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 and Bloomsbury.com. 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, as is the book’s seven-chapter table of contents. The book’s publisher posted an interview with me when I was midway through the writing process.
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, but the official date stands, and that’s the target — the end date — of this countdown, February 13.
It sure is exciting to see it pop up in feeds by people whom you’ve never met:
This is another in the album’s pieces of dense sound design as song, a long passage of drones that nearly peak out, that challenge some stereos, and thus challenge the idea of this being quiet music. It has a vocal, as do other tracks on the album, but as is generally the case, that vocal is more choral and remote, one drone strain among many. This is music for dark corridors. Heck, this is the music of dark corridors.
Here it is reversed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTOrwi3fYX8
More on my Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works Volume II book at amazon.com and Bloomsbury.com.
Thanks to boondesign.com for the sequential grid treatment of the album cover.
