POSSE! YOU KEEP THE SPIRIT ALIVE! It's the 1990s ELECTRONIC ALBUMS poll results!

23. Autechre - Tri Repetae (Warp Records, 1995)
114 points, 7 votes, 1 first place vote.

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u641/Lixenixen/trirepetae.jpeg

http://open.spotify.com/album/0ioIXXMV89w0qC39FpxYnL

personally, subjectively, they were brilliant on _tri repetae_. almost a perfect piece of work, i think, with all of the more traditionalist melodic bits of their first two albums clashing with the beginnings of the DSP shitstorm that was to come on later releases.

― your null fame, 23. huhtikuuta 2001 3:00

I guess you might call them "anal", but I don't think that makes them dull by any means. Tri Repetae in headphones while drowsy is the absolute juice. Their music somehow makes so much sense; I won't use the word "architectural", but it's very visual, like slowly moving your eyes across a complex surface and suddenly noticing that the surface isn't just a pattern - it has *depth*, a depth that reveals even more intricacies, relationships between sounds, varieties of grain, than you noticed at first. No matter how close you look, there are always more - little soundworms wriggling around, burrowing and digging, eating each other, multiplying. You go from imagining what the surface feels like to imagining what it's like to be inside the lattice itself - I swear you can almost *feel* this happen on certain tracks (especially on Tri Repetae).

― Clarke B., 18. huhtikuuta 2002 3:00

I read two books, wrote an essay, went out, got high, got sat on by the same drunk girl twice, cooked a huge spinach/garlic lasagne, saw Pirates of the Caribbean, and hurt my flatmate's feelings by listening to Tri Repetae on full blast while she was playing guitar.

Would have been one book and half an essay if ILX hadn't been down.

― Herbstmute (Wintermute), 5. syyskuuta 2003 21:41

Listened to Tri Repetae last night for the first time in ages. Ten perfect little steam-punk sonatas. Is it really ten years since that came out?

― NickB (NickB), 15. helmikuuta 2005 13:32

Thought that would be much higher

Sorry about the quick succession of posts, but that's all I have the time to post today. I guess you can see why I posted those three results back to back, though...

I thought Tri Repetae would have been top-ten for sure...

Autechre fans be splitting votes.

more like Snoretechre fans be voting for the wrong albums

Nice to see Exit Planet Dust show up, after all this time Leave Home is still one of my fave Chems tunes.

SERIOUSLY GUYS DO YOU LISTEN TO ANYTHING OTHER THAN AUTECHRE

LOL

I srsly feel like Pipecock right now.

NO; THERE IS ONLY AUTECHRE

I did vote for Amber, have to admit.

This poll...

Blimey....and we haven't had Incunabula yet.

Didn't vote in this, was it kinda hidden? BUT yeah, I've been listening to Autechre tonight.

Autechre isn't even the most popular artist in this poll, I think there are two or three acts with more overall votes...

Bomfunk MCs better be one of them

Motorbass aren't even going to get into the top 50, are they? :-(

ILX overrating the shit out of Autechre as per.

And rightly so!

How can you rightly overrate something?

Pretty sure the only Autechre record I've heard in full is Incunabula and it wasn't really that interesting to me, moving away from melody was probably a good move because they weren't really that great at it.

Their melodies are gorgeous and they didn't really move away from them till Confield.

LP5 was my number 1. The first time I heard it I thought they were taking the piss - a track like Fold4,Wrap5 felt like pure cockwaving: "look what we can do" etc... But the fact this track sounds like it's speeding up and slowing down at the same time is only a superficial gimmick that belies how beautiful it is. That's why LP5 is their very best album - it's that perfect biting point between techgeek indulgence and aesthetic indulgence. There are so many moments on this album that make the hairs on my neck rise, my eyes prickle a little: The musical-box coda on Rae; the way Vose In sounds like someone rapidly fading a radio in and out; 'Is it washable?'; the fucking strings on 'Arch Carrier' (possibly my favourite bit of electronic music in the world). There isn't a moment on that album that isn't fascinating, thrilling. The whole thing is a puzzle to be unravelled and I'm still hearing new details in it some 13 years after the fact.

Pretty sure the only Autechre record I've heard in full is Incunabula and it wasn't really that interesting to me, moving away from melody was probably a good move because they weren't really that great at it.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 1 November 2012 09:56 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Incunabula isn't really representative of Autechre's main body of work. It's very much a warm-up album in the vein of Artificial Intelligence-era Warp. Good for nostalgia's sake, with several cool, almost jazzy, spaced-out moments. Their evolution from Amber through to Confield is one of my favourite career-runs from any act pretty much.

