Selected Ambient Works Volume II

This album has been added to 5 private lists and 9 public lists:

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  ambient

  hubert

  monolithic. perhaps no other album invites that description more: at over 150 minutes of pure texture, with barely any rhythm or momentum, saw2 looms where other albums get in and get out. it begins as a monumental, immersive experience and never leaves it. no time to ease in. soothing, pastoral, haunting, smoke-like from the start. minimalism to the point of gigantism.

  its predecessor is the better aphex entry point, pairing beautiful soundscapes with james’s inventive rhythms, but this album shows just how beautiful and layered those soundscapes are, presenting 24 of them without accompaniment. james would never do this again, and its length and unrelenting commitment make it his most fully realized concept.

  plenty of great ambient music exists, but this takes the original concept, theorized by popol vuh and klaus schulze and refined by brian eno, to its logical conclusion, stretching it to the breaking point. while avoiding the new age conceits of harold budd or steve roach, it solidified this cold, vast style as a genre. it’s the big, massive sun around which all the others revolve. the most important album of its genre, and brilliant from back to front.

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  Electronic

  Soury

  8/10

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  albums

  badiflo

  8/10

• 

  What is this?

  Maxwell Kulek

  It makes me more uneasy than any ambient album that’s not from the dark ambient sub-genre. It feels like being lost on a spacecraft that you just woke up in with your memory wiped.

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  Goin' on 30 Summers

  Buffy Leigh

  Listened

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  Albums to listen to

  Joseph
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  week1

  _mmath_
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  009 september 2024

  pari
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  Marcel’s new list #2

  Marcel