SAW II turns 30

its my go-to for a bit of yoga

also opening Mexico with "Tassels" was fucking genius

  On 3/8/2024 at 2:01 AM, Mattthegoone said:

I have 2 copies of this on vinyl, still listen to it on CD or on my phone, the 1977 (label) vinyl repress from a few years back without stone in focus is dubious, its so crackly, I barely played my copy and it sounds like it was used as a frisbee, thought I had lost my warp copy and found it, sounds much better, the crackling on the sire 1977 version actually sounds OK to my ears but if you didn't want it you can't ignore it, not sure what contraption they pressed it on

My 1977 press sounds pretty good. Mastered from the CD and all that but crackle free. In a bonehead move I still regret a quarter of a century later I returned the brown vinyl to the record store because it was such poor quality. It's worth a few quid these days. Had the 2 x cassette as well but lost it.

lush percussion ambient

  On 3/8/2024 at 2:01 AM, Mattthegoone said:

I have 2 copies of this on vinyl, still listen to it on CD or on my phone, the 1977 (label) vinyl repress from a few years back without stone in focus is dubious, its so crackly, I barely played my copy and it sounds like it was used as a frisbee, thought I had lost my warp copy and found it, sounds much better, the crackling on the sire 1977 version actually sounds OK to my ears but if you didn't want it you can't ignore it, not sure what contraption they pressed it on

This one became my definitive version when it was out there. All the tracks (and more) in tippedytoppedy dark and dank quality

i used to spin the 2 CD set when i was ~17 or so and reading Lovecraft for the first time. it was a good companion piece in many ways, the two are permanently tied in my mind now….reading any Lovecraft or similar stuff with talk of alien piping in distances of dream or ancient Earth, i always hear the weirder pieces of SAW II. 

  On 3/8/2024 at 2:48 PM, mcbpete said:

This one became my definitive version when it was out there. All the tracks (and more) in tippedytoppedy dark and dank quality

Dang! After following your link I realized that Richard writes track descriptions for some of the songs on his website. Pretty cool. 

I bought the cd version too and it was a long time later that I heard stone in focus. Such a good one. 

  On 3/8/2024 at 10:43 AM, danshoebridge said:

My 1977 press sounds pretty good. Mastered from the CD and all that but crackle free. In a bonehead move I still regret a quarter of a century later I returned the brown vinyl to the record store because it was such poor quality. It's worth a few quid these days. Had the 2 x cassette as well but lost it.

That a surprise to me, mine is awful but there's barely a mark on the records, 

Still has the opened shrink wrap on the sleeve, genuinely can't remember if it was the 2012 or 2017 version because my memory is so bad but I think it was 2017 when it was a brand new repress

i listen to my 1977 copy all the time, sounds fine to me

  On 3/7/2024 at 8:42 PM, zazen said:

For anyone thats never read about the lucid dreaming angle:

 

From David Toop interview, 1994 https://lannerchronicle.wordpress.com/2020/09/13/aphex-twin-the-face-magazine-1994/

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any guesses as to which songs relate to richard dreamshagging which celebrity?

reissue anytime soon?

still waiting for this to be real. i want this reissue so bad. i’ve been lurking on discogs about an og issue for years but hesitated to go for it

I tried to suppress any kind of hype I could feel regarding a potential repress but I'm disappointed regardless.

I could be tempted to sell my original Warp copy. After all it's only sitting on my shelf not doing particularly much. Maybe it should find a new home. One of the reasons I don't sell, is because I feel I have some sort of Aphexian relic in my house. And I like that feeling. Even though I'm not really an ultra materialistic sort of person. I guess in this day and age of streaming music it feels nice to have a Aphex Twin object that is real.

Warp just posted a montage of SAW 2 artwork on their Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8Ri48oob88/?igsh=MTd5dTBhZmlzanZ3NQ==

Maybe the repress is coming after all ?

Where’s my vinyl reissue?!

  On 3/7/2024 at 8:42 PM, zazen said:

For anyone thats never read about the lucid dreaming angle:

 

From David Toop interview, 1994 https://lannerchronicle.wordpress.com/2020/09/13/aphex-twin-the-face-magazine-1994/

Expand  

i've never read one! lots of fascinating detail here about his technique. makes me think about "5 just fall asleep" (from soundcloud dump) which seems not only a SAW2 sessions outtake, but almost certainly one of the earliest experiments with sleeping/waking up in the studio

also i'm really hoping this SAW2 reissue is going to happen. as has been said before, the standard black vinyl editions had better artwork, much better sound quality and was actually *harder* to find than the brown vinyl edition. a reissue would be legendary, way overdue and could even start a new wave of SAW2/aphex fans

  On 6/16/2024 at 3:32 PM, Dragon said:

i've never read one! lots of fascinating detail here about his technique. makes me think about "5 just fall asleep" (from soundcloud dump) which seems not only a SAW2 sessions outtake, but almost certainly one of the earliest experiments with sleeping/waking up in the studio

Your post made me think that a reissue with additional bonus material released during the SoundCloud dump and remastered using Cr7e or whatevs would be great (looking at you, red calx)

Didn't RDJ said he have made New versions of all the SAW tracks? 

Selected Ambient Works Volume II (Aphex's Version)

  On 6/16/2024 at 9:44 PM, cern said:

Didn't RDJ said he have made New versions of all the SAW tracks? 

I might not be remembering correctly... but I thought he said he re-did all the Melodies from Mars tracks

Small detail I know, but it it not odd to write v2 instead of Vol. 2?

The album is definitely called Vol. 2 whereas the 'v' on it's own would usually be an abbreviation for 'version'.

So, maybe this is SAW VERSION 2.

Fingers crossed...

  On 6/16/2024 at 9:44 PM, cern said:

Didn't RDJ said he have made New versions of all the SAW tracks? 

I can't find the quote now but I think he was on about SAW85-92. Tbh we've heard some of them already, he played the new breakbeat riddled Xtal on recent tours and Tha (World Scam Mix) was up on soundcloud. He did Heliospan (Acid Edit) back in the 90s, thats probably had another remake by now.

I can't see him re-doing SAWII cause he seems to have lost interest in ambient, and the minimalist, timeless quality of the tracks don't really lend themselves to having all these updated techniques pasted on top of them.