There are records that arrive quietly and records that stay with people. Drukqs falls into the second group. When Richard D. James released it in 2001, it divided opinion. Two discs, prepared piano pieces sitting alongside fast, abrasive drum and bass, the whole thing felt less like a statement and more like a data dump from a mind that had stopped worrying about what anyone expected. Twenty-five years on, that refusal to explain itself is part of why the record still gets talked about.
Now Warp Records is bringing it back. Drukqs will be released on 30th October 2026 on vinyl, CD and cassette, the first time in years the album has been available across physical formats. It is a small detail with real weight for collectors, because it means every Aphex Twin album is once again in print on vinyl.
James has always sat slightly apart from the culture that claimed him. He formed Rephlex in 1991, moved to London in 1993 and spent the following decade releasing under a range of aliases that made him difficult to pin down. IDM was the label critics reached for, though he found the term more amusing than accurate. Drukqs is the point where that restlessness came to a head, and this reissue gives people the chance to sit with it again, on the formats it was made for.
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