Oh, and saying they weren't good at melody = madness

We need geirbot to arbitrate this melody dispute.

I'm basically going solely on Incunabula here. I do like Clipper and Arch Carrier but I've had 15 years or so to explore further and I haven't been motivated to do so.

I don't dislike Autechre but the number of amazing albums that will not make the cut because every fucking 90s autechre album will be on here is pretty ridic.

There are 22 albums to go...

While it's quiet..

I did get Squarepusher's "Feed me weird things" album as a 'freebie' back whenever (it was old by then too), didn't get it at all.

Anyone know if it's supposed to be a 'wow' album or not? etc?

There are no 'wow' Squarepusher albums. 'Hard Normal Daddy' is probably the best but none of them belong anywhere near this list.

that's a bit harsh, I think. He can be a bit free jazz noodly, but Hard Normal Daddy is p great. Vic Acid EP is the single best thing he did though, IMO.

Fair enough, thanks.

At his best he's pretty good but not 'best of the 90s' good (and he won't be in the list given that things like 'Bytes' and 'The Richard D James' album have already placed).

Hard Normal Daddy was joint 50th, but yeah, he won't place again I shouldn't think. He's also very good live.

While it's quiet..

I did get Squarepusher's "Feed me weird things" album as a 'freebie' back whenever (it was old by then too), didn't get it at all.

Anyone know if it's supposed to be a 'wow' album or not? etc?

― Mark G, Thursday, 1 November 2012 11:13 (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There are no 'wow' Squarepusher albums. 'Hard Normal Daddy' is probably the best but none of them belong anywhere near this list.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 1 November 2012 11:14 (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

He is a real hit'n'miss artist and I agree there's no such thing as a consistently brilliant Squarepusher album (and yeah, HND is the closest he ever came to one). That said, there's probably only one or two SP releases that I'd say have no redeemable features, it's just he eschews quality control for prolificism. I'd happily compile a career-spanning best-of. 'Feed Me Weird' things is like a lesser HND basically.

Squarepusher, 21 tracks 1996-present

Theme From Ernest Borgnine
Cooper's World
Chin Hippy
Fat Controller
A Journey to Reedham (7.am Mix)
Full Rinse (featuring MC Twin Tub)
Come On My Selector
My Sound
Ruin
Shin Triad
Iambic 5 Poetry
Tomorrow World
Mind Rubbers
My Red Hot Car
Do You Know Squarepusher
Menelec
Welcome to Europe
The Modern Bass Guitar
Open Society
Square Window
Unreal Square

I'd guess that most of the Warp is out of the way now, except Incunabula, Frequencies, Music Has The Right To Children and the Aphex Twin records? I mean the shadow cast by Warp over 90s albums-based electronic music is massive but there's a shitload of other stuff I want to see place more.

Well, I fully expect a few Underworld albums to place yet.

and orbital of course ..

I don't expect Incunabula to place somehow.

If Incunabula places it would be absurd. (I think I only listened to it once or twice, but it seemed like easily the weakest Autechre album.)

Yeah it's not really considered a classic by anyone other than early-Warp/AI fans.

What about Mo'Wax? Will anything place from that?

What about Mo'Wax? Will anything place from that?

― make like a steak and beef (dog latin), Thursday, November 1, 2012 12:05 PM

Entroducing maybe? Or is that too hip-hop and not electronic enough?

Incunabula is one of their best and should place Top 10.

I wouldn't think it's as popular here. Incunabula is a great training wheels Autechre album and it has held up better than I thought it would but I wouldn't put it ahead of their other 90's albums (besides maybe Chiastic Slide?)

Guessing dubnobass/Second Toughest/Beacoup Fish all put up a strong showing here? Good job ILX

I think it's a shame to dismiss Incunabula because its sound design is less sophisticated than some of their later albums. Anyway, I'm a complete sucker for pretty much all early-to-mid 90's Warp back catalogue. No sign of the Boards yet. No doubt they'll have at least one entry in the Top 10 ('Music for Children' I'm hoping...)

one of the most redeeming features of ILX (in my opinion) is that they don't rank BoC very highly

then again, who am I kidding :(

One think that struck me while compiling the results for the album poll was how utterly Brit-centric they were. I guess American producers didn't release a lot of albums in the 90s, and as for albums from other major electronic music countries (Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Japan, etc), it seems ILXors don't much care or know about them.

― Tuomas

This is an interesting point. Hawtin, Derrick Carter (both dj mixes) and Kenny Larkin were about the only non-Brits on my list which is crazy really (stupidly forgot the Paperclip People album...doh!) Were there no Detroit albums of note during this period?? Would be nice to see Nightime World Vol 1 get a place.

No Seefeel?