Aphex Twin's _Selected Ambient Works Volume II_ is ten years old

the original pressing was shit as well.

Why would anyone even want a vinyl version of an ambient album?

i read this thread & full of nostalgia popped this out of filing for a listen & i found it hugely insubstantial. like a bad roedelius album. thomas köner's first few were contemporaneous w/ this & infinitely preferable to my ears. don't get me wrong, I love SAW1, & that fusiony new tuss stuff - i think he's a good but imperfect composer. lionising this heap of shit (SAW2)is simple hero-worship, wish fulfilment, & nostalgic longing, IMO

lionising this heap of shit (SAW2)is simple hero-worship, wish fulfilment, & nostalgic longing, IMO

― iglu ferrignu, Tuesday, June 5, 2012 1:52 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ouch! What about those of us who don't love that much of Aphex's stuff outside of this particular record? Early Koner is on a very different wavelength too, I think.

lionising this heap of shit (SAW2)is simple hero-worship, wish fulfilment, & nostalgic longing, IMO

fuck you.

1) I heard to SAWII for the first time in like 2003; it's not "nostalgic longing"
2) I don't give a shit about the rest of RDJ's career; it's not "hero-worship"
3) SAW2 is one of the most intricate, moving albums of all time; it's not a "heap of shit"
4) fuck you

anyone with a dissenting opinion on Aphex Twin get the FUCK off ILM

it's not that; it's just that I'm going to give anyone who shits on my favorite album & its fans a hearty "fuck off."

crüt otm

haha. you fanboys !

Also, FUCK YOU.

And it's "phangirl" thank you very much.

I mean I wouldn't call it a "heap of shit" but I can't help but wonder what kind of person is listening to this all at once

lionising this heap of shit (SAW2)is simple hero-worship, wish fulfilment, & nostalgic longing, IMO

Heh. I feel that way about a lot of shit ILM talks about, but this is the only Aphex Twin album I like, so it's not hero worship at all for me.

well, OK, so I might have conflated the nigh-on rabid fanaticism that aphex seems to inspire in some (BUT NOT ALL) of his audience (both male and female) with my disappointment at how this album no longer holds my interest, so i'm projecting that arbitrarily onto an external strawman, and making crass generalisations, to boot.
my mistake.
'pologies there.
but my, aren't you all so fucking touchy !

I mean I wouldn't call it a "heap of shit" but I can't help but wonder what kind of person is listening to this all at once

― frogbs, Tuesday, June 5, 2012 11:11 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idk, someone with some time on their hands who likes this album? what a bizarre post.

i mean, its a lot to take in at once, but you wonder "what kind of person," really?

i am just wondering whose brain is still being stimulated by the 100th minute of static ambient music. like you can use it to calm yourself, but I'm always there by track 3. if you sleep to it, you're asleep by track 1. if you're just chilling out, I dunno it's awfully long. yes I want to know what kind of person.

satan worshippers

but my, aren't you all so fucking touchy !

I've noticed repeatedly that people are really touchy about their music around here, especially on threads discussing canonical albums or albums where there's some ILM consensus. If you drop a line saying "this album is awesome!!" then it's all good, but if you write "I don't like this," or "I think this album is terrible," then people get all outraged and act like you've just murdered their children. it gets really personal, and it's weird. of course, your comment kind of says that the people who like this are stupid, rather than saying the album is stupid, but nevertheless, I've seen my observation hold in both circumstances.

yes I want to know what kind of person.

A person who enjoys it as working music, for one. It puts me in a very productive state when I'm working on assembly of long documents.

i have nothing against its length, or static ambient music in general, but maybe IN MY OPINION (i'm sure it's fucking brilliant and i just fail to understand) it lacks any sense of development or ambiguity. horror/sci-fi track - remains horror sci-fi in one key and then ends. slow techno track remains slow techno and then ends. something through a delay device does that for a bit and then ends. i think we've got one or two nursery rhyme ABAB.. structures - i think i remember finding those ones tolerable, perhaps even agreeable - whoa.. what a hypocrite i am ! but it sounds like mister james messing with faders & knobs (or not) throughout, because IN MY OPINION (i'm sure it's fucking brilliant and i just fail to understand) the music's not strong enough FOR ME to suspend MY sense of disbelief.
of course i will love this album once i rid myself of these accursed expectations that it should be any better (how did i ever accrue such sorry barnacles?)

expectation is a prison, etc

black iron prison, tell me about it !

hey iglu-- check out "Blue Calx" again. I'd like to hear your criticisms of that particular track.

