sound system. Darby was eager to release music from it. He later commented: "I couldn’t believe it: it was like nothing I’d ever heard before." James was very reluctant to release a record on Darby's fledgling label. Darby stated that it took "around three months" to convince James to release it. Darby had booked James to perform at a rave at the Academy in Plymouth. During the rave James started tripping on acid. While James was tripping backstage after his set, Darby and Middleton were able to convince James to release the record. Darby later said "I think if he had not done that trip that night there may have never been any Aphex Twin." James has given a similar account: "they made me sign the contract when I was off my face. I was tripping and they're waving this money and a pen at me. It’s a bit clichéd but it's the way they got me to sign." The original record was mastered from the C90 tape onto a Betamax F1 tape. The initial pressing of 1000 (12" vinyl) records was distributed by Darby's friends, taking copies to record shops around London, and it quickly sold out. Further pressings of several thousand each followed soon after. Music The music varies from Detroit-influenced ambient techno to intense acid and hardcore. The track "Isopropophlex" uses samples from the arcade game Berzerk, along with a flanged and filtered voice sample. The musician and producer Tom Middleton collaborated on "En Trance to Exit" under the pseudonym Schizophrenia. Berlin DJ Ellen Allien called the track "Analogue Bubblebath" "a classic tune by the best electronic producer in the world." The author and critic Simon Reynolds wrote of its "fluttery, diaphanous riff-pattern and hazy yet crystalline production". James' friend and fellow producer Tom Middleton considers it as "like pure emotion in sound". The influential publication Mixmag called it "one of the most perfect tracks ever written". The Guardian described it as "one of those timeless tracks that convey incredible emotional depth" and noted that "it still stands as a gold standard for electronic music nearly 30 years after its initial release." It has often been cited as one of the best compositions in James' extensive discography. Simon Reynolds observed that the rest of the EP "revealed that James was no slouch when it came to industrial-strength hardcore." In contrast to the ambient sound of the title