Free Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Volume II by Marc Weidenbaum

extension of the drug culture—a consensual hallucination
indeed
” (emphasis his). And there is voluminous evidence for the role of hallucinogens in the birth and, for that matter, young adulthood of the computer industry, as laid out estimably by John Markoff in his 2006 book
What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer
.
    Yet despite Gibson’s affection for William S. Burroughs and J. G. Ballard, he is outspoken against the influence of drugs in the creative process. (It is called “lucid” dreaming for a reason.) It is worth noting that it is a drug that keeps the main character of
Neuromancer
from accessing the web, as Diana Saco pointed out in
Cybering Democracy: Public Space and the Internet
. “Timothy Leary was indeed fond of
Neuromancer
,” Gibson wrote in a 2003 blog post—“When the Tweaking Had to Stop” it was titled—“and I never felt it necessary to point out to him that drugs in my books didn’t do what drugs in his books did.” Sometimes this was not quite clear; Laura Miller, reviewing Gibson’s novel
Idoru
for the
New York Times
in 1996, said “no one describes drug highs better.”
    In his discussion with David Wallace-Wells in the
Paris Review
, Gibson talked about his lack of control over his characters. When he discussed his lack of grip on them, he associated it with a lack of a grip on reality, of the half-waking zone, and he made a distinction between REM sleep and this in-between state: “I’ve never had any direct fictional input, that I know of, from dreams, but when I’m working optimally I’m in the equivalent of an ongoing lucid dream. That gives me my story, but it also leaves me devoid of much theoretical or philosophical rationale for why the story winds up as it does on the page. The sort of narratives I don’t trust, as a reader, smell of homework.”
    Naps are essential to Aphex Twin’s process, too. Not naps themselves, but the period prior to and just after. This is especially the case if, in some tantric manner, those periods can be extended, can supplant the nap, replacing it with a waking sensory awareness. That notion of dislocation or disorientation is exactly the response that so many listeners have, in turn, prized in his music.
    ## The List Responds
    Bits of news about the forthcoming album had been circulating online at least since 1993, almost a full year in advance of
Selected Ambient Works Volume II
’s commercial release. Collective anticipation rose with each report. So did the strains of antipathy. With each swath of news came the occasional fissure in the form of backbiting and doubting, naysaying and dissent. Equally virulent and informative were the discussions that took place on the mailing list that went by the name IDM, housed on the server hyperreal.org , which took its name from a song by Scottish electronic act The Shamen. The IDM list was founded in August 1993, and the virtual clubhouse vibe of the email list perhaps reflected the overwhelmingly male makeup of the group. Over-affection for the music of Aphex Twin would yield homophobic taunts. When a member reported on a conversation he had with Aphex Twin after a Detroit concert, he mentioned in passing Aphex Twin’s girlfriend. A particularly active member of the Aphex Twin fan community then received a public question about his presumed disappointment.
    These fissures almost became permanent in March 1994. Just as
Selected Ambient Works Volume II
was released, the suggestion was made that Aphex Twin conversation had so proliferated on the Hyperreal IDM list that Richard D. James should have his own list to himself, a list set in parallel to IDM and to the list that would soon complement it, an “ambient” one, formed in August 1994. The IDM petition, on which 201 members voted, failed 45 to 55 percent. The summary of the voting, posted by Mike Brown from his Ohio State University email address, shed some light on the thinking that led to the