I am going to do this track-by-track countdown to the release, on February 13, 2014, the day prior to Valentine’s Day, of my book in the estimable 33 1/3 series. It is a love letter to Aphex Twin’s album Selected Ambient Works Volume II, which will mark its 20th anniversary this year, less than a month after my book’s publication. More on my Aphex Twin book at [amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/Aphex-Twins-Selected-Ambient-Volume/dp/1623568900/) and [Bloomsbury.com](http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/aphex-twins-selected-ambient-works-volume-ii-9781623567637/). The plan is to do this countdown in the reverse order, from last track to first. For reference, [an early draft of the introduction is online](https://disquiet.com/2012/08/31/saw2for33third/), as is [the book’s seven-chapter table of contents](https://disquiet.com/2013/11/14/aphex-twin-chapter-titles/). The book’s publisher posted [an interview with me](http://333sound.com/2012/12/04/the-33-13-author-qa-marc-weidenbaum/) when I was midway through the writing process.
Can't wait to read @disquiet's book on Aphex Twin's 'Selected Ambient Works Volume II' (33 1/3) that just arrived! pic.twitter.com/UJvEUtiT8A
— Jess Lemont (@BrewCrewJess) January 22, 2014
*There is some irony to doing this countdown since the book is already shipping to folks who pre-ordered it via an online retailer such as [Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/Aphex-Twins-Selected-Ambient-Volume/dp/1623568900/), but the official date stands, and that’s the target — the end date — of this countdown, February 13.*
This piece is about as far from the concept of a “song” as the album gets. “Tassels” is a noise whorl, a burred whorl, a flangy spray, a sequence of undulating static. It is a thick mass of white noise that gets the appellation of “song” — gets categorized as “song” — for the simple reason that it is one track among two dozen or so on a record of things that are occasionally taken as songs, that broader understanding itself more a matter of context and format than of form. “Tassels” is a song by association. Beyond that association, it is anything but a song.
There are, in essence, two portions to the material that make up “Tassels”: There is the noise and there is the tone. The noise is like that of a passing jet plane, its fuselage drone a slow-motion experiment in doppler fantasia. The tone is a sinewy curve of synthesized anxiety; if it suggests an airborne vehicle, it would be more spacecraft than plane, and considerably less likely of Earth origin. The track is the less the score than the sound design to a sequence of an unscreened *Alien* sequel. There’s a long hallway, and a lot of dead crew mates, and things are almost certainly going to get worse. Perhaps this is why “Tassels” appears toward the end of the album. It’s a premonition of exiting the chill-out room.
Here it is, reversed:
More on my Aphex Twin _Selected Ambient Works Volume II_ book at [amazon.com](www.amazon.com/Aphex-Twins-Selected-Ambient-Volume/dp/1623568900/) and [Bloomsbury.com](http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/aphex-twins-selected-ambient-works-volume-ii-9781623567637/).
Thanks to boondesign.com for the sequential grid treatment of the album cover.