Pop Song 481 of 500 'Avril 14th' Aphex Twin 2001

Pop Song 481 of 500 'Avril 14th' Aphex Twin 2001

Whereas most of James's music is electronic, "Avril 14th" is a piano composition. It was recorded using a Disklavier, a piano with a mechanism that reads MIDI data and plays the keyboard without human input. The clicking of the mechanism is audible on the recording. According to Fact writer Scott Wilson, "The result is something that sounds human but not quite. Several critics likened it to the works of Erik Satie. Fact described it as a "a butterfly-fragile float" of "piano calm"

"Avril 14th" has been used in films including Marie Antoinette (2006), Four Lions (2010), and the international trailer for Her (2013).[3] For Four Lions, James rerecorded the track with a minor edit.[3] In 2007, "Avril 14th" was sampled for a song used in the SNL digital short "Iran So Far." As SNL owner NBC had not obtained the rights to use the track, the short was quickly removed from YouTube.[5]

The American rapper Kanye West used elements of "Avril 14th" for his 2010 track "Blame Game." According to James, after he was sent an early version of "Blame Game" with a heavily timestretched sample of "Avril 14th," he offered to rerecord the piece at a different tempo; West's team replied with "It's not yours, it's ours, and we're not even asking you any more," and tried to avoid paying for its use.[6] The final "Blame Game" used a rerecorded version of "Avril 14th" rather than a sample, and James received credit