Selected Ambient Works Volume II
by Aphex Twin

From SquishypuffDave TOP 100 COMMENTER 11/15/2012 02:46 | #55035 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

This album is one of the most haunting experiences of my life. It's like listening to a secret, intensely alien conversation between inanimate objects, and being driven mad by the omnipresent vibrations of the universe.

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."
- H.P. Lovecraft

From Strangel TOP 100 COMMENTER 09/15/2016 11:17 | #175013 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

I am a huge fan of the atmosphere, and game-changing impact that 85-92 had before this release. This album doesn't blow me away like that album did but it is a mesmerising listening experience. In Vol II you begin to hear Richard D James shift his ambient sounds from the comfortable, bliss-inducing embrace of his earlier music to creepier, darker ambience that would eventually take hold of some of his later work. But this album still has its beauty and it still envelopes you with bliss, it's just not quite as nurturing.

From koner1 TOP 100 COMMENTER 08/26/2014 14:32 | #120414 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Where's Stone in Focus?? It's the best track!

Anyways, while not as good as the collection before it, it's not bad. I have the affinity for the more beat driven tracks, although two of my favorite tracks don't have a beat.

I am about an hour in and I love Rhubarb. That track is incredible and songs like Weathered Stone and Cliffs are interesting tracks. But the rest are just me in a 6/10 range. I still think there are interesting ideas but I feel if these tracks could have gotten more tones or drums for the rest of the tracks to have more staying power. I see it being revolutionary but feels a bit passe.

For three hours I thought I wansn't on this planet anymore. Three hours