Aphex Twin classic or Dud?

Why then does <i>Selected Ambient Works 85–92</i> still have a reputation as sort of the album that started it all? Did <i>Surfing on Sine Waves</i> go particularly unnoticed at the time?

well, like you said, it came out first, it was Aphex's "debut" (and not released under an alias), and it's a better/more significant record

Sine Waves was the first one I bought because it was in the shops, iirc SAW was import only?

Back in the early 90s many electronic music producers had multiple aliases, and before internet became widespread they were more anonymous than you can imagine today, especially if you didn't read magazines like Mixmag. So it's perfectly possible a lot of people didn't even know Polygon Window was the same dude as Aphex Twin; I certainly didn't make the connection until a few years later.

Continuing my anecdote in a way, I remember thinking at the time how strange it was that I was buying the "side project" rather than the real thing, as if there was a distinction beyond the alias.

Also I think the market for incredibly lush club ambient is a little larger than the market for techno.

There also wasn't as much downtempo back then. People were listening to simplistic Ninja Tune stuff - just a drum loop, a vocal sample and some flute - because there were no other options.

You think? It's not like it stretches back years before SAW, but there was stuff by the Orb and Orbital, plus proto Warp stuff, right? And KLF and ambient house stuff, right?

Yeah, Selected Ambient Works definitely fit into the whole ambient house/chill out boom that was hip in 1992. Whereas techno wasn't really an album-oriented genre (yet).

There also wasn't as much downtempo back then. People were listening to simplistic Ninja Tune stuff - just a drum loop, a vocal sample and some flute - because there were no other options.

yeah, the entire phenomenon of the "chill-out room" had been going for actual years, and the Orb's ambient phase started in 1989

Ninja Tune's Brakes series were meant to be sample / DJ tools, not really intended for home listening. though obv once you've bought a CD in 1992 you're going to goddamn listen to it over and over to get your money's worth.

SAW 1 was only released in Belgium and Japan until the turn of the century. SAW II came out in the UK, US, Australia etc.

SAW 1 was only released in Belgium and Japan until the turn of the century.

Even some of the stuff on Flexistentialism is super tracky. Yes, that was after 92, but I think SAW I had a very functional role throughout the 90s after the party. Home listening pounding techno not so much.

xp Yep SAW1 was also easily available in the UK at the time of its original release.

to me 85-92 has a mid-fi roughness that’s absent from most “ambient” stuff of that era. and the use of reverb is exquisite.

R&S had great distribution! Surfing On Sine Waves got an actual US release on a label in Josh’s city, which is the difference he was ruminating on

On/via ... TVT?

Wax Trax via TVT

Surfing on Sine Waves says very clearly right on the label that it is the work of Richard D. James so there was no mystery about the source at the time.

yes but people who've heard or read something about this "Aphex Twin" making noise from some place in the Englands, without digging deeply into his backstory or buying import 12"s or listening to late-night college radio with informed nerdlord DJs, would not necessarily see a record by "Polygon Window" in their record shop, then pick it up, slide one of the inner sleeves out, put the gatefold back in the rack, carefully remove the record from the inner sleeve, read that the contents were programmed by "richard d james," and ruminate to themselves "Ah! Perhaps this James has issued other records beneath further pseudonyms. As his publishing is unassigned, my best bet for finding out whether he has credits under other names is to use a mechanical pencil to write an aerogramme to the PRS, whose London address I happen to know off by heart."

And then wait months for a reply, and in the meantime say to themselves ".....OH!. Dick James. It's a joke name, referencing the Beatles' publisher of Northern Songs fame. Those wacky English techno japesters, how foolish of me."

Honestly? Probably no more than 30% of Americans browsing in record shops did this at the time, and their local emporia might have been sold out of the Xylem Tube EP 12" by the time they did get an answer.

Surfing on Sine Waves was stickered saying it was Aphex Twin.

I feel like more time passed than is apparent. At least from the states perspective....the timeframe between the release of SAW and it's press/hype, and the eventual us wax trax/tvt release of Surfing felt like a different era to me.

Surfing on Sine Waves was stickered saying it was Aphex Twin

in the US, too? (Dan?)

