The first album on this list isn't really an album at all. However, Aphex Twin's spontaneous uploading of over two hundred tracks to an anonymous SoundCloud (hot on the heels of Syro, one of 2014's best electronic albums) was arguably the most significant moment of 2015 for fans of electronic music. Richard D. James had long bragged about how many tapes of unreleased material he had sitting locked away in his bank, but given his penchant for tall tales and media manipulation it was always hard to believe him. Besides, AFX is perhaps the most gifted electronic composer of the past 30 years - the idea that the prodigy had a mountain of music hidden from the public seemed too good to be true. Or at least, that was the case until a SoundCloud account named user18081971 - signposted by the official Aphex Twin account - began posting tracks that sounded suspiciously like outtakes from various stages of James' career. Then more were uploaded, and more. The current total stands at 228 (and that is with several having been deleted in the meantime) and AFX has subsequently confirmed that he has at least 20 more tapes worth of material to upload when he gets the opportunity to do so. While many of the tracks are throwaway curios, there are many absolute stunners for anyone willing to wade through the hours and hours of music. 17 Kids Beach, 4 Red Calx , 5 heliosphan live, 35 Japan, 15 Bradley Jam Pump, GPO Beat, T13 Quadraverb, 13 Short Mental fax, 14 Make a Baby... These are just a few of the best tracks there. James even placed several of the pieces from his early 1990s era (famed for Selected Ambient Works 85-92 and Vol. II) into a playlist named SAW 1.5, which is an excellent place to start if the sheer quantity of music is overwhelming. Or you could do what many others did and leech off the fact that the brilliant DJ Food, as part of Ninja Tune's Solid Steel Radio Show, compiled a hypnotic mix of the best bits called Selected Aphex Works. However you choose to listen, make sure that you do. Even Aphex Twin's cast-offs are superior to the best work of most other producers.
