Information

This CD used to be hard to find, but is now available in most record stores I visit, probably by popular demand. This was the record that established Richard D. James's reputation, via his alter ego Aphex Twin, as the most talented and cutting-edge of the new electronic music artists. He had already released several singles prior to 1992, including the highly praised Analogue Bubblebath and Didgeridoo, but it was Selected Ambient Works 85-92 that began the Aphex Twin myth, virtually defining the ambient music genre for years.

The title itself became part of the myth - in 1985, Richard was 14 years old, experimenting with a combination of homemade and purchased or stolen equipment in his bedroom, in (supposedly) almost complete ignorance of the music of his time. For a 14-year-old to have produced any of the music on this album is amazing to everyone who listens to it. The production was done on a shoestring budget, and many of the tracks have a strange, primitive, almost cheap sound to them - a friend of mine listened to track 4, Ageispolis, and said it sounded like it was played on a Casio keyboard. I wouldn't be surprised if that were true - Aphex Twin CDs are full of hidden jokes, parodies and fun.

The Music

The opening track, Xtal, is sweet and dreamlike, with a breathy female voice looping over a bouncy breakbeat. All the sounds are muted, as if played through a layer of felt, and it's probably one of the most upbeat and soft tracks Richard D. James has ever made. A reviewer describes it as "the Cocteau Twins recording in a garage". It's almost five minutes long, but seems shorter, just because you want it to keep going. It's followed by my favourite of the album, Tha, a nine-minute-long journey through pure ambient textures, in which a haunting and simple melody, a driving but subtle bass beat, and quiet samples of voices all join together. It would be my favourite ambient track of all time if not for the truly unmatchable on earth, from 1194 by woob.

The same drifting, spaced-out feeling continues through tracks 3-5, until Green Calx, which jolts the listener out of whatever paralytic state of relaxation they may have entered. It's jarring, harsh, complex and loud, not ambient at all, and I used to hate it because it interrupted the feel of the album for me. Later, as my understanding of the album deepened, I began to see all the tracks together as a story, and Green Calx as a disturbing episode in the story, a wake up call - a message that life is not always pleasant. I might be over-interpreting, though. Richard might well have put it in there just as a joke.

The ambient journey resumes with track 7, Heliosphan, another outstanding and beautiful track which always makes me think of interstellar travel - it's fast but not too fast, spaced but focused, just like a spaceship - maybe even the Starship Enterprise - warping down a funnel of stars that are turning into little streaks of light around it. No, I haven't done too many drugs to be objective. Yes, this album is all about the imagination.

More fun is had with track eight, the bouncy and tripped-out We Are The Music Makers, which samples Gene Wilder's voice from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - "We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams," and from then on (tracks 9-13), for me anyway, the album fades into one long, slow, pulsing piece of inner music. Each of the last 5 tracks is beautiful in its own way, but I can't keep them separate, or hear them individually in my mind when I read their names. It's as if the album itself takes me through a process of forgetting and absorption, until at a certain point I no longer care which track I'm listening to.

This is one of my favourite albums ever. Together with its even more ambient follow-up, Selected Ambient Works II, it has managed to open up and map large tracts of my unconscious mind. I learned a lot from it, not just about music but about my own mind and how it works, because I found that in listening to it I was able to watch how the music made me have certain thoughts, or recall feelings or memories from long ago. I found that the tracks, individually and as a whole, carried meanings, stories, which may or may not have been consciously intended by their author, but which made me look at music in a new way. Suddenly I was going back to Beethoven and understanding how to listen to his symphonies. I'm sure if I told Richard D. James that, he'd just laugh at me. Kindly.

Track Listing

Selected Ambient Works 85-92, Warp Records, 1992
1. Xtal (4'51)
2. Tha (9'01)
3. Pulsewidth (3'47)
4. Ageispolis (5'21)
5. i (1'13)
6. Green Calx (6'02)
7. Heliosphan (4'51)
8. We are the music makers (7'42)
9. Schottkey 7th Path (5'07)
10. Ptolemy (7'12)
11. Hedphelym (6'02)
12. Delphium (5'36)
13. Actium (7'35)

This can easily be considered to be one of the best, most influential albums in the history of electronic music. It is without a doubt the pinnacle of early 90's electronica, and has had a huge influence on artists to follow.

It's hard to imagine that some of the tracks on this album were made when RDJ was just 15 years old. Not to mention, a lot of the electronic devices used in the making of this album were created by RDJ himself.

The album overall is relatively sparse with light percussion. The album in total only contains one vocal sample, which is featured on 'We Are the Music Makers' - which features a line taken from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory; "We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dreams."

