering its “children” in a smoke-filled void. Full of terrorized bystanders, screaming hell-beasts and things that go “click-click-click” really fast: yeah, that’s the Aphex Twin universe, alright. At least, the menacing side.

But that side reduces itself to something more unsettling than overtly evil on “Come To Daddy (Little Lord Faulteroy Mix),” a track which uses the same title but (at first listen) none of the same elements. The songs, melody-wise and beat-wise, are vastly different; whereas the Pappy Mix focuses on beating the living hell out of your eardrums, the Faulteroy mix soothes them. But it soothes with something disturbing; a distorted voice asks if you’re a “dir-ty lit-tle boy,” among other things. It twists your relaxation into an uneasy sensation, akin to being smiled at by someone who you know doesn’t like you and is in fact envisioning a number of terrible things happening to you. It whispers, its voice heightens, crackles, distorts into something alien.

And then it hits you. Damned if the Faulteroy mix doesn’t want your soul, too. Not for eating, mind you, but for something wrong, some kind of self-distortion. So, we’ve got something that sounds entirely different saying the same thing as the first mix. Oh Richard D. James, what trick card will you pull out of your silly sleeves next?

“You’ve got so many machines, Richard,” the Twin’s mother intones to start “Come To Daddy (Mummy Mix)” over sound effects and beats that, if they aren’t taken directly from it, sound remarkably like a number of those in the Pappy Mix. The beats and noises are the focus of this track, replacing anything resembling a melody with dissonant, harsh noises and warped ambient sounds. After two minutes, however, James gets bored, and has an avatar in the song ask for a snare rush. He responds with nothing of the sort, instead hitting with a rush of effects and a sudden inclination towards a Game Boy melody. The track ends with pulsating noise and—bizarrely, as you’ve probably guessed—applause, which quickly decays into nothing.

So why the hell are they all named “Come To Daddy?”

A look at the video, maybe, is in order. Tom Gersic’s excellent video analysis recognizes one motif in the video as being related to the idea of askew reproductions. Elements are similar but the disturbing, non-similar elements are what become the viewer’s focus: the children with James’ face, the humanoid yet nightmarish television-monster, and James’ grinning image screaming from an electronic prison.

Though James would likely chalk this up to over-analysis, the three “Come To Daddy” songs subtly exemplify this same theme. Elements are the same, but where they differ is a highly disturbing, malevolent no-man’s-land. Each reproduction packs the same amount of sinister punch, but varies so differently that the listener is forced into rapt attention, curious as to how they could possibly be the same.

And like in the video, that’s when the monster emerges.

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