A journey through Autechre's discography.

[Fast-and-Bulbous]

Day 10. Chiastic Slide.

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This the real first Autechre of the new era (i realise i have said that a few times now, which is kind of the problem of trying to do an overview of an artist during the process of listening to their discography. Let's agree now that everything before Chiastic slide is early Autechre and leave it at that ), and it certainly is a memorable album. We talked earlier with luigii about how it is kind of a grab bag, but i found that there is some real cohesion also on here. There is also more flow than on other LPs, some tracks transition between one another seemlessly, while maintening a very distinct feel. Most of the track features a forward beat of very strange sound, sometimes barely qualifying for a beat. This beat keeps repeting, while the whole landscape around it keeps shifting. What really makes it stick for me is how much Autechre has expanded their palette of sounds on here. It feels extremely refined, and the duo seems to go to weirder and weirder sonic territory. On here they trullly reveals themselves as masters of the waveform. It is still abstract and cold as fuck, and not their most approchable release.

____Cipater uses kind of the same approach as Goz Quarter. A little tour of what's to come. A beat of very rich textures, percussive and detailled. The beat stays, as the melody and harmonies comes and go. At first sweet, before a sort of siren comes in and disrupts it. A bass that sounds like a termite digging through wood. More and more strange noises are added, until it become a collage of sounds and oddities of some sort.
____On Rettic AC, Autechre goes ASMR. It just a short bridge of layered scratching sound, like rubbing polyester, complete with a minimalistic longing synth (I often use the term synth on those review, but trully i have no idea how those were done, it just means it sounds like something that could be done on a synth.).
____Tewe, like a lot of the tracks on here, feels very spacious. Sounds are coming and going all around you. There seems to be a jump in production on this LP, and Autechre never sounded that well mixed. Cichli's beat is a hard cricketty and whipping mess, destructured and complex. It clashes with a melody and sweet and hopeful harmonies. A shy bass comes in, not daring to express over the very forward beat.
____Hub is more alien and more dark. The beat could be hardly called a beat anymore, as it features both bells, a shifting sound like an alien whale, and what feels to me like lighting a match inside your skull and dragging it length-wise. An underwater gosth town, after it is been submerged by an artificial lake. A disparate melody, and high-pitched faint off-tune harmonies, like a weeping swing. At the end, everything underwater burns down. As forCalbruc, it is a short in-your face beat clashing with sweet chimes and harmonies.
___Recury is my favorite on here. This will sound weird, but i can only describe as sounding like oyster tastes... cold, salty and metallic. Picture waves of a mercury sea crashing on the beach. There is a continous crickling sound, like a cricket resonnating in an aluminium barrel that is part of a repetitive beat, that is strangely head-bobbing. A glacier landscape that burns down in the end as everything dissolves to white noise.
___Pule for once is minimalistic. A deceivingly simple melody syncopates and resonnates in unpredictable ways. The sound is again rich and complex. The bouncing synth tells a little folktale in the night. The silence makes himself feel more and more. As time goes by, the echo wins over the voice.
___Nuane, the closing track is hard to describe. Chiastic Slide goes full circle back to the everything-at-once approach of Cipater. Imagine you are in front of a huge and wonderfully diverse banquet, but instead of eating each meal after the other, you decide to have everything together. If Autechre ever was cerebral, this is why. I like to think that this track puts you in the mind of Rob and Sean, as their mind races through the endless possibilities of those new sounds. It becomes strangely engaging somewhere along it's 13 minutes runtime. Like Chiastic Slide itself, it is hard to pinpoint, but definitly awe-inspiring.

I did really like Chiastic Slide. It is emotionally less evident, but certainly quite a ride. It is all over the place, but at the same time, what a place to be in.

[Luigii]

Ay. It's out and glad you enjoyed. Honestly that write up for Recury is a thought I would not had. I would have mention how it sounds like it is the last day the factory is able to function before it implodes on itself. Another thing I would mention is that some of the synths or synth like sounds on this album have this quality that feels like it comes from the beyond world. Tracks like Hub, Tewe and Recury just sounds like spirits. Next while I did mention the grab bag approach, I do agree the glitchy transitions do give off a thematic basis for the project. And there is other stuff I could into. Like how Cichli is one of Autechre's most emotional tracks in there whole career. I need it mashed up with Bjork's Aurora. As well as Nuane is probably the best outro track of their career. Like the only few that could rival that track would either be the end of Confield or the last track of the NTS Sessions All End. Otherwise there is more I could go into this album. Love it.

