Back in 2014, my friend Ned Raggett wrote a nice piece for the Quietus on the 20th anniversary of Aphex Twin’s breakout collection, Selected Ambient Works II. Actually, I don’t know that I’m correct calling it a “breakout” collection. Richard James -– the enigmatic electronic musician behind Aphex Twin -– wouldn’t really achieve genuinely wider renown, I don’t think, until 1997’s “Come to Daddy” single a couple of years later. But unlike that pummeling, harrowing single (watch the video for the harrowing part), Selected Ambient Works II was a very different listening experience. Today, someone re-circulated Ned’s article on Facebook -– the album now approaching its twenty-fifth anniversary -- and I felt compelled to address it here with a specific anecdote I’d originally posted on the music discussion board Ned alludes to in his first line.
I still remember the first time I heard this record. My friend Sean and I were dropping off a gorgeous friend of ours who had just started seeing this sleazy Scandiweigan guy named Sven who lived is a seemingly cathedral-sized loft in Brooklyn and did lots of drugs. We'd been imploring with our friend all day not to date this guy, but she was smitten (he later knocked her up and abandoned her -- went back to whatever Nordic rockpile he climbed out from under, but I digress...) In any case, we pulled up to the guy's building -- in a then-desolate area of Brooklyn (not so anymore), and decided to escort our friend inside. So, that's what we did.
On the way up the stairs, there was this HUGE sound emanating from the floors above....just a bizarre and otherworldly brand of music. We walked into Sven's huge, cavernous loft, and it was like a scene out of "Excalibur.” There was just weird shit all over the place -- incense burning, dim lighting and candles everywhere, and this intensely beautiful but somewhat disconcertingly foreboding music playing. Sean and I stayed for a few moments. Our friend immediately vanished into a back area somewhere -- no goodbyes or anything. I was too busy being creeped out/intrigued by the music. Before I could ask Sven (who hadn't gotten up when we came in, sitting in a throne-like chair at the end of a long wooden table in a bizarre stupor) what was playing, Sean had grabbed my arm and was pulling me to the door. We left feeling hugely weirded out.
A couple of days later, I got a package from Sire records (I was writing for a few periodicals at the time, and used to be on several labels' mailing lists). At the time, I'd never heard of the Aphex Twin, but the cover art to this strange looking album looked like some ancient artefact prized from some interdimensional time capsule. I slipped the disc into my player and hit play, and instantly knew what it was and where I'd heard it.....and it instantly gave me the same sort of creeps. It still does. And I love it.
That was 1994. I’ve since lost touch with Sean and I’s “gorgeous friend,” although I ran into her a few years back in a restaurant somewhere. The last time I saw Sean was about two years ago. I don’t remember the neighborhood of Brooklyn Sven’s loft was in, but have a suspicion it was somewhere in Greenpoint. I’m sure it’s nigh on unrecognizable today. I’ve no idea where Sven is today, nor do I care.
I still have Selected Ambient Works II though … and it’s still remarkable … and not just a little creepy.
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