With last year's swan-song-cum-video "Windowlicker," Richard "Aphex Twin" James retired from music-making, which was just as well. As electronic music's resident funnyman, he hadbecome more its Rich Little than its Andy Kaufman, shtickishly pantomiming his role in the usually humorless scene. First there was 1996's"Girl Boy Song," its spazzy breakbeat dry-humping a classical interlude, as much a punchline as an ersatz "Swan Lake." Then came his remix of Beck's "Devil's Haircut," rechristened "Richard's Hairpiece" after he stripped the low-end off and sped up the vocal to a grating ping of hi-hats. But "Windowlicker" was the crowning glory, its spare, rubbery rhythm serving up as good an excuse as any for a pimp-playing James and director Chris Cunningham to ride around in a block-long stretch limo, indulging and subverting T&A imagery like gender-challenging director Matthew Barney making a 2 Live Crew video: Teases of string-bikini-clad curves end up belonging to women that all have James's grinning, bearded mug. As the old Chas and Dave song put it, "Nice legs, shame... More >>>