In my opinion, the first half of the album is the best. My favorite track is the opener, 'Xtal.' The track starts with some light percussion, which is later joined by some female vocal samples. Toward the middle of the track a beautiful synth melody enters the mix, which also closes out the track. This is one of my favorite all-time Aphex Twin tracks.

Some of the album's other highlights include the wintry 'Tha' - the rhythmless ambient splendor of 'I' - The beautiful melancholy of 'Heliosphan' - and the beat-heavy 'We Are the Music Makers.' All in all, a brilliant collection of music by one of the geniuses of electronica.

Track Rating (0-5 stars):

1)'Xtal' - *****

2)'Tha' - *****

3)'Pulsewidth' - ***

4)'Ageispolis' - ****

5)'I' - *****

6)'Green Calyx' - *****

7)'Heliosphan' - *****

8)'We Are the Music Makers' - *****

9)'Schottkey 7th Path' - *****

10)'Ptolemy' - ****

11)'Hedphelym' - *****

12)'Delphium' - ****

13)'Actium' - *****

Overall Rating = 4.75/5

Album: Selected Ambient Works 85-92
Artist: Aphex Twin
Label: Distance (R&S Records)
Released: 1992-11-01
Summary: Great to relax to (for the most part), but may cause headaches.

Aphex Twin has built up a bit of a reputation for composing pieces of music that are inspirational to other musicians. In their original, raw form, however, these pieces are so unorthodox as to barely be recognisable as music. In that context, this early album of his scarcely seems to have been written by the same person as the almost mythical Aphex Twin. It is simple, catchy, and - most surprisingly - accessible.

The album's title seems a bit misleading to me. The music isn't ambient in the Brian Eno sense of the word - for that, you'd be better off with Aphex Twin's later release Selected Ambient Works Volume II. A far cry from beatless music that envelopes you, this is driven by a drum machine and is bass heavy enough to cause listening fatigue. In short, it's ambient techno, not ambient. Having said that, both are very nice genres. It's just nice to be prepared for what you're about to listen to.

So this is an ambient techno album, with two exceptions: the track named i (yes, a lower case letter "I") is beatless and floaty, although it only lasts just over a minute. The track after it, Green Calx, is at the opposite end of the spectrum: it is noisy and abrasive, and in my opinion has no place being on an album with the word "ambient" in the title. As a piece of music it's not Aphex Twin's best work, and when put in the context of the whole album it's just annoying. Unless you're fanatically devoted to Aphex Twin, you'd probably be best off leaving it off your playlist.

Other pieces of music to be wary of are Schottkey 7th Path and Hedphelym; while they're ambient techno, they can also be pretty scary. Whether you want to avoid them or not is up to you, but if you leave Green Calx, Schottkey 7th Path and Hedphelym out, you end up with a very pleasant album.

Three tracks aside, this is actually very nice music to listen to. In general it is relaxing and contemplative. I'll admit that when I first bought this album, I didn't really get the point of combining a generally laid back and relaxing soundscape with loud and dominating drumbeats, but after listening to it a few times the idea has grown on me, and I've since bought similar albums by other artists (more on those later).

One of my favourite tracks is Ageispolis: It starts off with a very simple periodic waveform, drenched in reverb, which is soon joined by a very loud Roland TR-808 (or possibly CR-8000) and a suitably ethereal pad, envoking the feelings of both warmth and otherworldliness. Another simple waveform is then added. I suspect it's a sine wave, but even with an oscilloscope I can't really tell: the TR-808 hogs all the visible activity. This second waveform mainly provides a deep sub-bass, occasionally moving up a few octaves, which works well when it's not clashing with the TR-808's kick drum. By the time the rain sound effect appears, you're so absorbed in the melodies and rhythm that you hardly notice it. This piece of music is wonderful, except for the listening fatigue you're bound to get from listening to it all the time.

Pulsewidth is in a similar vein to Ageispolis, but generally catchier and more down to Earth. Ptolemy and Delphium are even further in this direction, and wouldn't be too amiss on the dancefloor, while still being good to unwind to.

Albums like B12's Electro-Soma and Autechre's Incunabula are similar in style to Selected Ambient Works 85-92's better moments, the former laid back yet good to dance to, and the latter sharing its otherworldly vibe. It's a safe bet that even during this early period in Aphex Twin's career, he was already influencing other musicians.

In summary, this is a very good album for the most part, only let down slightly by three main problems: its production (in my opinion, Aphex Twin should swallow his pride and hire a producer to help remaster this album so that the kick drum doesn't interfere with the sub-bass, for instance); Aphex Twin's sometimes unusual choice of scary or downright loud music; and the listening fatigue and ensuing headaches that some of the tracks can cause.