Aphex Twin’s Sister Is Wales’ New Climate Change Minister
Richard D. James, the man better known as Aphex Twin, has always cultivated an air of mystery around himself. He rarely gives interview or plays live shows, and in recent years, he mostly releases music in unpredictable SoundCloud dumps. But Richard D. James, it turns, out, is not the only public figure in his family, and his big sister Julie now has an important governmental position. She has also talked a bit about her brother in a new profile.
Julie James, 15 years older than Richard, was born in Swansea, and her family moved around a lot. (Richard was born in Limerick, Ireland.) She passed the bar exam in 1983, and she began working as an environmental lawyer in London. She lost her first husband in a car crash, married another, and then moved back to Wales. She’s a part of the Labour party, and she’s served in a number of governmental posts in Wales before becoming the country’s first-ever Minister For Climate Change.
As the BBC reports, Julie recently talked about her life story in an interview with the Walescast podcast. During that conversation, she mentioned that her whole family is “all very proud” of Richard. When asked whether she’s a fan of his music, Julie said:
Very much. Not all of it. Some of it’s, I think Charlie Brooker once said it was like being inside a CT scanner for an hour. But some of it is glorious. He writes beautiful jazz. He did a collaboration with Philip Glass, which is glorious, and a lot of his ambient stuff is lovely to listen to.
She also says that she gave a copy of Aphex Twin’s Collapse EP to outgoing Welsh Labour leader Carwyn Jones in 2018. She says, “And I’m sure he listens to it all the time,” and she makes fun of one of her interviewers for being a “fanboy over here.” She names the 1991 AFX single “Analog Bubblebath 2” as her favorite of her brother’s tracks. I like this lady.