Avril 14th

Album: Drukqs (2001)
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Songfacts®:

  • "Avril 14th" is a piece by electronic musician Aphex Twin, released on the album Drukqs, released October 22, 2001. The album reached #22 in the UK Albums chart and #6 in the US Dance Albums chart.

    Unlike the majority of James' electronic tracks, "Avril 14th" consists singularly of a tender two-part piano piece.
  • The track is used in Kanye West's "Blame Game." Richard D. James claims that West tried to get away with not paying, his reps saying, "It's not yours, it's ours."

    The piano part sounds like it could be re-recorded by West rather than directly sampled. In the liner notes for its album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, it states that "Blame Game" "contains elements of Avril 14 by Richard James."
  • The track has been used in film soundtracks, including Marie Antoinette (2006) and at the end of Chris Morris' Four Lions (2010).
  • An alternate version, titled "avril altdelay," was included in Aphex Twin's SoundCloud dump as user18081971. Though it remains mostly unchanged, it is in a different key and is slightly more rough in its recording quality - featuring the echo from the room, as opposed to the dryness of the original.

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