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Selected Ambient Works Volume II

Electronic / Ambient · 1994

Selected Ambient Works Volume II

Aphex Twin

Why listen

An electronic album in which the spacing and surface of sounds carry as much weight as a beat.

Listen and read

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Tracks · previews

English editorial edition

Album story

Quiet does not necessarily mean comfortable. On Selected Ambient Works Volume II, a welcoming chord can sit close to an abrasive texture, and repetition can make a room feel less familiar. The useful starting question is not what happens next, but where your attention goes while a sound remains.

Released in 1994, this record offers a markedly different route into Aphex Twin from Selected Ambient Works 85–92. Long passages place less emphasis on a foreground drum pattern. Sustained tones, returning fragments and the grain of the background become structural elements. Calling the whole album peaceful would erase some of its most revealing contrasts. Nor does its sparse surface require you to identify a hidden story: listening to the distance between two sounds is already a way into the music.

Make one small comparison

Begin with two tracks rather than treating the complete duration as an endurance test. In one, follow the lowest sustained layer; in the other, attend to the sounds that stand out from it. Then reverse those priorities. This gives repetition a practical purpose: it lets you change your listening position without requiring a new musical event. Returning to a gentle track after a harsher one can also alter its apparent emotional temperature. Sequence matters even when the pieces seem self-contained.

Separate reception from reputation

The original album reached number 11 on the UK album chart in 1994. That documents a contemporary commercial response, not a universal agreement about its difficulty. Philip Sherburne revisited it for Pitchfork in May 2019 as a significant ambient turning point. These are different kinds of evidence, separated by twenty-five years; neither obliges a newcomer to hear every passage as a revelation.

Identify the edition first

The previews here follow the 27-track Expanded Edition issued in 2024. It includes the previously vinyl-only #19 and ends with two additional pieces, Th1 [Evnslower] and Rhubarb Orc. 19.53 Rev. Do not project that entire programme back onto every 1994 format. The two selections below belong to the original work; the additions can be heard afterwards as a separate extension.

The album through its tracks

Try #3 and Blue Calx separately, then restore their neighbours and compare how each passage feels.

  1. #3

    Use the returning chords as a clock. With no forceful drum part demanding attention, the ear can settle on the lower tones or drift towards the upper edge of the harmony. Alternate between those positions over successive repetitions. The exercise is simple, but it changes which part of the sound feels heavy and which seems suspended. You do not need to attach a private memory or an imagined film to the piece. Its entrances, sustained middle and spaces between returns provide enough to follow. A preview introduces this surface; a longer listen reveals what repeated exposure does to your sense of its duration. Within the album, that gentleness also establishes a useful point of comparison.

    Reference · Apple Music: 27-track Expanded Edition

  2. Blue Calx

    Separate the small, distinct notes from the broader background. Following the foreground gives you one measure of time; attending to what remains behind it gives you another. On a second pass, listen between the returning sounds rather than waiting impatiently for them. A gap can contain the residue of an earlier note and shape the arrival of the next. This is also a useful piece to place back into sequence after hearing it alone. Its relative steadiness need not stand for the whole record. The neighbouring textures make its character easier to locate, and prevent a single beautiful passage from turning a varied album into a generic promise of relaxation.

    Reference · Apple Music: 27-track Expanded Edition

Listen next

Return to Selected Ambient Works 85–92 to compare spaces organised by beats with those sustained by tone.

Selected Ambient Works 85-92 ↗
References & editorial note

Written for English readers. Album facts are referenced below; listening suggestions are editorial interpretations. AI-assisted editorial review; not independently human-reviewed.