Why would anyone even want a vinyl version of an ambient album?

― Tuomas, Monday, June 4, 2012 9:48 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no CD player, computer speakers sound bad.

there have always been people here who thought this album was BS, its not untouchable ILX canon.

boner in focus

@poliopoliceyour comment kind of says that the people who like this are stupid, rather than saying the album is stupid
yeh i acknowledged this - my motives aren't always clear to myself.
the insult was offhand & on closer inspection aimed at what seems to be a strawman of my own making, OK, the apology was offhand, but my aim is not to piss people off. in my experience aphex does attract fanatics / inspire fanaticism (in much the same way steve albini does), and fanaticism over something so dreary as a CD of tunes by some bloke depresses me immensely.
that's my problem.
i'll check out blue calx.

Does anyone who does not like SAW II like "An Ascent" by Brian Eno (quite possibly the single greatest composition in the history of mankind)?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKw5mbcE7VY

thank god u didn't have to live thru beatlemania! xp

aphex does attract fanatics / inspire fanaticism

http://forum.watmm.com/forum/7-aphex-twin-forum/

oops, "An Ending (Ascent)". I got the title of the greatest composition in history wrong.

fanaticism over something so dreary as a CD of tunes by some bloke depresses me immensely.

I don't...I can't even...what...

lol

I think one of the things about SAW II is time and place. You can't listen to it in a football stadium during the summertime.

i'd say more often than not what switches peoples snappy comeback mode on, on ILX, isn't a question of what's being said but a question of how you say it. we've tried often enough to reach consensus on something everybody likes or hates and it doesn't exist. there isn't a hivemind, tho there are a few boisterous constituencies of fandom for different artists/genres. thinking about why you don't like something is cool, making grand declarations about goodness/badness less so depending on how funny y'are about it.

WmC OTM, it's really good music to work to, to draw/paint to, to write to. It's blank enough that you can have your own thoughts to, but unlike lots of ~ambient~ music has enough little odd quirks that it hooks the part of my brain that needs to be distracted by music to shut it up.

Yes, I am a rabid phangirl, but he's earned that obsession over and again. As an album it's just quite unlike anything else he's recorded (even SAW85-92) so I think that's why it earns such a place in people's hearts.

But, y'know if you want to talk fanatics/fanaticism ha ha WATMM vs AtEase: FITE! Who has the worse fanbase?

(Actually I think WATMM is probably worse than AtEase, to be honest, it takes a certain kind of reality-denial to post on the forum of a man who hasn't released a record in over 5 years, and still insist that something is imminent.)

And as others have said - on ILM, it's actually fine to say that you don't like something. But if you start insulting, or drawing conclusions about people who *do* like it, then you will get kicked back fairly swiftly.

I'd like to say that's true, but it's not. If you say something bad about an album (and not the people who like it), particularly if you have a strong opinion, people take it very personally.

particularly if you have a challenging opinion

Or just repeating common (often popular press) criticisms which have been discussed and countered a dozen times up the thread.

if you troll you will get trolled

OK so you're bringing your own strawmen to the party?

i'm glad "An Ending" got posted above; dunno if RDJ knew of this track before he made SAWII but that's very much the vibe he's going for on that album IMO but only maybe one or two things on there can ever touch it ("Rhubarb", of course)

what other albums sound like "An Ending"?

Stars of the Lid: The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid

Vangelis: Le apocoleyisis de los animuex (sp?)

I have that Stars of the Lid album, and I get the comparison, but it's nowhere near as good. There's nothing remotely as affecting and penetrating, or memorable really.

"An Ending" is absurdly beautiful, and "Rhubarb" captures the same feeling, but i don't think i'd want an entire album of that

Oh dang, I would want a 168-hour-long album of that.