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This is not a video of Aphex Twin. Rather, it’s from a guy called Gizuco who is having some fun with sequences of Tha played on a Moog Minitaur, a Roland SH-01A and a Waldorf Streichfett. Music is fun. Listening. Composing. Playing. Whatever.

What I like about this video is that it combines two of my greatest passions: listening to good music and making music. I believe that, as a music maker, one can better understand the intent of composers, why certain choices were made, why this chord instead of another one, etc. Everyone should learn how to play some music. Do you know that music was part of maths in ancient Greece at the times of Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle?

Aphex Twin, whose real name is Richard David James, is one of my favourite electronic musicians. He’s one of the most inventive in IDM (intelligent dance music) and electronic music in general. He has influenced countless others. Tha was released in 1992 on Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works 85–92 album.

This is smooth. This is smooth rock jazz. And this is Aja, the second track from the Steely Dan album also called Aja. The album was released in September 1977 to critical acclaim. It won the Grammy Award for best engineered (i.e. sounding) recording and Aja has become one of my reference tracks.

I only discovered Aja two years ago. I have been reading about it for decades in Hi-Fi magazines as this song was always being used to test equipment. But, for me, it was a magical moment the first time I heard Aja and, hence, the musicality and dexterity of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker.

I also love this YouTube video of Jamel_AKA_Jamal listening to Aja for the first time. He expresses his feelings so simply and beautifully. Music should always be enjoyed like this. Each time I listen to Aja, I’m a bit like him. It’s pure joy.

In 1994, I was in Réunion Island having started my higher studies in Maths, Physics and Computer Science. I stumbled upon a music magazine with an article on a little known Icelander called Björk. She had just released her debut album, appropriately called Debut, and one of the tracks was Violently Happy.

I don’t know why but there was something in the article or on the cover of the album which prompted me to purchase the CD. I remember a good friend telling me that, surely, an album from Iceland would be crap.

Instead, I got an amazing album with gems such as Human Behaviour, Venus as a Boy, Play Dead, Big Time Sensuality and, of course, Violently Happy which, as one music critic said, was “insanely addictive”.