We are the dreamers of dreams: An ode to 'Selected Ambient Works 85-92'

As I came crawling into this world – covered in a grotesque goop like another disturbed creature from a Chris Cunningham music video – Aphex Twin unleashed his own ugly, but beautiful baby unto the world; his seminal debut record ‘Selected Ambient Works 85-92’. Now, a quarter of a century later, we are both celebrating this anniversary together. But where I have made little impact since arriving on February 12, 1992, Aphex’s post-acid, lo-fi ambient masterpiece is heralded for raising the perception of dance and electronic music and becoming one of the most celebrated records ever created.

The Cornish producer, Richard D. James, had only a couple of releases to his name prior to its release. The first two ‘Analogue Bubblebath’ EPs dropped at the tail end of 1991 and were filled with a rapid blend of techno, breaks and acid. But it was on his first full-length that would see him stamp the full range of his idiosyncratic sound on to the masses and saw the musical wizard become synonymous with the unshakeable IDM tag.

It would be disingenuous, and downright senseless, to argue I had been a fan from day one. The only music I knew from birth were odd folk ballads my dad sang to me across the cot. I wouldn’t find my cognoscenti for another 15 years when in 2007 I was trawling through another endless black hole of YouTube videos and landed on the album’s opener ‘Xtal’ at two in the morning.

Accompanied by the destructive imagery of building demolitions and nuclear warhead testings – this was still when low-quality, unofficial music videos ruled YouTube – I was shock and awed by its transcendent tones. With airy vocal samples, muddied kicks and a dusty vibe the music didn’t stand too at odds with the music starlet of the time, Burial. Even then, 15 years after its release, there was something unplaceable about it.

From there, I delved in and immediately discovered, just as I imagine we’ll one day talk about ‘Untrue’, the unfettered, otherworldly quality to ‘Selected Ambient Works 85-92’. Tracks like the ambient ‘I’ might be found on a 70s Brian Eno record, there’s the untameable acid house squelches of ‘Green Calx’ and the hazy house vibes of ‘Xtal’ that’d come as no surprise to be dropping on Lobster Theremin or 1080p next week. Further still, there are all the sounds and parts you still can’t place. What are those haunting train-like screams? Is that the sound of metal bending?

Thanks to it’s recording on a damaged cassette, the record is a smörgåsbord of unplaceable sounds. It taps into that displaced sound spectrum that the likes of the Giegling crew have been trying to tackle for years. In an instant, it sounds both alien yet familiar. Despite this, each track here starts out reasonably simple, before Aphex gets his twisting hands over it, by fucking with the drum patterns or dropping synthlines in and out at will. We are hearing, for the first time, Aphex learning to play with the audience’s perceptions. As Gene Wilder says, sampled half way through the record from Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory, “we are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.”

When I first heard ‘Xtal’, it sounded like nothing I’d ever heard. And still to this day it continues to remain so. Sure, certain tones and moments sound dated by the rapid evolution of music technology, but as I stare at my receding hairline and incoming crow’s feet I can’t help but feel ‘Selected Ambient Works 85-92’ is coming out a lot better than I in this ageing process. And long after I fall victim to dementia and worse it will continue to reveal its untouchable magic to new generations to come. But, for now, happy birthday to us.

Charlie Case is Mixmag's Staff Writer. Follow him on Twitter

Listen to a playlist of our favourite Aphex Twin tracks here