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

"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.

Is "Rhubarb" the standout track for you guys (like, if you have to pick one song)? I would have said "Blue Calx."

i'd be afraid of ruining something that beautiful by stretching it out until its mundane or cloying

xpost

yeah, "Rhubarb" is the standout track for me, but i think the mood of the album varies a lot, and that's part of what puts it above a lot of other ambient stuff.

"Stone in Focus" (not on some of the release versions) is one of my favorites.

Lichen is the one that sounds like An Ending to me.

Just picked up the new vinyl and it does crack and pop a little, yes. I think this might be the only record that I have bought on cassette, cd and vinyl.

"Weathered Stone" is the standout for me. It sometimes reminds me of Gregorian chant: lonely, deep, slow, cavernous...

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.

― Poliopolice, Tuesday, June 5, 2012 1:53 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not much is near as good as that Eno, man! That's why he's Eno... It's the melodic development of that track combined with its utter serenity that makes it so compelling. Tough to think of stuff that combines those two things in quite that way... I also disagree that "An Ending" was the blueprint for SAW2; there are tracks that resemble it, but there's so much other stuff that's so wildly different. That's one thing that's so compelling about SAW2: each track is its own little universe, and it's not going for the overarching monovibe of a lot of (really good, even) ambient records.

Shiny Metal Rods and Z Twig for me if we're going by the fan fiction names.

There's this moment in Shiny Metal Rods where this strange noise like a dentist's drill comes in, just once and only once and never appears again. It just confounds me, I always expect it to repeat, like it hooks my brain.

But the whole run of Disc 2 from Blue Calx is extraordinary.

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)?

Only if I'm listening on vinyl, dude.

Not sure I understand what you mean.

Lichen is the one that sounds like An Ending to me.

I think I would agree with that. What a great track.

I frequently listen actively to Selected Ambient Works Vol. 2 in its entirety; it's one of the few albums I keep coming back to in that way. There's always something new to notice & it's an eternal challenge to me to figure out the timbral and harmonic nature of the sounds he's using. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the microtonal stuff in track 2.

also the reason iglu ferrignu's post set me off was that it was insultingly presumptuous about the reasons people listen to this album. I don't see why that's so controversial to get upset about. if he had just said "this album is a piece of shit" I wouldn't have given a fuck.

I've already retracted that cos i type before i've thought, and i'm an angry twisted weakling with issues, but, it wasn't about the reasons people listen to it - it was about the lionisation of the album.

i am going to post to this thread even though it seems certain my opinions will be discussed and countered

like a bad roedelius album

it struck me recently that SAWII is pretty much what you'd get if you crossed the composition tactics of selbstportrait 1 and 2 with the sounds of zuckerzeit and the eno produced tracks. and then you put that SAWI endless reverb and hiss over it.

anyway if our metric is selbstportraits and zuckerzeit and eno how bad can that be? we give boards of canada a pass, right?

btw unlike harmony and tone, timbre is a completely subjective term

well, i should say another order of subjectivity past harmony which is probably an order past tone

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.

Unless you have a really weird computer or stereo set, you can buy a cheap cord that connects the computer to the stereo, and as a result your computer is now your new CD player. It's like magic!

... or i can just play the vinyl record on my record player. It's like magic.

Get a vinyl drive for your PC and then plug your computer into your stereo. It's like magic!

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.

I don't think this is true. Like crut says, people get irate when someone suggests that they don't really like something but are blinded by hero worship or herd mentality. For me the first rule of debate about music (or any artform) is crediting other people with sincere motives for their tastes. To do otherwise is to pretend that you are a more perceptive and honest listener and fans of the record in question will quite rightly tell you to go fuck yourself.

... or i can just play the vinyl record on my record player. It's like magic.

Except that you have to get up every 20 minutes to changed sides, plus the quality of the sound gets gradually worse as the record gets older. Not my definition of magic.

btw unlike harmony and tone, timbre is a completely subjective term

mmmm, not quite. tonal sounds get their timbre because they contain different combinations of harmonic partials. when I said figure out the timbral and harmonic nature of the sounds he's using I mean I've been loading the tracks into spectrograms and looking at the relative amplitude of each partial.

"to lionize" = to treat as a celebrity or cause for celebrity.
it's even the wrong word - it should really only be used to talk about people, not things. whatever, figurative usage.
are you lionizing, or attempting to lionize this album?
if yes, then you can take umbrage at my scoffing at your motives for lionization, but i didn't suggest how or why you were listening to it.
if no, then the criticism should not concern you.
if you're really dying to get that last nail into the cross, then go for it.
why do people lionize, or feel the desire to lionize anything?
releasing audio noodling on commodifiable formats is hardly classifiable as philanthropy, now, is it?
ffs, you guys are as bad as michael jackson fans.

