Released 30 years ago, Aphex Twin’s 1994 “Selected Ambient Works Volume II” still stands as a kaleidoscope of the eminent possibilities of ambient, differing from much of Aphex Twin’s — the stage name of Richard D. James — previous catalog. From his 1992 LP “Selected Ambient Works 85-92” ’s hypnotic techno-infused dance music, to the accelerating ascension of 1991 EP “Analogue Bubblebath,” with its titular track homing in the fast-exhilarating rhythms of Breakbeat. “SAW II” is atmospheric, an abrasive delineation from the IDM scene of its time. Even after its initial release, “SAW II” remains a singularity amongst any plural, a pioneering work of art that grasps the concepts of ambient while letting the music speak for itself.  

Popularized by Brian Eno with the release of his 1978 album “Ambient 1: Music for Airports,” ambient music is a genre that is defined by its lack of musical structure, lyrics and beats. Through this lack, it emphasizes the sensibilities sound can produce in the listener.  

Similarly, Music for Airports differs from much of Eno’s discography as well. After an experience of waiting at an airport, he felt a blissful jest: “The light was beautiful, everything was beautiful, [except] they were playing awful music.” He focused on the music, the impact sound can have on public spaces and how it could influence a particular mood, especially in the anxiety-inducing interval of waiting for a flight. It is not hard to imagine the course this “non-musician” would take as anything but surreal, from his glam rock origins in the band Roxy Music to decades of ambient music configurations later. The sudden divergence, the result of a near-death experience that left Eno hospitalized, when all he could think about was that moment when he waited to board that next flight. About the music, that god-awful music, but most importantly, the impact music can have on our perception of the world and our ability to engage with our surroundings.  

“SAW II” is disorienting thanks to its ambiguousness, which is, in turn, accentuated by a flaunting selectiveness. Many of the album’s tracks are untitled, cryptically selected from the unidentified. However, artistic choice allows the tracks to live on as themselves, creating atmospheres and infiltrating our surroundings.  

The LP opens with a world-building simmer. In its opening minutes, “SAW II” has said nothing and yet everything, like a fracture of an eclipse. Tracks 3, 17 and 20 carry a radiating optimism, perhaps for an impressionable future that has not been lived but is collectively understood to be anything but somber. Paradoxically, tracks 2 and 4 are daunting, removed from any initial assumption of hope. Track 5 drones on in its soundscape, flooding any surroundings in a cacophony that claims our consciousness through sheer force. Tracks 14 and 15 pierce like a needle, screeching – less of a distortion, more of a yearning. Tracks 9 and 10 are monolithic, long and spacious. Track 22 uses a stolen recording from one of Richard D. James’s friends during his time as a janitor working at a police station. The tape captures a woman confessing to the murder of her husband. While the track defies any articulation, the cold-intense textures of the song fill in her words. She is drowned out by the impact of her confession, the uncanniness of her situation and her ability to confess to her murder. Track 20 warbles with chimes and melodies. Track 21 is drowning, a melancholic sorrow engulfed in lamenting beats, mimicking that of the heart. 

The expanded edition releases featuring all songs across the U.S. and U.K. editions situated into one enigma, with updates to some pre-existing tracks. “th1 [envslower]” is triumphant, an eerie warmth that is obliterated by a silent darkness. The humming invokes a sense of life in an unprecedented quiet that is symbolic of death. “Rhubarb Orc. 19.52 Rev” differs from the album’s entirety. An operatic coup de grâce, the track’s tension is accentuated by a woman’s building performance as she clashes against the track’s synthesizers, which mute her as the LP reaches its end.  

In a world where we attempt to find the particular words to describe every sensation, Richard D. James reaches beyond the confines of our vocabulary and synthetically finds the patterns, texture, form and volume to describe them. A living, breathing organism detached from any previous conception of artistic genius, Aphex Twin saw the prospects of ambient music and elevated it beyond what any airport could.