The mysterious Cornish electronic music pioneer has gained an extraordinary second life in the TikTok era. Writers and musicians explain why his glitchy slipperiness is so in tune with life today

From today’s “wait, he’s still relevant?” file:

QKThr, an obscure cut from Aphex Twin’s 2001 album, Drukqs, sounds like an ambient experiment recorded on a historic pirate ship. Shaky fingers caress the keys of an accordion to create an uncanny tone; clustered chords cry out, subdued but mighty, before scuttling back into dreamy nothingness.

This 88-second elegy has always been overshadowed by another song on Drukqs, the Disklavier instrumental Avril 14th, which alongside Windowlicker is the Cornish producer’s best-known track. But QKThr has become a weird breakaway success, featuring on nearly 8m TikTok posts, adorning everything from cute panda videos to lightly memed US presidential debates, and a fail video trend dubbed “subtle foreshadowing”.

Aphex Twin has even overtaken Taylor Swift in monthly YouTube Music listeners, with 448 million to her 399 million. Electronic music DJ and producer RamonPang noticed the milestone last week, and credits the uptick to QKThr. “It really puts in perspective how popular Aphex Twin’s music is in short-form content,” he tells me. “It’s not like there was a cultural shift and everyone’s suddenly listening to ambient techno over the grocery store speakers. The actual shift has been way smaller: Aphex Twin’s back catalogue is having a renaissance through gen Z.”

Obligatory favourite Aphex Twin track