Are there two people with control of your ilx account?

two people in my fucking brain

sorry for being tetchy, iglu.

me too.

anyway if our metric is selbstportraits and zuckerzeit and eno how bad can that be? we give boards of canada a pass, right?

exactly; I don't want to say I dislike this album, just that I'm glad the Selbstportraits only run 40 minutes, y'know? I dunno I'm kind of weird when it comes to ambient music - "Orbus Terrarum" is like my high watermark

Except that you have to get up every 20 minutes to changed sides, plus the quality of the sound gets gradually worse as the record gets older. Not my definition of magic.

― Tuomas, Wednesday, June 6, 2012 12:36 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^ there are many threads about why people would choose to listen to a record over a cd, i suggest you read them!

also if you play your records with a good needle they will not really wear out--that is an old wives tale--take care of your records & they will outlive you.

And balance your tonearm properly!

people get irate when someone suggests that they don't really like something but are blinded by hero worship or herd mentality.

The question to me is whether we need to defend our opinions, particularly if we don't like something. I noticed that people get snippy if you drop into a thread and say you don't like something. In this situation, someone typically demands an explanation or otherwise derides the comment or the commentator (I've even seen people dig out other comments the commentator has made in other threads, as if to discredit or ridicule him-- fairly disgusting behavior); whereas, you never have to explain yourself if you like something. I guess I understand why, but it annoys me that people get so personal about it.

hey crut

you can't get two people or a two machines to reliably identify two different sounds as having the same or different timbre in any reliable way, as opposed to things like loudness and tone and rhythm

xp Huh, OK. That's not my experience of ILX at all, outside of a few specific ongoing feuds.

I'm all for people having to defend their opinion on a piece of work, pro or con! Poor defenses will be immediately apparent. Going a step farther and judging people for their judgments on works is a lot more problematic.

I wonder, though, whether we are allowed affective responses to art. Like, if I say I don't like Slipknot or Justin Bieber or Skrillex, do I need to explain myself? Do I actually have to go through some cognitive process where I must dissect my immediate reactions? I mean, my response to this stuff was never intellectualized before I had to justify to others my distaste for it.

In the examples you've given I don't think it would take too much deep thought to examine why you don't like them. I assumed the point of visiting a music discussion forum was to explore your tastes beyond "I like this, I don't like that." That's what the thumb icons on YouTube videos are for.

hey crut

you can't get two people or a two machines to reliably identify two different sounds as having the same or different timbre in any reliable way, as opposed to things like loudness and tone and rhythm

yes, because there are no measurable standards for timbre like there are for loudness and tone and rhythm. but you were responding to how I was using the term "timbre," which has nothing to do with people or machines identifying anything. I'm talking about the nature of the actual sounds used on this album and how the tonal sounds are constructed in terms of their harmonic content (I used "timbral" as shorthand for this).

like I never said timbre wasn't subjective

In the examples you've given I don't think it would take too much deep thought to examine why you don't like them. I assumed the point of visiting a music discussion forum was to explore your tastes beyond "I like this, I don't like that." That's what the thumb icons on YouTube videos are for.

I get your point, and it seems completely justified to me to have to defend your opinions on matters of public policy, but all the big thinkers on on the phenomenon of taste and art (i.e. Bourdieu, Veblen, Simmel) seem to suggest that taste is not gained through an intellectualized process so much as it is inherited and formed as a response to your social class and environment. Yes, we are on a music discussion board, but it's leap to me to say that every single thing posted needs to have a strict thesis and argument behind it.

I wonder, though, whether we are allowed affective responses to art. Like, if I say I don't like Slipknot or Justin Bieber or Skrillex, do I need to explain myself? Do I actually have to go through some cognitive process where I must dissect my immediate reactions? I mean, my response to this stuff was never intellectualized before I had to justify to others my distaste for it.

That's...a really good question. I guess it might depend on whether you're trying to convince anyone you're right? "I don't like it...but I don't need you to agree with me" is fine as far as it goes, but "I don't like it, and I don't think it's good enough to like" is going to require more on your part.

xposts

right crut but when you say you detect timbral complexity and you're trying to figure it out still i could just as easily say i don't perceive timbral complexity and i've figured it out and both of us would be right

here's a way that an undefended negative or positive comment can be useful: if someone else who likes the same music as me notices that I like/dislike something, it gives them more information about whether to invest their time in checking it out.

Exactly, I've discovered a lot of great music on here b/c of certain users who are into a lot of the same stuff I am, it goes beyond RYM-level "hey you like electro? check out Boards of Canada they are great"

Put it this way: nobody has any obligation to explain/defend their tastes but don't be surprised if someone asks you to.

fair enough; but I also don't think I should be asked to do it because of moral outrage or personal affront either. It's just an etiquette thing.

right crut but when you say you detect timbral complexity and you're trying to figure it out still i could just as easily say i don't perceive timbral complexity and i've figured it out and both of us would be right

I don't even know what you're referring to here.