[Fast-and-Bulbous]

Day 11. Clichisuite

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After Chiastic Slide, this one promises by the title to be an EP of remixes of Clichi. I had no strong opinion on the original track, but after hearing luigii's high praise i re-listened to it and mut say the emotional side did clicked for me now. But be it as it may, this EP has in fact little to do with Clichi it seems. Unlike Basscadet mixes, not one track borrows any motifs from Clichi, but it is more about bringing the same general vibe, meaning a whipping beat over contemlative melodies. Except on here, the chaos is turned up a notch. Where on chiastic Slides, the beats were weird but remained mostly constant, here they often explode in simingly random pattern. It is even more foreign and original in many regard than Chiastic Slide, and for it i do enjoy it, even if it might-be a bit migraine-inducing .

____Yeesland really put the focus on the beat, as for most of the tracks on here. Calling it a beat seems more and more a stretch, as it keeps shifting and twisting in every direction. Contrary to Chiastic Slide, it is the harmonies that anchor the track here, with a few melancholic chords. Around it, syncopated patterns of wooshes and rolling clickes comes and go. But it doesn't really feel percussive, more sweet and caressing. A lullabye sang by insects.
____Pencha brings the chaos with him. A very deconstructed melody, feeling almost random, on bells, like the incoherent discourse of a very agitated and troubled character. It is a fast-tempo mess, glitching and imploding in every direction. If you already don't like Autechre, this will probably makes you hate them . If Nuane was Sean and Rob minds racing through the endless possibilities of their sound, on this one they have a breakdown over it. A pattern of chords do emerges towards the middle of the track, hiding under the mayhem. It only reveals itself in the end, as the "beat" fades out, proving you that should never believe that Autechre doesn't know what they are doing.
____Characi repeats a melody under a pattern of beeps and laser sounds in lieu of beat. Both repeads themselves througout the whole track, but their disjointed quality makes you think they are another not. Autechre have a thing for writing short melodys that goes up and down the scale in unpredictable ways, and thus seeming more incohesive than it really is. As is the case on the rest of the album, there is less change in terms of sonic textures, each element staying in his, albeit strange, lane.
____Krib features promenently a sweet synth that resonates in a digital palace. Deeps chords fills the spectre. in lieu of beat, there is mostly what resembles very closely the sound of ball bearings and a very low bass, like the loose tent fabric that those ball bearing bounces onto. It is a contemplative sweet piece, hopeful, calming and melancholic at the same time.
____Tiladia for me, hits uncomfortably close to the experience of anxiety. What start off with a bouncing sweet and sour synth, quickly gains this worryng feel. Like anxiety, this a undescriptable constant fret for something unknown about to come, that never does. The microscopic beats and off-balance chords are subdued, bringinfg a faint continous tension. When the intensity picks up, and the beat comes forward with new chaos, this tension is not by any resolved, only accentuated. Nothing will come, but you shall fear it anyway.

On general, Cichlisuite may be a less polished effort than the previous Chiastic Slide, but could you really blame it for that ? When it shines it shines, especially on Tiladia, and trully shows that Autechre have not finished to destroy any semblance of normality left in their sound.


It only took me two years but i get the joke now. Ciclisuite... Sickly Sweet... yea i am slow sometimes

[Fast-and-Bulbous]

I'm back baby !

...

Yea i know, it has been two years. But ever since i had abandonned this thread and forum, i had been wishing to return to it, but well, you know... stuff happens and are the bane of personnal projects.
But i intend to resume my journey now, especially because i have found the perfect reason to : I have started taking medication for my late-diagnosis ADHD ! That's right, as i am writing you, the very first dose of sweet metylphenidate is flowing my brain with new powers of concentration. So i figured, what better way to start this mental jouney, than accompagnied by the most cerebral of band, my dear Autechre. After all, having a project to occupy my newly undivided atention is a great way to measure the impact of this new treatement, and also Autechre is certainly the best band in the world to hyperfocus too.

