Richard D. James is most famous for songs like “4,” “Girl/Boy Song,” and “Come to Daddy,” i.e., songs that blend mind-crushingly intricate beats with an uncanny pop sensibility. However, I’ve always found his purely ambient material more compelling. Not surprisingly, Selected Ambient Works, Volume II is the Aphex Twin album that I reach for most frequently.

The two-disc set contains some of James’ most austere and foreboding music as well as some of his most haunting and beautiful compositions. When Selected Ambient Works, Volume II was reissued in 2024, a lot of people were thrilled when the previously vinyl-only “#19” (aka, “Stone in Focus”) was added, and understandably so. That song’s an ambient masterpiece. But when I think of Selected Ambient Works, Volume II, my mind always goes to its melancholy third track, aka “Rhubarb.”

With its softly undulating waves of pure sonic drift, the song is suffused with a sense of deep longing and loneliness that makes it arguably the most affecting song in Aphex Twin’s considerable repertoire.