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Selected Ambient Works 85-92

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Aphex Twin

 
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Selected Ambient Works 85-92
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Avg: 4.5 (669 ratings)

Richard D. James, before his "Daddy" issues.

  • We Say...

    Review by Philip Sherburne

    Originally released in 1993, Selected Ambient Works 85-92 effectively launched the career of Aphex Twin, aka Richard D. James; though he had already gained a degree of notoriety for his single "Digeridoo" and the Analogue Bubblebath EP, SAW 85-92 was his first foray into long-player territory. Listening to the album today, it's almost hard to believe that it's the work of the same artist who would go on to create tracks like "Windowlicker" and the notorious "Come to Daddy." 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.

    But James — infamous for bizarre stunts like DJing with sandpaper disks — subtly seeds his reputation as a prankster in a few crucial ways. First there's that nagging titular modifier, "Ambient." Unlike the placid, beatless manna with which the genre is generally associated (thanks in large part to Aphex Twin's 1994 album Selected Ambient Works Volume II, a far more tranquil affair) SAW 85-92 thrums with the shuddering rhythms of Chicago house and European EBM (Electronic Body Music). This is hardly hard house, however; despite the distorted drums of opening track "Xtal," bright chimes and childlike vocals lend it a beatific feel, while uptempo cuts like "Pulsewidth" and "Heliospan" are about as jarring as a crash-landing in a pillow factory.

    The other tricky business here concerns the music's provenance. The album's title suggests a compilation of material reaching back to 1985 (when, as Allmusic's John Bush points out, James would have been only 14 years old). While age may be a red herring, style isn't: in 1985, Chicago pioneers like Phuture and Fingers Inc. were just beginning to invent the rhythms and timbres of acid house, a sound that wouldn't begin migrating to the UK until 1987 and 1988. It's possible, of course, that in assembling the album James fleshed out youthful synthesizer sketches with contemporary techniques.

    In any case, the album's cohesion moots such fact-checking anxieties. For all its restraint and even its primitivism, the record is as inventive as anything James has ever done. Electro's machinic rhythms ("Ptolemy," "Ageispolis") recall Kraftwerk and Model 500 while breakbeat hardcore's diced drums ("Heliosphan") preface the breakneck intensity of drum & bass; distorted electronics and melting tones suggest something like laudanum industrial ("Schottkey 7th Path") and one properly ambient track foregoes beats entirely to revel in an expansive drift of sound ("I").

    James-watchers will note the origins in SAW 85-92 of numerous Aphex tendencies: recurring titles, a fixation upon chemical sounding names, an affinity for kitsch. (The spoken-word sample in "We Are the Music Makers" comes from Gene Wilder's 1971 classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.) But you hardly need to be a completist to appreciate the record; indeed, 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.

  • They Say...

    Review by John Bush, All Music Guide

    Selected Ambient Works 85-92 is a desperately sparse album: thin percussion and several haunted-synth lines are the only components on most songs, and Richard D. James added only one vocal sample on the entire album ("We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams"). Also, the sound quality is relatively poor; it was recorded direct to cassette tape and reportedly suffered a mangling job by a cat. All this belies the status of Selected Ambient Works 85-92 as a watershed of ambient music. It reveals no influences and sounds unlike anything that preceded it, due in large part to the effects James managed to wrangle from his supply of home-manufactured contraptions.

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