na: aphex twin
As you may have noticed, recently eMusic has gotten an incredible catalogue on the site that should remind fans of just how classic a certain artist is. Nope, I’m not talking about the Rolling Stones…
Late last week, some of R&S’ recently reissued catalog and, among it, was the Selected Ambient Works 85-92 compilation. It’s a collection of Richard D. James’ earliest compositions and is one of the best primer’s to IDM that I know of. Warm, inviting and altogether life-changing for this correspondent, I can’t recommend it highly enough. Try “Heliosphan” and “Ageispolis” to get started.
From Philip Sherburne’s eMusic review:
Pensive, melancholic, even understated, the album foregoes James’ later interest in shock value in favor of emotive melodies, hypnotic rhythms and spine-tingling electronic timbres….casual electronic-music fans may find this to be the only Aphex Twin record they need. But it’s certainly one that anyone with any interest in the genre owes it to him- or herself to check out. Despite its age, it hasn’t dated one bit.
And they’re back! Yay!
While there are lots of nice classics in the cataloge it also looks like some other stuff got pulled out which is a shame. Still, enjoying the Stones though!
This is such a great album! I wasn’t too keen on the other available albums from that label. Perhaps you all can change my mind.
Hey, glad to see the site’s back from it’s 503 vacation.
yeah absolute genius – and it still sounds good today some 15-20 years later
( oh god! is really that long ago? )
I listen to it once a month — it’s a particular favorite from (what for me was) an especially rich era for electronic music.
The samples make it sound very low fi to me, is that a misrepresentation?
porieux!
a lot of the tracks were recorded in 1985 on C60′s in a shed (or similar! i guess that does make it lo-fi or even no-fi.
Yeah, lo-fi is right – seems strange/contradictory to think you can listen to ‘modern’ electronic music and the older, classic stuff can actually begin to have that sepia tone of age about it…. it was once ‘the future’ (TM)