So, the plan is the same as last time, except i will not necessarily impose myself one post/release per day since, well, we are not quarantined anymore, i do have some other stuff to do


Stay tuned for the next release, LP5 !

[Fast-and-Bulbous]

AUTECHRE

Day 99999.9999 ERROR CODE AE: no more days exist. Lp5

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Now as much as i like to imagine Sean and Rob as a couple of unique weirdos, they definitely are part of a larger UK scene, and Lp5 is proof of that. In fact, although i glanced over it, the very first thing that put them on the map was their contribution to the now cult compilation Artificial Intelligence, a statement of intent by the amazing label warp, that has helped shape the stupidest of label for the greatest of electro scene: IDM. Autechre in fact, never stopped collaborating with other people at that time, notably with Gescom, a sort of anonymous collective spearheaded by Booth and Brown. As for Lp5, it feels a response to the type of electro that Warp and others were producing at the time. The track Drane2 exemplifies that: there was a Drane track, that first appeared on a John Peele session (don't worry, we will do the Peel Sessions, but it was releases on CD in 1999, so it's for next time), that used trick using a self-feeding delay line to create a bouncy effect. Richard D. James aka Aphex Twin heard that and used the same effect on the track Bucephalus Bouncing Ball. Autechre answered with drane2, and the faux-diss stopped at that.
Lp5 feels like a very intentional album, with a great flow. One principle that Autechre applied here is that most tracks are mixed in mono only. The idea, according to the AMA they did in 2013, was to focus not on space but more on rhythmic and harmonic composition but "across a different dimension" (your guess is as good as mine with that last one). The way this is manifested in the album is with complex rhythms and melodies, that feels to me was generated with either modular synth or programming. I may be wrong on that one, but lately i have started using Max/MSP myself, a software that is now the main way Autechre composes their track. And i kind of feel that some stuff on here was generated following the same algorithmic principles, even though they weren't yet using this peculiar software.

