Synopses & Reviews
Extravagantly vaporous, willfully opaque, rhythmically cunning —
Selected Ambient Works Volume II, released by Aphex Twin in 1994, rejuvenated ambient music for the Internet era that was just beginning. It made ambient music — long thought antithetical to percussion — safe for the beat, thus providing a sonic metaphor for our technologically mediated era of countless synchronized nanosecond metronomes. The album's licensing in the U.S. by Sire Records, home to Madonna and the Cure, helped usher in British musician Richard D. James, for whom Aphex Twin is but one of numerous monikers, as a major force in music, electronic or otherwise.
Longtime experimental-music critic Marc Weidenbaum explores the culture in which the music arose, and the culture to which it helped give birth. The book draws from original interviews with Aphex Twin himself, musicians who sampled his work, filmmakers who employed it for their scores, and classical composers who reverse-engineered its fragile textures for performance on traditional instruments. Its sprawling, largely vocal-free tracks as lush as they are reticent to reveal themselves, Selected Ambient Works Volume II readily serves as the background music to its own telling.
Review
Mentioned on Line Out (The Stranger.com), February 2014 "If you're already a fan of Aphex Twin, you'll revel in Weidenbaum's deep dive into one of the artist's signature works. If not, you'll be surprised to learn that you've likely already heard his music in one form or another." - S.T. Vanairsdale"I love how it evokes the way music circa 1994 was suffused with unknowable data." —Rob Sheffield"The chillout room masterpieces of Aphex Twin get the business from incisive writer Marc Weidenbaum. And really, the pairing couldn't be any more delicious." —Marke Bieschke, San Francisco Bay Guardian"A must-read for those interested in the artist." —Alarm Will Sound"Like all good critical studies, Aphex Twins Selected Ambient Works Volume II doesnt provide the illusion of closure; rather, it expands minds, fostering the creation of textual meaning. I can offer no higher praise" - Paul Gleason, Caught in the Carousel
Synopsis
Extravagantly opaque, willfully vaporous — Aphex Twin's
Selected Ambient Works Volume II, released by the estimable British label Warp Records in 1994, rejuvenated ambient music for the Internet Age that was just dawning. In the United States, it was his first full length on Sire Records (home to Madonna and Depeche Mode), which helped usher in Richard D. James, for whom Aphex Twin is but one of numerous monikers, as a major force in music, electronic or otherwise.
Faithful to Brian Eno's definition of ambient music, Selected Ambient Works Volume II was intentionally functional: it furnished chill out rooms, the sanctuaries amid intense raves. Choreographers and film directors began to employ it to their own ends, and in the intervening decades this background music came to the fore, adapted by classical composers who reverse-engineer its fragile textures for performance on acoustic instruments. Simultaneously, “ambient” has moved from esoteric sound art to central tenet of online culture. This book contends that despite a reputation for being beat-less, the album exudes percussive curiosity, providing a sonic metaphor for our technologically mediated era of countless synchronized nanosecond metronomes.
About the Author
Marc Weidenbaum founded Disquiet.com, which is focused on the intersection of sound, art, and technology, in 1996. A former editor of Tower Records Pulse! magazine, he's written for Nature, Boing Boing, and the website of The Atlantic. Hes commissioned compositions from such musicians as Scanner, Steve Roden, and Stephen Vitiello, and lectures on the role of sound in the media landscape. He lives in San Francisco.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Background Beats
A Chill-room of One's Own
Bookending Eno
Music for the Ethernet
Runic Tendencies
Volumes I & III
Transcribing & Embedding