Disquiet – Page 604 – Listening to culture. Playing with audio. Sounding out technology. Composing in code.

25 Years of Selected Ambient Works Volume II

How the 1994 album prepared us for today

March 8, 2019March 8, 2019 / By Marc Weidenbaum

It’s now 25 years and a day since Aphex Twin’s album *Selected Ambient Works Volume II* came out. It was released on the Warp Records label following fast on a single, “On,” one that in no way laid the foundation in listeners’ ears — and, before that, two years earlier, had been *Selected Ambient Works 85-92*, which was far more foregrounded sonically.

There were other releases from Richard D. James in between — notably the full-length *Surfing on Sine Waves*, under another Aphex pseudonym, Polygon Window — that came closer, but *SAWII* was and remains its own quiet beast, with little precedent or subsequently in the works of Aphex Twin that approaches its emphasis on atmosphere and the subtle nuances of its rhythmic expression.

When RDJ resurfaced in 2014 after an extended quiet period, he uploaded hundreds of unreleased tracks to a variety of playful SoundCloud accounts, turning a new generation of listeners on to his deepest crates, and many of them into trainspotters. Still, few among those vast outtakes felt of a piece with *Selected Ambient Works Volume II*. The SoundCloud files confirmed a longstanding rumor of vast archives, and also further identified *SAWII* as a unique recording.

Another quarter-century gap from, say, 1955 to 1980 can be measured in various ways. From Chuck Berry’s “Maybellene” to Queen’s “Queen Crazy Little Thing Called Love” it seems quite proximate — from the McGuire Sisters’ “Sincerely” to Kurtis Blow’s self-titled debut, considerably less so. The gap from 1994 to 2019 doesn’t feel as wide to me, but that no doubt has to do with me having been alive and a fully conscious adult for the duration. There may be less music by Aphex Twin that sounds akin to *Selected Ambient Works Volume II*, but there is considerably more music in general today that does than in 1994, not just music but more broadly a culture that reflects its rich interiority, its minimalist impetus, and its acoustic curiosity — from the sound design of filmed entertainment and video games, to the ubiquitous if rangy field come to be known as sound art, to the increasing personal attention we pay, individually, to our intimate sonic spaces.

In many ways *Selected Ambient Works Volume II* — building, of course, on its own decades-old influences — laid the groundwork for what sound sounds like in 2019. Here’s to another quarter century.

Disquiet Junto Project 0375: Despite Yourself

The Assignment: Make a piece of music that sounds as unlike you as you can accomplish.

March 7, 2019March 8, 2019 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Each Thursday in the [Disquiet Junto group](https://disquiet.com/junto/), a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have just over four days to upload a track in response to the assignment. Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate. (A SoundCloud account is helpful but not required.) There’s no pressure to do every project. It’s weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when you have the time.

Deadline: This project’s deadline is Monday, March 11, 2019, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are on. It was posted shortly before noon, California time, on Thursday, March 7, 2019.

Tracks will be added to [the playlist](https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/sets/disquiet-junto-project-0375) for the duration of the project.

These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at [tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto](http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto)):

**Disquiet Junto Project 0375: Despite Yourself**

The Assignment: Make a piece of music that sounds as unlike you as you can accomplish.

Step 1: There is only one step for this project: Make a piece of music that sounds as unlike you as you can accomplish.

**Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:**

Step 1: Include “disquiet0375” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your track.

Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0375” (no spaces or quotation marks). If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to subsequent location of tracks for the creation a project playlist.

Step 3: Upload your track. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your track.

Step 4: Post your track in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0375-despite-yourself/

Step 5: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.

Step 6: If posting on social media, please consider using the hashtag #disquietjunto so fellow participants are more likely to locate your communication.

Step 7: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

**Additional Details:**

Length: The length is up to you.

Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0375” in the title of the track, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.

Upload: When participating in this project, post one finished track with the project tag, and be sure to include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto. Photos, video, and lists of equipment are always appreciated.

Download: Consider setting your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution, allowing for derivatives).

**For context, when posting the track online, please be sure to include this following information:**

More on this 375th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Despite Yourself / The Assignment: Make a piece of music that sounds as unlike you as you can accomplish — at:

https://disquiet.com/0375/

Sounds of Brands: Initial Concepts

The blackboard after reviewing the first three weeks of the semester

February 28, 2019February 28, 2019 / By Marc Weidenbaum

The course I teach each spring, “Sound of Brands,” passed an early milestone this past Wednesday, February 27. Our fourth weekly class meeting, it marked the end of the first major arc of the syllabus and the start of the second arc.

The first arc is “Listening to Media,” three weeks during which students work on their listening skills. They accomplish this by starting their sound journals, which they are to write in four times per week, and by exploring two primary topics: first, a time line of sound and its relation to the nature of being human; second, a more compact time line of sound and its relation to film (and other media).

