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

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.

it's an eternal challenge to me to figure out the timbral and harmonic nature of the sounds he's using

there is no "timbral nature"

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

i must not understand words, how is it that people can distinguish between a piano and a guitar?

I think he's talking about ways to quantify timbral differences

still dgi, but that's ok

people can't distinguish between a piano and a guitar, not reliably

i mean people can say "it sounds like a piano" but then all john cage has to do is throw some shit on the strings and suddenly you don't know what you're hearing. or, i could put you blindfolded at the end of a tunnel and ask you to try to figure out whether you're hearing a clarinet through a tunnel or a pipe organ and you might not be able to.

timbre is like color. you can say "this beam of light is at this wavelength and intensity" or "that beam of light is at that wavelength and intensity" or even "this other beam of light is made of these different wavelengths at these different intensities"

but you can't say "this wavelength is blue" and "that wavelength is green", or draw a line anywhere. and if you fuck with things like luminosity and whatnot people will see pink dots when they're looking at a fluorescent blue and green grid or even a spinning black and white disc.

i guess what i'm saying is that like color, timbre is a perception that a lot of people tend to agree on in broad ways, but it's not actually quantifiable the way tone and volume are. so when you talk about the "timbral complexity" of aphex twin you might as well talk about the "mood complexity" or "feeling complexity" or "sound color complexity" because that's basically what timbre is, it's a subjective perception.

on the other hand, leaving aside the normative connotations, you could talk about relatively complex and simple rhythms in terms of how what sorts of fractions and how many you need to accurately describe that rhythm ("the bass drum and cymbal do four beats every four measures" vs "the drum is beating in 7/4 while the cymbal is doing 3/4") and you could talk about relatively complex and simple harmonies and melodies based on what kind of chords are being used and how many different tones, etc

btw i think that whole "spectral analysis" thing that keeps popping up on the blogosphere is rather nonsensical but that's just me

i mean this isn't to say that crüt can't say "i think this aphex song is incredibly timbrally complex" but it would be just as easy for iglu to say "i think this aphex song is incredibly timbrally boring" and both statements would carry about as much weight

whereas if crüt and iglu were both standing in the same spot and iglu said "i think this foghorn is louder than that mockingbird" then you could easily rig up a computer to check whether he's right or not (assuming crüt and iglu's ears are equally sensitive to matching frequencies!)

how do microphones pick up timbre?

how do cameras record color?

look i'm just nitpicking here, if crut just mean that there's subtle effects going on w/ the way different harmonics and overtones are emphasized in SAWII that's fine, that's most of what we hear when we hear timbre anyway, right?

Tbf, he already acknowledged that's what he meant:

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).

(Btw, I'd be interested to know your findings, crut!)

I never used the words "timbrally complex" wtf

you are completely misunderstanding my point here

You can call it timbrally complex if it floats your boat, but this thing is full of Vintage Keys presets and I've never really rated it. Would rather hit up De Natura Sonorum or Monoton or Soliloquies for Lilith or...

nobody has called this album "timbrally complex."

why is this thread full of trolls who don't know how to fucking read?

Richard D James certainly thought a lot of this album was yellow.

I mean it's one thing to argue about what timbre means, like talking about the subjectively complex aftertastes of a bottle of vintage wine. And it's perfectly fine to just like getting drunk on cheap plonk. But to argue that timbre - or the taste of wine - doesn't exist coz, like, you once read Derrida, that is folly.

I am just baffled that someone would think I don't understand what timbre entails just because I said... I don't even know what I said that caused someone to think that?

why are you guys so touchy all the time? you pulled this pissy routine on the "aphex twins i want in my vagina" thread too.

i'm sorry i'm misunderstanding your point. i will try to fucking learn to read. probably on another thread with less pissy people on it.

i admit, it is possible you understand timbre, though i'm still not convinced tbh

anyway next time just tell me to fuck off w/o the sputtering outrage and the disparaging of my reading comprehension

Amazing how anti-ambient this discussion became. More solid evidence, I guess, that this album just does not do the job!

\(o_O)/

8===D ~ ~ ~ \(o_O)/

They tried to assassinate my character, they tried to assassinate my swag

how about "spectral nature." let's use that instead of "timbral nature." are we happy now?

What if crut was standing right next to the mockingbird, but iglu was next to the foghorn?

"that mockingbird is quiet, but the foghorn out there is far away"

timbreland feat JT nely futoda
release pirate themed "booty shiver"

I was just curious about how timbre is converted to digital signal if it cannot be measured or quantified.

^

I guess he's saying that it isn't converted because timbre is entirely phenomenological in nature, like color or taste. we kind of just "make that part up" when we experience sound... somehow. i don't really get it, but i'm prepared to admit that i don't know much about the subject.

timbre is a combination of a bunch of different aspects of sound, we might not systematically quantify it, but we do have ways of describing it and it makes sense to analyze it or make observations about it just like we observe the use of color in paintings. we assign "colors" of noise based on how the sound is distributed on the frequency spectrum.

I've had this album playing quietly in the background as the skim this thread. I can hear it, but only if I want to hear it.

