Search - Aphex Twin :: Selected Ambient Works 85-92

SAW 85-92 boasted the promise of an exceptional recording career for Richard D. James from the English county of Cornwall; a bedroom musician at age 12 in 1985 and an electronic music pioneer by 1998. From the adolescent sexual tension of the strings and basslines of "Ageispolis" and the militant rhythms and subterranean adventure effects of "Schottkey 7th Path," SAW veers to "Green Calx," a booty-shaking, soul-stirring techno song that has much in common with any single to emerge from Detroit in the early 1990s. The album hints clearly at influences from the prevailing dance music regiments of the era--new wave, house, techno, and industrial--but each track possesses a desire and an intention to break free of established formulas and enter a new realm. Subsequent works from James have been often more complex and almost always more menacing, but SAW 85-92 recalls the days of a kinder, gentler Aphex Twin, already on his game. --Tamara Palmer