Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works 85-92

Aphex Twin 'Selected Ambient Works 85-92'(R&S Recordings 1992)

It was in June of 1994 that I made my first pilgrimage to the promised land of heavy metal; Monsters of Rock, Donnington Park, Castle Donnington. Wee Duncan and I went down to visit Big Duncan, who was attending Loughborough University, and stayed in his student digs as they were only a 20 minute drive away from the legendary festival site. Looking back the line up was far from spectacular, but this was a festival you had to attend to earn your metal stripes and Sepultura were making their debut appearance.

Sepultura had released 'Chaos AD' almost a year before and, although it was no thrash/death masterpiece, it was still an understandable progression and they had maintained their position as a favourite of mine, particularly live. It was going to be amazing to see them at the hallowed festival and they didn't disappoint playing all my favourites to a crowd that was quite simply mental. It seems strange to go all that way and spend so much money to only see one band, but that's the kind of loyalty Sepultura earned. They really were a special band and one that I felt I had grown up with. I still can't understand what happened to them, but I suppose that's the problem with holding something in such high regard, things can't stay the same forever and sooner rather than later your heroes will let you down.

There was a strange situation at Donnnigton where you had to pour all your beer into a plastic container before you entered and your beer was flat and warm by midday, so you had to drink it quickly. I managed to keep it together for Sepultura after ignoring the nonsense that was Pantera, but I passed out during Extreme's set, shows you how interesting they must have been, and was barely coherent for Aerosmith. A great day was had by us all though and we got back to Loughborough all crammed into the boot of one of big Duncan's typically sporty mate's car.

In the days surrounding the festival we hitched to Alton Towers, six hours of hitching for two shots on 'Nemesis' seemed worth it at the time, and sat around relaxing with beers and a few herbal remedies.

One night we had john Peel on the radio and he played two tracks back to back from 'Trance Europe Express 2' and 'Artificial Intelligence 2'. We were transfixed; they perfectly soundtracked our evening and John Peel thought they were cool which was a significant seal of approval. Upon return to Edinburgh Wee Duncan bought the blue covered 'Trance Europe Express 2' and I bought the maroon covered double LP 'Artificial Intelligence 2'. For the next six months I listened to very little but this new form of music which everybody referred to as 'Ambient'.

Avalanche knew this stuff was selling well and got all the Warp releases in stock and I bought as many as could afford. It was a great time, where I would tape the best of all the tracks for Mikey and Master and put really loud recordings of Holly Johnson bellowing 'WELCOME!' at the end to freak us out after we'd spent 90 minutes 'chilling'! The whole scene seemed a bit silly, ambient clubs were pretty pointless, and wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with 'You're going home in a f***ing ambience' was not cool, but seeing Speedy J at the Barrowlands was fantastic and I still love a lot of what people now sometimes refer to as 'intelligent techno'.

This double LP was released in 1992 and was Richard D James' debut studio album as Aphex Twin. I picked it up in that summer of 1994 and I still enjoy it quite a bit more than his later recordings and the sometimes hard to digest abrasiveness of his AFX persona. This is very easy listening from the Cornish maverick and is all the better for it.

Influences were obviously flying about all over the place in the early 90s, but you can hear that Orbital must have paid quite a bit of attention to 'Xtal' as it sounds very much like a demo of 'Halcyon'. The gentle padding that propels tracks like 'Tha' and 'Actium' reflects the less is more minimalism apparent throughout the constantly pulsing collection.

'Ageispolis' unleashes a throbbing, rib cage rattling bass which makes me think of a dubstep Enigma and 'Green Calx' is a brilliant example of harsh robotic squelching next to the more organic 303 lines in 'Ptolemy'.

Overall this brings back some great memories, 'Heliosphan' is still a blissful classic, but the jury is still out on whether Mr James is a musical genius or a contrary non conformist who deliberately makes harsh noise whilst men gurn on stage in front of ten thousand perplexed punters. I suppose the debate will rage forever.

Peace