Hear a disc-rotted version of SAW II

though it quickly devolved into a clusterfuck, i'm glad that somebody took a whack at this album. i say that because i've never quite known what to make of it. it's often lovely and does generate a pleasant sonic atmosphere, suitable to gazing lazily off into space while imagining slow-motion industrial processes. despite that basic appeal, it often reminds me of the new-age meditation records a friend of mine used to own, simple recordings of vibrating bowls or drawn-out synth noodles. like SAW II, they were lovely and rather indistinct, useful in the provision of a certain atmosphere, but usually too elementary to reward active engagement outside their intended, meditative context.

i often wonder about time, place and chemical context in trying to come to grips with aphex twin's ambient music. at the time, this seemed to be a specific culture's chillout soundtrack of choice, the washed-out shadow of the dance music its audience might have been enmeshed in a few hours before putting it on. its appeal in dilated circumstances is undeniable, and i can see why EDM fans would choose this version of tones & drones over, say, sitar noodling, tibetan bowls, new age synths, or w/e. what i can't see is how SAW II is all that much more interesting or worthy of attention than than any other generally pleasant environmental music.

certain tracks do stand out (e.g., "stone in focus"), though given the context, it may miss the point to praise them for it. most do not. it seems to me that SAW II lacks the basic musicality and close focus on timbral and textural detail that makes eno's ambient 1 so rewarding, but i suppose that's subjective. i like it, on the whole, but it's hard for me to justify the idea that it deserves special recognition outside its obvious significance in its moment and influence on others. which in turn brings up the subjectivity of all artistic appreciation, the ridiculousness of any attempt to objectively "justify" any of it. people seem to think a great deal of it, and i suppose that has to be enough.

eno's ambient 1 is apples and oranges to this in my head. the comparable eno record is "on land" imo

^^ otm

It's a fair point to compare this with new age albums, but then why can't we lump Eno, Koner, Labradford, and plenty of others in there too? If you ask me, these distinctions between "new age" and "real" music have to do with marketing and image more than anything else. I heard an album by Zero 7 about 10-12 years ago that I felt could have easily have been a generic album of elevator music made explicitly to be innocuous background sound. But that's not the way it was marketed at all, and thus, not the way it was received.

eno's ambient 1 is apples and oranges to this in my head. the comparable eno record is "on land" imo

granted. i picked ambient 1 mostly because i like it a lot. agree that ambient 4 has more in common w/ SAW II - especially in generally sounding like what you might hear with your head underwater.

Another comparable to SAW2 that occurs to me is some of John Fahey's late-period ambient/droney playing. "Red Cross, Disciple of Christ Today" and "Untitled with Rain" from Red Cross, especially. Maybe some aspects of Womblife.

I'm not that familiar with Eno's ambient work, but from what I can remember about his albums and those with Cluster, Roedelius etc that I've had the opportunity to sample, is that while they do compare to certain moments on SAWII, Aphex's album is so much more variegate in mood. Each track is drastically different in its imagery, making it far more than a new wave chill out record. There are tracks that are genuinely jarring or frightening, others that are plaintive, lonely, sinister, crepuscular, claustrophobic, airy... a real chocolate box of ideas. No two tracks make me think of the same thing, in fact I recall inventing my own titles for each one, based on what it would make me think of - e.g. 'child emperor', 'skywalkers', 'dawn battle', 'dwarf machine', 'grass snake' blahblahblah. Don't think I could do that with any other ambient record I've heard.

It's a fair point to compare this with new age albums, but then why can't we lump Eno, Koner, Labradford, and plenty of others in there too? If you ask me, these distinctions between "new age" and "real" music have to do with marketing and image more than anything else.

otm. i don't intend to disparage new age or any other form of ambient/environmental music. just pointing out that there's an awful lot of this music out there, much of it is quite successful on its own terms, and that the appreciation of aphex twin's ambient music rarely seems to take much account of this larger context. the same applies to eno et al. i guess i'm wondering what the evaluative criteria for assessing this sort of stuff might be. beyond "i just like it", i mean.

the same questions can be asked of minimalist abstract art, i suppose, with as little hope of resolution. what makes a rothko more intrinsically interesting than any other smear of appealing color? once you strip away the secondary, "extra-textural" considerations (the artist's stated intent, historical/cultural context, ideas of importance and influence), it's hard to say beyond one's personal perception of beauty or specialness.

...Aphex's album is so much more variegate in mood. Each track is drastically different in its imagery, making it far more than a new wave chill out record. There are tracks that are genuinely jarring or frightening, others that are plaintive, lonely, sinister, crepuscular, claustrophobic, airy... a real chocolate box of ideas. No two tracks make me think of the same thing...

this is an interesting point. it's true that SAW II is much less consistent in tone than the ambient albums that preceded it, less seemingly interested in conjuring and maintaining a smooth sonic environment. tracks like "rhubarb" pick away at my attention rather insistently (and unpleasantly). this quality makes it harder to "fall into" than the ambient albums i like best.

lol, i mean "[radiator]" or w/e. THE SECOND ONE. IT GOES BONKY BONK.

I've never really listened to this album as an "ambient" album, as such. It's too varied (which makes it to jarring), too discordant, too ... tactile to confuse with sonic mush. Like, did I see someone upthread deride this album as being formulated with synth pre-sets? Because that's not what I hear. I hear a lot more diversity, at lot more rough around the edges bits, which is one of Eno's key strategies, too. Keep it dark. "On Land" is a good comparison, because that album is weird, dark and diverse, too, though it's more, I dunno, organic sounding than this one, which is a purely (probably) electronic piece, albeit deliciously analog in nature.

I had never knowingly heard "Selbstportrait" until yesterday, but the element that caught my ears as SAWII comparative was not the melodies or prettiness but the pop and crackle of the vinyl in the rip I downloaded.