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Authors: Marc Weidenbaum
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II
without discussing the track titles, or the seeming lack thereof, in part because the absence of names in the traditional sense makes discussion of the music so difficult. On the British edition, there is a song inserted as track four that does not exist on the American edition. From track four on up, anyone comparing notes will have to take pains to explain to which track he or she is referring. Complicating this further is an additional track that only appears on the British vinyl edition. Not long after the album’s release, names became associated with the tracks. There is some conflict to this day among listeners as to whether or not those descriptive titles should be employed.
It is worth noting that Aphex Twin does not apparently mind the names, or at least he does not let them get in the way of a good signing to his record label. In 2004, on the decade anniversary of the album’s release, four tracks from
Selected Ambient Works Volume II
were remixed by an artist who goes by the name Wisp, a prolific, multi-monikered individual whose given name is Reid W. Dunn. The Wisp renditions employ the “word names” of the original tracks, followed by four-digit remix codes: “Cliffs (1043 Mix),” “Rhubarb (1159 Mix),” “Z Twig (6040 Mix),” and “Lichen (1136 Mix).” All the pieces are amped up for club play, often with ingenuity. On the “Cliffs” rework, the rhythm is enhanced by the clanking of what seems to be a manual typewriter, including the especially energetic thunk of the shift key being engaged. The use of these “word names,” and the creative repurposing of the original source material, did not put Wisp in ill favor with Aphex Twin. Wisp subsequently released music on Aphex Twin’s Rephlex label, signing four years following his uncommissioned remixes. Wisp’s first release for Rephlex was the 2009 album
The Shimmering Hour
.
As for the Aphex Twin fan who came up with the descriptive
Selected Ambient Works Volume II
titles in the first place, he went on to work at Warp for a decade. More on him shortly.
## Daydream Believer
Tales of Aphex Twin’s explorations of inner space are as common as talk of his prolific, if unreleased, output and his mechanical fits of whimsy, making his own instruments. He spoke freely with journalists about it from early on. He told David Toop regarding
Selected Ambient Works Volume II
, “This album is really specific … because seventy per cent of it is done from lucid dreaming.” The anecdote, from Toop’s book
Ocean of Sound
, is worth repeating in full. “About a year and a half ago,” he told Toop, “I badly wanted to dream tracks. Like imagine I’m in the studio and write a track in my sleep, wake up and then write it in the real world with real instruments. I couldn’t do it at first. The main problem was just remembering it. Melodies were easy to remember. I’d go to sleep in my studio. I’d go to sleep for ten minutes and write three tracks—only small segments, not 100 percent finished tracks. I’d wake up and I’d only been asleep for ten minutes. That’s quite mental. I vary the way I do it, dreaming either I’m in my studio, entirely the way it is, or all kinds of variations. The hardest thing is getting the sounds the same. It’s never the same. It doesn’t really come close to it.”
With Toop, as with other critics, Aphex Twin tied this dreamstate to the titles of the tracks on
Selected Ambient Works Volume II
. Much as the music was difficult to remember when he woke, the associations were not as literal as might normally be the case. And, thus, images became how he elected to express them, in the form of a complex puzzle on the inside cover of the record, one photo for each of the songs. The result was a synesthetic approach, in which the senses mingled to the point of confusion: images came to stand for sounds in a way that words might have normally.
On the
85–92
album, a track called “We Are the Music Makers” took
without discussing the track titles, or the seeming lack thereof, in part because the absence of names in the traditional sense makes discussion of the music so difficult. On the British edition, there is a song inserted as track four that does not exist on the American edition. From track four on up, anyone comparing notes will have to take pains to explain to which track he or she is referring. Complicating this further is an additional track that only appears on the British vinyl edition. Not long after the album’s release, names became associated with the tracks. There is some conflict to this day among listeners as to whether or not those descriptive titles should be employed.
It is worth noting that Aphex Twin does not apparently mind the names, or at least he does not let them get in the way of a good signing to his record label. In 2004, on the decade anniversary of the album’s release, four tracks from
Selected Ambient Works Volume II
were remixed by an artist who goes by the name Wisp, a prolific, multi-monikered individual whose given name is Reid W. Dunn. The Wisp renditions employ the “word names” of the original tracks, followed by four-digit remix codes: “Cliffs (1043 Mix),” “Rhubarb (1159 Mix),” “Z Twig (6040 Mix),” and “Lichen (1136 Mix).” All the pieces are amped up for club play, often with ingenuity. On the “Cliffs” rework, the rhythm is enhanced by the clanking of what seems to be a manual typewriter, including the especially energetic thunk of the shift key being engaged. The use of these “word names,” and the creative repurposing of the original source material, did not put Wisp in ill favor with Aphex Twin. Wisp subsequently released music on Aphex Twin’s Rephlex label, signing four years following his uncommissioned remixes. Wisp’s first release for Rephlex was the 2009 album
The Shimmering Hour
.
As for the Aphex Twin fan who came up with the descriptive
Selected Ambient Works Volume II
titles in the first place, he went on to work at Warp for a decade. More on him shortly.
## Daydream Believer
Tales of Aphex Twin’s explorations of inner space are as common as talk of his prolific, if unreleased, output and his mechanical fits of whimsy, making his own instruments. He spoke freely with journalists about it from early on. He told David Toop regarding
Selected Ambient Works Volume II
, “This album is really specific … because seventy per cent of it is done from lucid dreaming.” The anecdote, from Toop’s book
Ocean of Sound
, is worth repeating in full. “About a year and a half ago,” he told Toop, “I badly wanted to dream tracks. Like imagine I’m in the studio and write a track in my sleep, wake up and then write it in the real world with real instruments. I couldn’t do it at first. The main problem was just remembering it. Melodies were easy to remember. I’d go to sleep in my studio. I’d go to sleep for ten minutes and write three tracks—only small segments, not 100 percent finished tracks. I’d wake up and I’d only been asleep for ten minutes. That’s quite mental. I vary the way I do it, dreaming either I’m in my studio, entirely the way it is, or all kinds of variations. The hardest thing is getting the sounds the same. It’s never the same. It doesn’t really come close to it.”
With Toop, as with other critics, Aphex Twin tied this dreamstate to the titles of the tracks on
Selected Ambient Works Volume II
. Much as the music was difficult to remember when he woke, the associations were not as literal as might normally be the case. And, thus, images became how he elected to express them, in the form of a complex puzzle on the inside cover of the record, one photo for each of the songs. The result was a synesthetic approach, in which the senses mingled to the point of confusion: images came to stand for sounds in a way that words might have normally.
On the
85–92
album, a track called “We Are the Music Makers” took
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