Hi, I'm Sean and I met some of you during DFN. I wanted to share a little bit of afx/rephlex trivia that most of you were probably unaware of. My interest in Nekojiru's work was what led me to listening to Aphex Twin. I was writing a longer post earlier outlining the work of Nekojiru but I decided to strip down to the bare essentials of her connection with Aphex Twin in the interest of keeping things on topic (but still quite indulgent).
Nekojiru was an avant-garde manga artist in Japan whose career spanned from 1990 to May 10th 1998 when she committed suicide. Her musical tastes tended towards trance and goa, but her favorite musician was Aphex Twin and in accordance with her will, the entirety of SAW2 was played at her funeral and she was buried with a CD and a video of Aphex Twin. She had an intense fascination with Aphex Twin.
"In January 1994, a small part of the foreign music department at Sony Entertainment Japan (where big names like Mariah Carey are handled) began releasing catalog material from R&S, Warp, and Rephlex"
source: https://books.google.com/books?id=bCs-wQSG9hYC&pg=PT140
The purpose of Sony Techno was to introduce Techno music to the Japanese public. It was shut down at the turn of the century. From what I can gather from their closing notice at http://www.sonymusic.co.jp/Music/Info/SonyTechno/, they felt that the scene had widened to the point that it now needed to expand freely and without them, or something. Anyway, the result is that their website has lain untouched since 1999. Visiting the website we are presented with a pristine slice of 1999 web design. It's a bit of a goldmine for obscure Japanese interviews and ancient press releases for Squarepusher, Aphex Twin, mu-ziq, Cylob, and lots of others. I have experience translating stuff from Japanese so if there's anything you'd like me to translate from here let me know and I can give it a shot.
http://www.sonymusic.co.jp/Music/Info/SonyTechno/indexjf.html
In January and February of 1998, Nekojiru collaborated with Rephlex to do some promotional art for their Japanese press efforts. According to this website (http://www.din.or.jp/~kaji/list/1994.htm) she did eight sketches intended for album liner notes and two short comics for "REPHLEX FAIR" flyers. Four of these liner note sketches and one of the short comics are buried eep in the sony techno website. They might be of some interest to IDM fans.
The liner note images are here: http://www.sonymusic.co.jp/Music/Info/SonyTechno/special/stuff/9801/nekojiru.html
Note the aphex bear eating someone. I have found no evidence that any of these were actually printed on the liner notes of any Japanese releases of these albums, but who knows.
The comic is found hidden in a quaint html egg hunt starting on this page: http://www.sonymusic.co.jp/Music/Info/SonyTechno/feature/9802/neko.html
There's something very 1998 about this kind of hunt-the-hotlink, or at least I think so. (hint, ctrl+A)
Reminder: manga is read right to left.
A short description of the comic: it depicts a party at Grant's house. The wavy haired guy is mu-ziq. The featureless blob is Grant. Perhaps he had a clean-shaved head at the time. DMX Krew arrives in sunglasses driving a showy car. Bochum Welt is a robot. Apparently Nekojiru didn't think much of Cylob. Squarepusher arrives loud and hyper and comments 'man this party sucks!' until his girlfriend picks him up and tells him to settle down (her breast area is circled and labeled 'girlfriend'). Finally, AFX drives his tank through the wall grinning wide and everyone runs for their lives.
I haven't been able to find any source of the other four liner note drawings or the second rephlex comic (titled 'rephlex hiking trip'), unfortunately. Apparently these were handed out in flyers at a rephlex party in japan, so it seems pretty unlikely that'll show up.
Two more tidbits to share:
In 1997 Nekojiru saw Aphex Twin at Liquid Room. She documents this in a book of illustrated diaries she was commissioned to do.
http://enjoynekojiru.tumblr.com/post/108654502676/story-69-from-jirujiru-diary
In a book of reflections on the suicide of three close friends of the author, (one of which was Nekojiru) Yoshinaga describes her experience seeing Aphex Twin live. ctrl+f 'the liquid room' at the following link:
http://www.pelleas.net/aniTOP/index.php/yoshiaki_yoshinaga_on_nekojiru_pt_2
Finally, this one page from her book Nekojiru Kamisama. I've attached it to this post. I've transcribed the dialogue here:
Panel 1 "Stop! What is that thing!?"
Panel 2 "Didgeridoo".
Panel 3"Stop blowing that thing! Everyone is going blank!"
Panel 4 "Oh!" "Whoa, I gotta get to work!"
Panel 5 "Um, hello?" "He was already like that."
I'm convinced this short story is inspired by Aphex Twin's Digeridoo, though I could be wrong.
One thing I've always wondered is if Aphex Twin was ever aware of Nekojiru's work or if they ever interacted. When I saw Squarepusher and Aphex Twin at DFN I thought about how Nekojiru would have enjoyed it too.
I hope this was interesting for some of you.