Based on a bunch of reviews i decided to give Selected Ambient Works 85-92 by Aphex Twin a listen even though i had never really listened to any type of electronic music. All i can say is wow... it blew my socks off. It just sounds so other-worldly and dark its fascinating. So i also gave 'the richard d. james album' and 'i care because you do' a listen and i find them very listenable as well although not as instantly gripping as SAW 85-92. I never thought i'd like this kind of music and wanted to know what other similar music is out there. Are they his best albums coz ive read that he made some good music under some other names? What about other artists? As im sure u can tell i'm pretty new to the genre..

when it comes to the first SAW album, I'd say a lot of the early stuff that Beaumont Hannant, The Irresistable Force and The Black Dog (see Plaid) put out would appeal to you. I'd see if I could check out most of the stuff on the now defunct GPR label:

http://www.discogs.com/label/General...ecordings+(GPR)

the early Warp catalog:

http://www.discogs.com/label/Warp+Records

& also the early Apollo output:

http://www.discogs.com/label/Apollo


Back in the early to mid 90's there were only a few artists that could touch Aphex when it came to creativity and programming...nowadays, you can take your pick of thousands of new artists that come out all the time. If you enjoyed the SAW Vol. 1 album more than the latter albums, I'd suggest the labels above.

thanks a lot for those suggestions ill try and search around for a few of em. ive been looking for some squarepusher stuff at cd shops but theres bugger all of him so i mite have to have em imported.

well, the stuff that I suggested is mostly out of print and may be really hard to find. Squarepusher is definitely a good place to start...preferably with 'hard normal daddy'.

then pop in Confield by Autechre

well, listen to autechre but don't start with "confield"
i bet you'll like their "amber" album.
"other-worldly and dark" fits perfectly to that album.