Aphex Twin
Selected Ambient Works Vol. II

THE REVIEW

Another review of such an old album (we're talking about 94) seems absurd, maybe yes, maybe no, yet for one reason or another I always find myself rummaging through this joke of Richard D. James, known as Aphex Twin. More than a man, he is a continual enigma. Every day I wonder whether this double CD is an objective masterpiece or simply a cynical session with a psychoanalyst, an immense mental indulgence driven by an uncontrollable craving for stylish listening. The harrowing doubt between subtle art and entropy consumes me... The shadow of Doctor Richard scribbling his demonic faces on that notepad won't let me sleep.

I felt obliged to write this review primarily because I was inspired by another one I read here, beautiful indeed, written by God, but which certainly doesn't capture this bizarre artist and the spirit of a work like "Selected Ambient Works Volume 2"... Which was born with intentions anything but artistic, but rather polemical, playful, not to say downright capricious, a bit like all the material kindly provided by our genius to Warp. I strongly doubt that for a fried mind like Richard's gathering a few pieces from his vast library was the ultimate , especially when shot into some CDs with up to date names to feed the IDM masses. And so the first "Ambient Works" had nothing of Ambient, but stuff like "Xtal" remains among the occult autopsy fetishes, I even find myself with hundreds of thousands of videos on YouTube with this piece played at lower speeds... Nothing better to do? My grandma always said that if they're circling around it, you can be sure there's meat on the bone. But let's get back to "SAWII". Here our magnanimous hero gathers more bits from his analog concoctions, this time however without drum machines and names, and comes up with this pitch-black, inscrutable sequel. In a delirious spectacle, even the cover with symbols is a charade to hand down to posterity. A work that is distressing, calm, filthy, pure, relaxing, tedious, interpretable, lethal (if you listen to it all).

I remain stunned when I read that this would be Richard’s last truly significant album before the decline into what would be termed sonic terrorism. What? But nobody has yet managed to figure out exactly the chronology of the tracks, even on the controversial and more recent "Drukqs" there hangs the doubt whether it is based on unreleased material or old libraries... Think about it for a second: let’s take "Blue Calx" (the only known track from "SAWII"), and just think for a moment if it had been present in the same folder as "Gwarek2" (!!!) or "Vordhosbn". Mind-blowing. This is why "SAWII," in this perspective as a mere compilation, slightly loses its mesmerizing power over the listener, who otherwise perceives it as a completed work, meticulously studied. Impermeable to time. For heaven’s sake, no one will blame you for this, dreaming is permissible, and with two-channel tracks drawn out for ten minutes, it’s also convenient. I, too, let myself be seduced by this fascinating illusion, thanks primarily to the uncontainable greatness of certain moments, moments that deliver, pranks and fried heads aside, this musician to history. For a moment, I fly high, explore distant planets, return to the mythical 90s, to the dignity of the Chill Out Rooms, of Paterson, his Orb and the sequencers interpreting psychedelia, to the tombstone on the genre, or a new beginning. I expand even further and with my fingers touch the Tangerine Dream and Jean Michel Jarre. But then that demonic smile comes to bring me back to base, and it almost suggests that what I’ve heard is nothing more than another leftover, and that to find peace I’ll have to insert myself directly into Richard’s hard drives. Perhaps unhealthy fetishism, why not... After all, the character has also played on this.

So do you know what I say? That deep inside, I am jealous, jealous of the many "Blue Calx" that have been deliberately hidden from me, at least until the next, very sparsely released, album... In the meantime, I will have to retreat once more into these distant, dirty, terribly familiar worlds. Or watch another video of "Xtal" at 100 bpm.