My radar was so patchy twenty years ago that I don't think it picked up Aphex Twin until 1993. The first time I remember registering his stuff — along with the likes of The Black Dog and Autechre was when Sheffield's short-lived Forge FM had an programme based around the new ambient generation. I feel surprised that Mixing It hadn't tipped me off before, but maybe I nodded off at a crucial point.
Allmusic describes this as a "watershed of ambient music". With hindsight it seems like this was a watershed in my ageing. Up to that point I'd been able to find what was interesting and exciting in each further turn of the musical wheel in the fields I knew. As with The Orb, the initial rush of enthusiasm that someone was making new music like this faded. Allmusic would have it that Selected Ambient Works "reveals no influences and sounds unlike anything that preceded it". For sure the works aren't derivative copies, yet I felt they had a good family resemblance to the likes of Eno and Cluster, only with the addition of a dull beat that made them danceable for people without the energy to dance properly… Maybe I can make this clearer tomorrow.
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