Well designed electronic background sounds - This album is somewhere between chill and electronic. The design is monotonic but still appealing to me.
An excellent early album - His music has grown to a sophistication that has overshadowed early works like this, but this music provides a great sampling of the early career of the artist. This is art music. It is created to provide the listener with a personal experience, and it does just that. You are not told what it is about, that is up to you. I love the longer tracks, since that allows the looping to come full circle and morph into a myriad of possibilities.In all honesty, it s his more recent albums that are the true gems, but this is a great album.
Didn t age well - It s ok and a must have if you re a aphex twin fan. It s interesting to hear some of the earlier aphex twin work, some of which I danced to at raves in the 90s. But unfortunately the songs don t hold up very well and are a extremely dated. Especially compared to his more recent work.
Most accessible aphex twin cd - I think, of all the aphex twin I ve heard, this is the most accessible collection of songs. The songs are enjoyable, and as another reviewer noted, their stripped down simplicity gives them a lot of energy. I was expecting a more eclectic, difficult album, but I enjoyed it regardless. It was actually kind of a treat to hear such straightforward music under the Aphex Twin moniker.
A uncompromising collection of his earlier work..... - For a artist, that can move from the relatively hushed brilliance of his critically acclaimed Ambient albums, through to the Skittering & Fractured Breakbeats of his Richard D.James album. Aphex Twin has never been a person that s been afraid to play with peoples expectations of his music.Collected here, is a series of pre-fame Aphex Twin tracks (collated from various EP s and Singles), that although conceived, to give an overall perspective of his music (even though it is sold as a Collection of sorts), but, more to provide a musical snapshot of where he originally started, as opposed to where he s currently ended up today. And because the majority of tracks here are complied from various EP s & Singles, buyers should be warned that there is a decidedly Disjointed feel to the tracklisting, with no continuity to the sequencing of the tracks. Moving from somber and atmospheric Experimental Electronica one minute (The sublime Digeridoo is a great example of how truly creative his work can be), through to something a little more brooding and anxious (Isopropanol veers more towards Ambient Techno). Moving into the more accessible side of his music is Polynomial-C that feels more in line with the progressive techno/Industrial cross-over that he would later go on to perfect under the alias Polygon Window, that s crunching and slightly abrasive, yet somehow mantains a rhythmic element, under the most strenuous of conditions. So the question is, are these collection of tracks truly deserving to be included on this album?? Yes!!, of that there is no doubt, but if taken as a whole album, its something of a mess (although a fantastically created one). As tracks lurch wildly from restrained Electronica one minute, to (relatively) fierce and uncompromising Techno the next, and it s such a stylistic change in tempo, that the listener can t help but sit up and notice the rapid fluctuation in tempos. So...right about now, your probably asking yourself, If he s criticising the tracklisting so heavily, why is he giving it 5 Stars???.....Simple, because these tracks were never designed to be pieced together from various sources and compiled to sit next to each other. So this was always going to be a fragmented listen, plus this isn t the place to start if your a first time listener to Aphex Twin, this is almost certainly aimed at those that have cut their teeth on his work previously, and are already familiar with what to expect (I.e. Anything). Taken as a coherent album...this fails, but as a relatively random collection of some of his more exceptional work, this ll take some beating.