Select Ambient Works II Expanded Edition

  On 6/21/2024 at 9:34 PM, baph said:

Nice work thx

Nice work THIS

  On 6/21/2024 at 5:41 PM, auxien said:

i paid about $47 USD for it from Tower Japan using the international pay service thing (all in English/routed through PayPal) not sure if i’ll get hit with additional import fees once it ships… 

not in the states, you shouldn't. i think it's $800 before you're getting charged anything extra.

  On 6/21/2024 at 12:00 PM, beerwolf said:

Definitely gonna pull the trigger on the Jap CD version. In the past I've just bought from eBay or discogs at the going price. Which has been reasonable. Not entirely confident about using pages translated from Japanese! 

amazon japan translates to english too. it's just like using any other amazon, pretty much. not daunting in the slightest. just dry run it first.

Gonna be super happy with a remastered / expanded CD set so I can retire my original CDs to the archives. 

Amazing album that's been with me for as long as I can remember

Anyone now wishing they'd ordered the bees knees version? I am. I think....

  On 6/18/2024 at 9:57 PM, milkface said:

Had to preorder a shirt 

Got it today! The cotton is a little thin but the cut is perfect

  On 6/25/2024 at 9:50 PM, milkface said:

Got it today! The cotton is a little thin but the cut is perfect

shouldn't summer shirts be tin bc summer?

  On 6/25/2024 at 4:45 PM, beerwolf said:

Anyone now wishing they'd ordered the bees knees version? I am. I think....

Not I.

I’m happy with the tapes… or will be happy with the tapes. I almost feel like those are more special than the LP box, anyway. Plus, I am broke atm, so the price point on the tapes is much nicer. 

  On 6/25/2024 at 9:50 PM, milkface said:

Got it today! The cotton is a little thin but the cut is perfect

Gildan or American Apparel or some other brand?

  On 6/25/2024 at 4:45 PM, beerwolf said:

Anyone now wishing they'd ordered the bees knees version? I am. I think....

Take that 300 and invest it in a high-yield savings account (if applicable in your country)

  On 6/25/2024 at 10:05 PM, Joyrex said:

Gildan or American Apparel or some other brand?

Looked at the inside label and it's 'Continental Clothing Co.'

  On 6/25/2024 at 9:54 PM, xox said:

shouldn't summer shirts be tin bc summer?

  On 6/25/2024 at 4:45 PM, beerwolf said:

Anyone now wishing they'd ordered the bees knees version? I am. I think....

yes, i ordered and cancelled after the realisation of customs taxes, completely pissed off to be honest and have to say i am done with warp, got  the whole tshirt and pink release for squarepusher latest a while back and that also left a bad feeling so didn't bother with the afx one. The SAW 2 boxset looks well cool but a piss take for EU folks and quite disrespectful. I have well over 100 warp pressings and nearly everything of Aphex, warp are mugging people off and have lost their soul! Maybe i am just getting old ha

  On 6/27/2024 at 12:48 AM, Empirix said:

yes, i ordered and cancelled after the realisation of customs taxes, completely pissed off to be honest and have to say i am done with warp, got  the whole tshirt and pink release for squarepusher latest a while back and that also left a bad feeling so didn't bother with the afx one. The SAW 2 boxset looks well cool but a piss take for EU folks and quite disrespectful. I have well over 100 warp pressings and nearly everything of Aphex, warp are mugging people off and have lost their soul! Maybe i am just getting old ha

Yeah when you consider how many epic releases have been happening in the last few years after the pandemic outside of the afx bubble by other artists these 30% filler releases by afx are just not really grasping me like they did before. There have been so many afx releases recently with a handful of ok tracks plus something basically just used as filler that I really grew tired of and stopped caring. It feels like a never ending money machine that always leaves you back with the feeling of having spent way too much on something that feels half exciting 

It's a shame the vinyl doesn't come in a gatefold sleeve.  I thought it was at first glance but then realized what I thought was a gatefold is the included poster.  I guess I'll keep my inferior 1972 pressing if only for the sleeve.  I still prefer the original artwork.  Something about the white background offset with the organic logo gave the whole thing a kind of spiritual quality.  

I was thinking today how thrilled I am to finally have locked this album down on vinyl. Standard version but it’s more than enough to make me happy. serious question on cassettes - are people buying these to collect, or to use/listen to? I’m missing the boat on the tape renaissance for sure, just trying to understand it. 

  On 6/28/2024 at 5:08 AM, killabyte11 said:

It's a shame the vinyl doesn't come in a gatefold sleeve.  I thought it was at first glance but then realized what I thought was a gatefold is the included poster.  I guess I'll keep my inferior 1972 pressing if only for the sleeve.  I still prefer the original artwork.  Something about the white background offset with the organic logo gave the whole thing a kind of spiritual quality.  

the designer in me hates the massive space between the aphex logo and album title on the new artwork.

i get that they've probably retained the positioning from the original, but without the white bars it looks like you could land a fackin jumbo jet in between the two.

I agree. I like the original design more.

  On 6/28/2024 at 5:26 AM, Friendly Stranger said:

I was thinking today how thrilled I am to finally have locked this album down on vinyl. Standard version but it’s more than enough to make me happy. serious question on cassettes - are people buying these to collect, or to use/listen to? I’m missing the boat on the tape renaissance for sure, just trying to understand it. 

