MISCELLANEOUS ALBUM REVIEWS (1990 - 1999)

• 1992: Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85-92
• 1998: Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

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APHEX TWIN - SELECTED AMBIENT WORKS 85-92

1) Xtal; 2) Tha; 3) Pulsewidth; 4) Ageispolis; 5) i; 6) Green Calx; 7) Heliosphan; 8) We Are the Music Makers; 9) Schottkey 7th Path; 10) Ptolemy; 11) Hedphelym; 12) Delphium; 13) Actium

The humble beginnings of Aphex Twin, but with a blatantly melodic touch he'd later forego, and which makes it something special.

Many artists try to conjure a mysterious aura around themselves but Richard D. James takes the cake. I'm of the type who loves reading about the things they listen to, be it Wikipedia articles or various interviews, so that I can understand the context around the music further. So, the Wikipedia entry for Selected Ambient Works 85-92, which is the very famous and highly influential debut from a man commonly cited as one of the key figures in electronic music, includes a caveat or a weasel word for nearly every statement about the album's history, to the extent that we don't even know for sure whether the date range of the title is factual to begin with given Richard would have been around 14 in 1985 (which, I mean, is possible but...). The title is about as blatant as Aphex Twin gets, and it's still a question mark. Not even the genre part of the title is accurate because this isn't ambient as you'd come to expect it. The atmospheric focus of the genre is fully and heavily present on SAW 85-92, but there's a kick and a backbone driving these songs forward, sometimes at surprisingly high speeds. Ambient techno would be a more accurate moniker, even if less catchy - the songs are soundscapes first and foremost, but they're ones that actively take the jump to life.

For an Aphex Twin record SAW 85-92 is pretty straightforward as well; no swerves or twists, largely just calm and collected compositions that stay where they started in. James hasn't yet started to experiment with structures and hyperactive beat programming, and so while the songs clock at an average 6-7 minutes for most parts, they often showcase all their ideas within the first minute or two and then stretch and subtly build on them across the remaining length. This is fine, because I am an inherently boring person and I find that some of James' later works, full of their wizardly programming magic and off-kilter twists, obscure the more melodic aspects of his craft which I appreciate the most. When it comes to instrumental electronic music in general, much of the magic is in the production and chosen sound elements for me, and the sound world of SAW 85-92 is the most gorgeous thingabout it. The record is full of lovely, warm analog synth tones, blessed by time rather than coming across dated. There's a little bit of fuzz throughout in its audio that could just as well be an intentional stylistic choice as it could be a limitation of James' recording technology, but which makes its atmosphere even deeper; it sounds like it's underwater, somewhere distant from anything else. They're the kind of sounds that I find to instantly invoke a setting or a tone, guiding the listener down into particular atmospheric paths and worlds that the music begins to create. They're the sort of sounds I could sink into forever, which is exactly what ambient should conjure at its most ideal.

Saying that, there's a hint of irony in that statement because the 74-minute SAW 85-92 is definitely too long for its own good and it creaks in places where James goes askew from the general scope. "Green Calx", for example, has a more abrasive, aggressive tone which sits a bit unwell with the rest of the class even if on its own right it's a fine song, and the migraine-pounder "Hedphelym" is one of the handful of songs where shaving off a few minutes would have actually done a world of good. But most of the album's running length feels absolutely essential, and the record's opening salvo especially is the kind of introduction that instantly makes you understand why the album holds the clout it has. The first four songs represent everything great about the album's sound: the shimmery synths and ethereal vocal samples of "Xtal", the sustained atmosphere of "Tha", the playful bounce of "Pulsewidth" and the lush shine of "Ageispolis", all marvellous pieces of dreamlike moods with a tight, melodic skeleton underneath. The bulk of the album from thereon offers variations on the same elements these songs are made out of, to varying degrees of success, but one stands out and steals the show: "Heliosphan" is by and far the fantastic peak of the album right in the middle, a perfect mixture of an urgent, sci-fi metropolitan drive with an intensely dreamy ambient touch taking it somewhere further into the galaxy. It's basically the album's recipe honed down to a T and then amplified on both the ambient and the techno ends, to produce something instantly immortal. It's one of my all-time electronic songs and to this day it gives me pleasant chills down the spine.

If not already obvious, I wouldn't call myself a general Aphex Twin fan and I am ready to admit I have a limited knowledge of the actual historic quality or context of SAW 85-92 (partially thanks to James' own obscuring of it). What the blank slate nature of the record and how I've experienced it (from semi-random shared mp3s to the physical release, which is the most bare-bones CD packaging I own) has done though is that the album experience has become all about the personal context I've built for it over the years. It's music that not just has the atmospheric zone-out qualities that ambient by nature possesses, but those additional melodic and rhythmic ideas throughout help latch it onto the world around it. So this album is about the university study sessions, the revelatory discovery of "Heliosphan", the late night trips it's soundtracked, all echoing in my head - all which I can recall more clearly than I can some of the track titles. The two Selected Ambient Works records are arguably the most single-mindedly focused Aphex Twin albums, which gives them a very distinct character among his works, and out of the two this one is where the melodic touch is more present. It makes it "accessible", I guess, if that's how you want to call it, but maybe moreso instantly welcoming. You know right from the invitingly comfortable synth waves of "Xtal" that you've landed on music that can really transport you elsewhere, and it's a journey for the ages from there, through the waves of sound that wash through.

Physically: As hinted before, there is nothing to this. A jewel case with a cardboard slip featuring the cover and a blank opposite side, nothing else. There are burned CD-Rs with more effort than this.

NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL - IN THE AEROPLANE OVER THE SEA

1) The King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. One; 2) The King of Carrot Flowers, Pts. Two & Three; 3) In the Aeroplane Over the Sea; 4) Two-Headed Boy; 5) The Fool; 6) Holland, 1945; 7) Communist Daughter; 8) Oh Comely; 9) Ghost; 10) Untitled; 11) Two-Headed Boy, Pt. Two

Half a legendary album begging to have a matching flipside.

Like I presume many people have done over the years and certainly in the 2000s, I originally downloaded (illegally!) In the Aeroplane Over the Sea because of its status as Indie Rock 101 study material and as the kind of essential listening that you come to learn about when you spend a moment among music geeks in the internet. Likewise, like I assume happened to those many others as well, I then spent my first listens in a state of "ok, and?" after the album with way too much weight across its humble shoulders did not, in fact, turn me into a crying mess crumbled in front of something beyond mortal understanding. Thanks to time and persistence, I'm now proud to announce that after almost two decades from that first exposure I not only own a copy of this physically (by happenstance, admittedly), but I am this close to understanding the fervour!

I'm obviously being glib above, but the truth is I do understand why In the Aeroplane Over the Sea has its reputation: if there's any record that sounds like something that is going to be someone else's most beloved thing in the world, then this is it and its rebirth as a legendary album through internet word-of-mouth alone is one of my favourite stories of the 00s world wide web. And for the first half of the album, it makes a damn good case about deserving to be all the way up there with the greats. Jeff Mangum & co hide behind a great number of (intentional or unintentional) acts of being as quirky and uncommercial as you could get (the album credits read more like D&D lore book with items like euphonium, zanzithophone and a wandering genie, the uneven production, the concept that floats somewhere being about Anne Frank and just being really horny on main), but he's simply undeniably great at writing stupendously catchy and instant melodies that could be stretched into pop songs by definition and his chosen arrangements in no way obscure that. Just check out the the first twenty minutes of the album which throws one iconic cut after another like it's nothing: all parts of oddly joyful "The King of Carrot Flowers" (including the infamous "I love you Jesus Christ!", which takes an awful lot of attention in the wider discourse from the euphoric second half), the sublimely beautiful title track which I think is the key that has the greatest chance to unlock this as a personal experience to anyone, "Two-Headed Boy" which is one of the greatest man-and-guitar salvos in indie rock and "Holland, 1945", the fuzzy punk rock anthem that injects some well-needed energy into the record and sounds so blissfully delirious doing so. Even the interlude "The Fool" stacks up. It's a run of songs that thrill, resonate and excite all at once, that sound both like high art and approachably warm and comforting. Above all they're ridiculously, affectionately catchy - I've barely even looked at the lyrics sheet to this album over the years and I could still convincingly sing karaoke with nearly every line across all those songs, and frequently do when I listen to the album. People have been converted into faith with lesser miracles.

Then In the Aeroplane Over the Sea reveals itself to be one of the most obviously lopsided, top-heavy albums I've heard. There isn't a subtler or fancier way to put it - nothing after "Holland, 1945" has the same strength or charisma that the album was so full of right up to that point. "Communist Daughter" is pleasant but mostly memorable for the line about semen stained mountain tops (it took me an awful lot of time to understand that he really does say that and it wasn't just my mishearing), "Oh Comely" is a centerpiece epic without the ambition to be one or the melody or spark that could successfully carry its eight whole minutes, "Ghost" comes in through one ear and goes out the other, and of the two instrumental intermissions "Untitled" is the filler one. The reprise of "Two-Headed Boy" makes for a functional finale and it could be a beautiful way to bookend the record, if it had been preceded by a more impactful run of music that built up to its resigned farewell. As impressive as the first twenty minutes were, the next are disappointing - still decently enjoyable but a far cry from where we were, almost as if someone had swapped songs from an earlier version of the album before Mangum went back to hone things down. And this is the spot where I've been for a good portion of my life that I've been making acquaintances with this album, and I imagine it's where I'm likely going to stay too - in the past week as I've been preparing for this ramble the only thing I've really wanted to listen to is this album, and even during this binge nothing has shifted.

That is, admittedly, in large part because I don't hear this as a particularly personal experience and it feels more like a museum piece that you admire from a distance. The effect of the hype is real, but not in a way that would affect the album's inherent qualities but rather I've never been able to hear this as just an album like any other that waits for me to imprint my personal context and experiences to its songs. So, it's remained a little aloof and its weaker moments haven't been able to penetrate my defenses in a way that some less exemplary deep cuts have on albums I have deeper personal attachments to, where I can forgive the flaws to the extent that the surrounding material supports them. That just isn't the case with In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, even when its strengths are obvious and even though in particular the title track and "Holland, 1945" have managed to worm their way into my personal canon of beloved favourites. I do feel genuinely miffed about it too, not because I just want to be part of the cool gang but purely because the simple quality of those first five songs (and the interlude in-between) makes me desperately wish the rest of the album was of that caliber. Who knows, maybe it could be one of the all-time greats then. As it is, it's a tale of two halves - and one of them is exactly as incredible as people praise

Physically: Jewel case. I got this as a hand-me-down from a friend and this was supposedly straight out of the shrink wrap after he bought it brand new, and rather than the famous drum head lady the front cover is the "front" panel of the fold-out poster style liner notes. It feels like I'm missing a slipcase or something? It's actually quite hilarious, to me anway, that I finally own a copy of this and of course it's missing the bloody iconic cover).