Office by Alex Penny
where i go?
day 17 complete.
Tonight I bought “#3” off of Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works, Vol. II. The track is also know as Rhubarb, after the image representing it in the album liner notes.
The song is an almost perfect rendition of auditory peacefulness. This must be what a quiet morning enjoying the English countryside is like. Rolling green hills along ancient wood, the rural expanse rendered timeless against a distant backdrop of endlessly approaching and receding civilization.
Listening to this song somehow comes with a depth of feeling and memory that should only happen with a song I’ve listened to hundreds of times, like a pop hit with massive radio play that has been with me since childhood and has sound-tracked the spectrum of emotional states. Yet I’ve only recently discovered this album after having enjoyed lots of other Aphex Twin for years.
There is a kind of long view perspective here that is beyond words. A resigned knowing that’s felt deep in the bones, but difficult to express. The true genius of this music comes not so much from the lone man, Richard D. James, who brought it out of the ether, but from the communal experience felt when music touches those deep places within that we know to be universal. The beauty and richness of music is not simply in the way it helps us understand ourselves, but in the way it helps us understand and feel our shared humanity.