I missed out on the cassette but not sure I would have bought in anyway.  While I do love cassette and I have a fairly high end deck, the  problem with the majority of commercially released albums is that they're released on low quality tape to cut costs.  Cassette is the only medium where higher quality blank tapes are available compared to most commercially released cassette albums.  For me the beauty of cassette is the ability to make your own recordings.  Take a high quality tape, in a good deck, set the levels to your liking and make a nice mixtape.  

Also, I personally think the original cassette packaging looks of a far higher quality...which can be seen by flipping through the images here.  https://www.discogs.com/release/864752-Aphex-Twin-Selected-Ambient-Works-Volume-II

  On 6/28/2024 at 5:08 AM, killabyte11 said:

It's a shame the vinyl doesn't come in a gatefold sleeve.  I thought it was at first glance but then realized what I thought was a gatefold is the included poster.  I guess I'll keep my inferior 1972 pressing if only for the sleeve.  I still prefer the original artwork.  Something about the white background offset with the organic logo gave the whole thing a kind of spiritual quality.  

okay. a bit of a rant. but when you actually look at all the formats side by side, they all have the same logo-title spacing with the SINGULAR EXCEPTION of the vinyl.

(sorry because you might not be able to unsee it now)

i think the cover looks incredible across Digital, CD and Cassette formats but the vinyl one will always seem a bit off to me. its not ugly by any means; i quite like being able to see the full picture. but i think the removal of the white bars with no adjustment to the text placement makes the design feel disharmonious at best, and maybe inferior at worst. which sucks because the others are really good.

and re: the gatefold. very bummed about that too. i dont know how the hell theyre going to fit 4 lps and a poster into one standard widespine sleeve. im very happy to be getting a full vinyl reissue after all these years. but some interesting choices were made on the packaging.

It's definitely a cost cutting thing.  Even with the cassette packaging, I can tell it's a much cheaper packaging than the original...which is a shame for such a high profile artist.  I've bought vinyl reissues from lesser known underground artists in the past 10 years that have packaging that's argueably better than the original.  Here's one example, and I could rattle off several more....https://waxtraxchicago.bigcartel.com/product/coil-love-s-secret-domain-2lp-deluxe-edition-amber-vinyl

As for the artwork,  I just think it's such an iconic album, that you shouldn't mess with that.  

Is there a way of doing a 4LP set without it being either a box or a four panel gatefold? It's a rare format so it makes some kind of sense that they're just sticking it all in one.

  On 7/5/2024 at 2:16 AM, killabyte11 said:

It's definitely a cost cutting thing.  Even with the cassette packaging, I can tell it's a much cheaper packaging than the original...which is a shame for such a high profile artist.  I've bought vinyl reissues from lesser known underground artists in the past 10 years that have packaging that's argueably better than the original.  Here's one example, and I could rattle off several more....https://waxtraxchicago.bigcartel.com/product/coil-love-s-secret-domain-2lp-deluxe-edition-amber-vinyl

As for the artwork,  I just think it's such an iconic album, that you shouldn't mess with that.  

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how can you tell the quality from the photoshop'ed mockups on the store page?

  On 7/8/2024 at 12:20 AM, purlieu said:

Is there a way of doing a 4LP set without it being either a box or a four panel gatefold? It's a rare format so it makes some kind of sense that they're just sticking it all in one.

Standard gatefold with two records in each comes to mind. The original did something similar (but it had 3 records instead of 4.) That being said, adding a gatefold to a package that already includes 4 lps, stickers, and a poster would obviously make it more expensive. And theyd probably have the same design twice on the poster and gatefold; so it's a bit needless.

  On 7/8/2024 at 12:23 AM, exitonly said:

how can you tell the quality from the photoshop'ed mockups on the store page?

Doesn't seem to have each tracks corresponding image in the photos they have provided, but they could be on the other side of the insert. Also not issued in a butterfly case like the original was.

  On 7/10/2024 at 1:39 PM, shelly said:

Doesn't seem to have each tracks corresponding image in the photos they have provided, but they could be on the other side of the insert. Also not issued in a butterfly case like the original was.

ooh the butterfly case. that’s a shame

  On 7/8/2024 at 12:23 AM, exitonly said:

how can you tell the quality from the photoshop'ed mockups on the store page?

I can't really but it looks like the inner sleeves are just plain white paper inners as well...but I could be wrong.  I guess it makes sense being 4 x vinyl that they had to do it this way.  I don't have any 4 vinyl records to compare.  I have a few 3x that are in 3 panel gatefolds.  I'm not hating on it too much.  I'm still very happy to have a remastered version with the extra tracks.  The album has a special place for me.  I bought the original CD version back in 1995, based strictly on the artwork, knowing nothing about it at the time.  It was between that and another Aphex album....can't remember which now but I've never tired of the album.  

  On 7/11/2024 at 9:48 AM, killabyte11 said:

I can't really but it looks like the inner sleeves are just plain white paper inners as well...but I could be wrong.  I guess it makes sense being 4 x vinyl that they had to do it this way.  I don't have any 4 vinyl records to compare.  I have a few 3x that are in 3 panel gatefolds.  I'm not hating on it too much.  I'm still very happy to have a remastered version with the extra tracks.  The album has a special place for me.  I bought the original CD version back in 1995, based strictly on the artwork, knowing nothing about it at the time.  It was between that and another Aphex album....can't remember which now but I've never tired of the album.  

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on the standard edition the inner sleeves are indeed plain white, but they are thankfully polylined to prevent scratches. that being said the boxset does have sleeves that are both printed and polylined for looks and protection.

Why did they only make a limited number of cassettes? I get it for the super expensive box set but with a 5 month pre-order time they could've made enough cassettes.