____Acroyear2 starts off with a short bouncy melody, shifting between sound before drums jumps in right in your face. When i say that Lp5 is no complete stranger in the UK scene of the time, this is mostly because of this first track. It showcases Autechre's take on drill and bass, a style pioneered by the like of Luke Vibert, Aphex Twin and µ-Ziq. The idea is to turn drum n' bass on its head by programming extremely complex and fast beats to render them utterly undanceable. And so is the beat in Acroyear2, racing at impossible pace while a simple melody iterate on a kind of off-tune synth. A second synth comes in sounding like a maniac duckling and harmonizes with the first. The whole track has a playful, almost sarcastic tone, the fuglyness of the synth teasing you with a twisted sense of humor. In the end everything explodes in sudden stereo, merges then dissolves.
____777 is Autechre building their own dance-floor after mocking yours. The track is structured around a very simple bass sequence that mopes on a loose kick-drum. The melody takes on the rhythmic complexity, skipping through a generative pattern. Crazy delay lines colors the space left and right. The track dissolves like Acroyear2, as machines continuing to bleep out their remaining integer at the end of their operations. This is a welcoming track, even if the place it welcomes you to is like no other: the jukebox has a mind of his own, the tables are set on the ceiling, all is ready for an Autechre party.
____Rae is the first really great track on here. The drill and bass formula is boiled down to beat and synth only. The beat is once again extremely complex, and at first sounds kind of like real drums, as if some ungodly drummer were playing them. But his mind is somewhere else: the synth lays out beautifully longing chords, echoing slowly in the vacuum. Then a small sequence of blips comes in, giving it a sort of middle-eastern vibe. The drummer dreams of the desert. His drums shrinks down slowly, compressing progressively until just the synths and melody remains. Sean Booth said on the AMA that this one was made with very little sleep, and it shows. A truly evocative track.
____Melve is just a short transition. A deceptively simple melody on an antique music box. This one sound almost like a classically composed track, before it suddenly climb up higher and higher into an impossible shrill, revealing it’s algorithmic nature.
____Vose In has a kind of 80’s vaporwave aesthetic, Autechre style. That is thanks to a fuzzy synth and bass riff coming towards the middle of the track. In the center of the mono space, a simple bass pulse is followed by glitching beeps, on the verge of liquid. Easy enough to enjoy, but at the end everything melts once again, but as you expect it to end, sounds continues to resonate around you. As you were watching late-night MTV, your cathodic television swallows you and propels you into stereo information space. Bits flies over you like flock of birds.
____Fold4,Warp5 is focused on an idea of rhythmic shift: the track slows down and speeds up in waves. That makes for a somewhat calm feeling, disturbed by the crazy textures surrounding the beat. It is kind of reminiscent of the sleepiness of Boards of Canada. A good idea, but maybe a bit unpolished.
____Under BOAC now, is another beast. A big and rich multi-part track, more reminiscent of the best parts of Chiastic Slide. It opens with a deformed human voice (Deezer features the lyrics “is it washable” for it ). At the forefront, another complex fast beat, now using an extensive palette of wood-like sound, like the homemade drums of a caveman. Above it a simple 4 chords on a natural synth. A race of aliens have stumbled upon an old piano. Unable to grasp the concept of music it is playing, their scientist start experimenting on it. At one point, you hear one of them humming softly. He gets it but no one listens. Around the halfway mark, everything quiets but the beat, slowed way down to resemble not a beat, but the last shrieks of the piano as it is torn open. The beat picks up the pace slowly. The aliens have accessed the strings and different pieces of wood and have found a way to produce their own music with it. A new ethereal synth comes in, as if they had found their own way to replicate the piano. As the beat cracks down into chaos one last time, a grandiose choir of aliens celebrates this new discovery. What a ride.
____Corc slow down the drill and bass formula to a soft stroll through an exotic garden. A sweet synth plays along, shifting to different sounds like so many unknown flowers. The beat drags a bit, as if actively trying to slow down to enjoy the view. It gradually pick new and bigger tones, excited by the charming perfumes and colors, but never goes beyond a light jog.
____Caliper Remote is a short but great transition. The beat now uses more foreign sounds, scratching and hitting reverberating beneath the ground in a lonely damp cave. A desolate melody falls like water droplets from stalactites. A poignant cut, more in line with the typical Autechre loneliness of Amber mixed with Chiastic Slide textures.
____Arch Carrier is another big suite like Under BOAC. If AE Ever were to soundtrack an epic fantasy movie, this would be the montage of the villain assembling its army of undead. A repeating beat uses very low pulses and sizzling sounds. The melody operate a complex rhythm sequence, following a chord pattern. Chords that are then accompanied by what sounds like an actual string orchestra, achieving the cinematographic feeling. Sean and Rob have no formal musical training, but here they show that they could successfully pretend to. The strings is then replace by more strange digital bleeps. In the end the melody get stuck on the same chords, iterating over and over. The VHS is scratching back and forth endlessly.
____Drane2 is announced by another short abstract landscape, then by a short melodic sentence repeating over and over with a shimmering and clear tone, not unlike a trumpet of sort. For this melody falls down the aforementioned bouncing balls. Another playful melody and beat tries to come in, but is glitched out by the falling bouncing droplet. A meteor shower of heavy bits fall one the dance-floor, destroying everything. Each digital marble bouncing on different surface and each, creating new sound. The chaos increases gradually, until a slow underwater fade out, softly drowning you in the calm sea of information. And somehow, 9 short minutes later, final silence. Buuuuuuuut...
____[hidden track]. Yep, that’s right, the oldest trick in the book. Now this is kinda spoiled by streaming today, since Drane is not 22 minutes long but Autechre has hidden a short easter egg and the end of LP5. It is just another outro that feels like the remainder of LP5’s equations, computing in the vaccum. A little teaser for the next behemoth of a major release to tackle: Confield.

In the end, LP5 may not be the most evocative of Autechre’s albums, but a titillating and consistent release nonetheless. Maybe not as rich as Chiastic Slide, but it follows a very inviting trajectory, from dance-adjacent to chaos.