(it's a moot point re this thread bcz Josh knew anyway, I'm just curious)

It's been a looooong time, but while I *knew* that Polygon Window was Aphex Twin, I really don't remember it stickered as such. I just thought it was a side project of sorts, and tried to determine how it was different from the "real" thing. I did know about Aphex Twin beforehand, but I'm not sure what I'd heard of his, if anything, so I must have based my purchase on a review I read somewhere (The Wire?). I'm not sure when I first saw SAW in the shops here, but I know I didn't feel like paying $30 or whatever for it on CD. I don't think I heard SAW until after the release of SAWII, but again, it's been a looooooong time.

I don't know if the US version was stickered. The album was very heavily promoted and written about here in the UK and "Quoth" had already been a very big club hit. Not sure The Wire would have covered it though - i can't recall if they had quite got to this kind of thing yet by that point.

also, the track "polygon window" was on warp's artificial intelligence compilation which had been a big deal.

As memory serves this stuff was coming out fast and furious as soon as labels like TVT started distributing. There was like a backlog that kept hitting the shelves. At the school paper I remember being excited every time something from TBT arrived, even though it was often forgettable stuff like Rise Robots Rise iirc.

TVT, whoops.

My memory is that SAW and SAWII received a wider critical reception, had better distribution and had generally remained widely available. Surfing On Sine Waves, stop me if I'm wrong, actually went out of circulation at some point, and while not rare exactly, was a bit trickier to find... the early AFX and Caustic Window records were somewhat similar in that respect. I don't remember people not realising that it was all being produced by Richard James at the time, at least in my circle of DJ friends.

“It’s these people called Aphex Twins” 😭 pic.twitter.com/G6aygIiaFL

— arj (@shempiii) April 27, 2019

Great retrospective SAWII review by Sherburne: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/aphex-twin-selected-ambient-works-volume-ii/

It was a great piece, provides lots of context.

trying not to take the bait on that rating

what sort of maniac reads a numerical rating on a record review

Good piece. (I think the album deserves a 10, if any album does...)

in the unlikely event anyone wants Collapse but doesn’t have it, send me a webmail and i’ll send you a download code

damn this paul nagle song "the enchanted garden" sounds really close to whimsical mid-period aphex stuff like "cuckoo", "donkey rhubard", "fingerbib", etc, just without the beats (fast forward to around 5:10)

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

nice

yeah, definitely not too far off from a lot of that aphex influenced 95-05 stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXxIi58Hjrw&list=OLAK5uy_k1qCeDNL429NnRinb2ewPxc4M5I8jhlKE&index=5

try again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGs3d8mbSh4

God that first Jega album is such a winner. Bangers and beauties.

Hell yeah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWJP17esBlI

recommend his Variance LP too

this DN is a little on-the-nose at times

https://streamable.com/a68p9

recent clip of Aphex with a live singer

(typical photographer)

https://i.imgur.com/NqK7dqF.jpg

can't believe its taken me so long to notice this

What’s the one on the left?

Magnetic Fields by Jean-Michel Jarre

I doubt RDJ is much of a fan which makes this funnier tbh

Do you think it's intentional or just a random coincidence? Seems pretty coincidental to me, besides having a closeup of the artist's face on a white background (which is hardly uncommon), the covers aren't that similar: Jarre shows 1/2 of a face, Aphex has 3/4; Jarre is shot from a straight angle and shows only the face + a bit of neck, Aphex is shot from slightly above and shows some shoulder as well; Jarre includes the artist name and album title, Aphex doesn't.

sorry, these look nothing alike

^

tough crowd

I don't know if it's intentional or not though I'd imagine he definitely knows who JMJ is

Seems pretty coincidental to me, besides having a closeup of the artist's face on a white background (which is hardly uncommon)

for instrumental electronic music I think it's pretty uncommon! though obviously RDJ is pretty willing to do it

alright listen you little shits

Magnetic Fields

It's Les chants magnétiques, not Les champs magnétiques, except of course 'chants' and 'champs' are homophones in French.

I agree with the others that Afx's pose probably isn't a callback but I like the speculation.