squarepusher recalled memories when listening to I Care Because You Do

I love how an album (or sometimes even just a song) can recall memories and feelings even a decade later. Listening to ICBYD, what are you reminded of?

For me it reminds me of chillin' in my university dorm room in Santa Cruz, CA, feeling freshly liberated, free thinking, creatively charged, and completely relaxed. My room was on the fifth/top floor so I had an amazing view of Sequoia treetops and the Pacific Ocean. Killer sunsets almost every night. Instead of going out partying I spent a lot of my time chillin' in there persuing an interest in web design and listening to as much Orbital, FSOL, Squarepusher and Aphex I could get with my student loan money. Streetlight Records got most of it!

Even though I was in school, it was probably one of the most relaxed periods of my life without any "grown up" stuff weighing me down, so this album has a calming effect on me. ICBYD was one of the first RDJ albums I'd ever heard, so I remember feeling like there was still so much to hear and enjoy. Like when discovering anything for the first time, that era of beginning my exploration into electronic/idm/braindance was mind expanding and inspiring.

Santa Cruz Sunset from the 5th floor - 1998

thats cool. for me its mostly about spending a lot of time with a girl

I just came across a cool post by troon about his memories of discovering Aphex Twin. Not "I Care Because You Do" specific, but still paints a great picture and is totally what my OP is asking for.

  On 10/21/2009 at 1:12 AM, troon said:

Two friends living in an old victorian located in Asheville NC and I started exchanging mix tapes.

The house was falling down, cracked paint on the walls, the years carved out in the wooden floors,

the yard grown in weeds and littered with old furniture and playground equipment, old mattress

springs long since left naked of their cloth.

 

The first of the two had a obsession with fallen angels which he would paint, scrutinizing

his process for hours. Dividing his time between the paints and his training using fire and personal

adaptations on ancient methods of swordplay for a local circus. His room was strewn with half dried paint left over from

his working's, random objects collected from salvage yards set as sculpture and as inspiration for texture in his painting.

 

The other friend had a love for old books, some fiction but mostly not. He had an amazingly rich sense of design

to his room, akin to renaissance saturation, but with a very drab and dry color pallet centering around grey, brown,

pale oranges,washed out black's and bage. Lots of old books all around. He also was an artist, mainly

focusing on small portraits in pen and ink.

 

-I explain all this because the environment was so connected to the music's that it is necessary to do so in order to grasp

the experience in it's fullness-

 

The first friend would make tapes of Coil, Scorn, Cocteau Twins, and Brian Eno.

The second made tapes of Seefeel, Aphex Twin (SAW II), and strange haunting things that were given without names.

I would bring tapes to them filled with Meat Beat Manifesto (Subliminal Sandwich had just come out) and some of my beginner DJ

mixes from the days of miss-matched thrift-store decks, radio shack mixer and disc-man cd sample madness.

 

 

I was especially touched by the delicate sounds of Aphex Twin, Seefeel and the deep sub-bass of Scorn.

Long days were spent in this environment of theirs, learning what it was to believe in things which I

could not prove with more then what I new in my heart, the wisp of these delicate sounds leading my way

and inspiring my searching through the past and present... for the future.

 

My next stop was 'The Richard D. James Album that same year. I was never the same again.

fucking troon

  On 12/23/2009 at 9:22 PM, cardan said:

thats cool. for me its mostly about spending a lot of time with a mom

Grow up, manchild

I listened to this album a lot when I was on vacation in Italy with my family. When I listen to the Ventolin EP I get a distinct memory of walking down the steps of some cluttered tourist trap.

playing the CD while driving around with an ex-girlfriend. she hated it. those were awkward times.

i had been out picking magic mushrooms and played I care on the drive home, the mushies where slowly kicking in :-)

it reminds me of playing Thief 2 because the first time I heard it was around the time that game came out, and some of the soundtrack sounded similar to bits of ICBYD, like Next Heap With, the horns and shit. ive always wanted to copy the shit out of alberto because I love it so much.

ICBYD was my introduction to all-electronic music and it reminds me of a warm place when i was in high school and I was exploring shit no one else I knew was listening to.

buzzkill

I've mostly listened to it while driving so it makes me think of deer standing near the woods on my morning drives to work. Also reminds me that it isn't a remote road anymore, and that I can't just grandma down it and look at the trees without some faceless truck urging me forward by zooming in my rear view. At first I ignore them and sometimes drop to 39mph instead of 40 until I realize that I've turned into that person that won't speed up when I'm late for work.

WET TIP HEN AX!!!

reminds me of early high school