Tag: Aphex Twin

It’s been a while since something has made me sit down and listen like the North Americans’ steel-string ambient flow.

I can’t say if this is the first time I’ve had a radio show on Independence Day, but it is the first time I’ve prepared something special for the occasion. Presenting Affairs of State, a one-hour set of music dedicated to the States part of “United States of America.” As it turns out, there is a wide representation among the 50 states (51 if you count New Model Army) in the Lacking Library, but I have selected the best 16 examples for this evening.

Nothing to do with Peggy Lee’s sultry standard, this particular “Fever” comes from Aldous Harding, whose unique marshmallows-and-razor-blades sensibility makes for songs that leave you bleeding but which you crave again and again. Also tonight and also from New Zealand, a track from Garageland, one of my favorite underrated Kiwi bands of the ‘90s, which isn’t saying much because they were all underrated and they are all my favorites.

The vessel floated silently across the Mississippi, as silently as a hovercraft possibly could, which was not very silently at all. The two occupants of the walnut-paneled bridge listened intently to the sounds of the radio above the drone of the fans, one of them spinning the wheel with wild abandon, the other plotting an imaginary course over river and land using a nubby pencil and printed map. The sextant lay unused, for it was, after all, night.

Angular and glitchy while remaining melodic, this is a labyrinthine set of electronic compositions inviting attention to detail or outright zoning out.