This Wednesday began the second arc, which is the core of the curriculum, the six-week stint (out of fifteen three-hour sessions total) from which the course takes its name: “Sounds of Brands.” In this arc we explore how things use sound to express themselves in the media landscape. We’ve already looked, to date, at film and television, and a bit at video games, but now we’re looking at products and services and corporations and so forth. (I use the word “brands” because it provides a broad stroke. That said, I do suggest that if the word “company” works fine in a given situation, then please say “company” instead of “brand.” There’s something uncomfortably anthropomorphic about the term “brand,” and something narcissistic to that particular anthropomorphism. When it’s useful and necessary, use it, certainly. When it’s not, don’t feed the beast.)

To make that shift from the first arc of the course to the second, we paused at the start of class Wednesday to reflect back on concepts we worked through during the first three weeks. This blackboard displays what accumulated during about 45 minutes of discussion that I led. Looking at it now, I realize it’s essentially three things: a lot of neat ideas, and a bunch of super-accomplished thinkers, and *Dragnet*. The board was getting packed and we needed to shift to the new material, so I should mention one additional concept that should have been on there: “sound design as score,” the TV series *Southland*, associated with it, much as *Dragnet* is here associated with “voice over,” which in turn is associated with “non-diegetic.”

And while on the subject of diegetic sound, I should mention something else. Now, “diegetic” and “non-diegetic” are useful, hallowed terms in film studies. In case they are not familiar, “diegetic” refers to sounds that correlate with action happening on screen, in the story as it is unfolding (dialog, sound effects, etc.), while “non-diegetic” refers to sounds that are separate from whatever realism you want to attribute to the filmed image. Classic examples of “non-diegetic” sound include the score and, yes, voice-over narration.

I just want to note some issues with characterizing “voice over” as expressly non-diegetic. I think the diegetic/non-diegetic pairing, while useful, suggests a binary when there’s really more of a continuum. There’s an argument to be made that voice overs are sometimes expressions of thought of a character who is part of the story, not an omniscient narrator, and that thought is sometimes concurrent with what is on screen, and that what is on screen is sometimes out of sync with everyday conceptions of time.

In any case, with that over, we moved on to the origins of the jingle. I’m not doing a week-by-week online summary of the course here this semester, but I am mentioning material on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/disquiet), and will likely do a few more focused write-ups in the coming months.

Oh, and yes, the classroom I’m teaching in this semester does have an actual blackboard, and I am filthy with white dust at the end of each session. There’s a pencil sharpener hanging on the wall, too.

Live Stream Aphex Twin Discussion March 11 (10am Pacific)

On Vivian Host's Peak Time show

February 28, 2019February 28, 2019 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Oh, yes, the 25th anniversary Aphex Twin’s *Selected Ambient Works Volume II* is on March 7 — and on March 11, days later, at 10am Pacific time, I’ll be on Vivian Host’s Peak Time show (on Red Bull Radio) to extol its timeless virtues. You can bookmark this URL for the stream:

[https://redbullradio.com/shows/peak-time/episodes/march-11-2019](https://redbullradio.com/shows/peak-time/episodes/march-11-2019)

Here’s Peak Time’s description of the episode:

>Music critic and journalist Marc Weidenbaum calls up to discuss this quarter-century anniversary of this seminal release.
>
>Richard D. James AKA Aphex Twin is undeniably one of the most important figures in modern electronic music. His IDM and ambient techno productions of the early 90’s helped shape a new era of music and he continues to influence sounds of today. This year, his sophomore album Selected Ambient Works, Vol II, a record that dazzled critics and fans with its indefinable aesthetic and was touted for reinvigorating ambient music, turns 25. On today’s show, Vivian will speak with a leading expert and the author the 33 1/3 on this album, the music critic Marc Weidenbaum.

Disquiet Junto Project 0374: Glitch Glitch

The Assignment: what happens when you glitch something that's been glitched?

February 28, 2019March 3, 2019 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Tracks will be added to [the playlist](https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/sets/disquiet-junto-project-0374) for the duration of the project.

Deadline: This project’s deadline is Monday, March 4, 2019, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are on. It was posted in the afternoon, California time, on Thursday, February 28, 2019.

These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at [tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto](http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto)):

**Disquiet Junto Project 0374: Glitch Glitch**

The Assignment: what happens when you glitch something that’s been glitched?

Step 1: Take a recording. Glitch it.

Step 2: Glitch it a second time, in some different manner, and try to have moments where the initial glitch remains evident and untarnished (well, un-further-tarnished).

**Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:**

Step 1: Include “disquiet0374” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your track.

Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0374” (no spaces or quotation marks). If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to subsequent location of tracks for the creation a project playlist.

Step 3: Upload your track. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your track.

Step 4: Post your track in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0374-glitch-glitch/

Step 5: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.

Step 6: If posting on social media, please consider using the hashtag #disquietjunto so fellow participants are more likely to locate your communication.

Step 7: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

**Additional Details:**

Deadline: This project’s deadline is Monday, March 4, 2019, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are on. It was posted in the afternoon, California time, on Thursday, February 28, 2019.

Length: The length is up to you. Short is good.

Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0374” in the title of the track, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.

Download: Please for this project be sure to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution, allowing for derivatives).

**For context, when posting the track online, please be sure to include this following information:**

More on this 374th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Glitch Glitch / The Assignment: what happens when you glitch something that’s been glitched? — at:

https://disquiet.com/0374/