Tri RePOLLtae -- Autechre :: Tri Repetae :: LP3

man this album sounds much much MUCH more interesting to me now than it did when it first came out

I guess I overdosed on too much Aphex Twin at the time

Yeah if you're expecting the lyrical melodic lushness of an Aphex Twin record this stuff makes no sense. I think that might have been my problem, too. I wasn't really ready for this level of... Abstraction? I don't know what else to call it.

just listened to Peel Session 2 for the first time in years. i was surprised by how dated it felt sonically, but the beats are still great. i loved how blifil gradually, smoothly shifts from 8 beat phrases to 9 to 6.

Yeah if you're expecting the lyrical melodic lushness of an Aphex Twin record this stuff makes no sense. I think that might have been my problem, too. I wasn't really ready for this level of... Abstraction? I don't know what else to call it.

"Clipper" has tons and tons of melodic lushness in it, though! I think really I just was not in the right frame of mind to engage with these guys, since everything I was listening to that wasn't in this vein was either Tricky, Portishead or *insert drum-n-bass legend here*

Expectations are so tricky. If I'd listened to this expecting it to sound like an E.A.R. record I'd have got into it. But I was expecting it to sound like 808 State or Orbital and oh boy did it ever not.

I'm still not sure how to wring any enjoyment out of this!

wow, v. surprised at the turn-out for "eutow" (considering i'm coming into this a year late). the song definitely has an initial appeal of that sort of tampered masculinity, w/ that borderline dubstep "YYYERRRUNNNGGHH" but it becomes gimmicky after about a minute of listening.

i think it was "leteral" that steered me towards complete fandom. it's that slow progression from pure ~technics~ to something that fringes on emotion/humanity by the end that i can't get enough of. in a lot of ways it's like the soundtrack of an AI feeling for emotion, if i'm not being too romantic about it.

'chiastic slide' is my other favorite. it's crunchier and more melodic than 'tri repetae' but it has some drones in there iirc.

'recury' is kind of an epic drone, sounds like seefeel or mbv almost. chiastic slide is like the winter pastoral to music has the right to childrens summer pastoral imo.

Yeah it was the Autechre remix of Seefeel's Spangle which maybe drove the wedge into my mind that I could actually *like* Autechre in the first place so I will keep an ear out for that kinda drone.

Chiastic Slide is about the last album I'll listen to before Autechre went full off into their wanky schizoid period. I'm all for artistic progression and would even defend Korn's decision to move to dubstep if I knew enough about the band, but with Autechre I'm just not all too sure what the hell is progressing album to album. It all come across to me as attempt to pretend their glitching robotz.

xpost

Bowery Electric is a very cool mix of MBV/Seefeel

actually the more i hear the later albums the more i feel like the elements never actually changed that much, they just got shuffled around and zoomed-in-on or something. the broken beats are just like.. extended break downs. the newest one is really melodic actually. the electro influence is hyperactive/symphonic to a degree that feels out of sync with the other elements. it can still make me shrug my shoulders but it has definitely grown on me a bit. i bet 'quaristice' probably sounds great if you're high idk

i mean everything they've ever done would not sound out of place soundtracking a skateboarding video. the later stuff is just for crazier editing.

anyway, "stud" deserved a vote! so did "c/patch"! i think "eutow" might be my least favorite track on here, no fronting.

Haha see I don't see skateboarding video I see David Attenborough nature films and C/Pach is where the columns of army ants move in.

'garbagemx' is basically about arachnophobia.

(i mentally include the garbage and anvil vapre eps with this album because of the aforementioned US double-disc.)

I don't know what it is about this music that makes me think insects, spiders, centipedes etc. I think it's just the highly articulated beats make me think you gots to have more than the standard number of legs to move about to it! Milipede techno.

i say skateboarding video soundtracks just because so many of these beats code as hip-hop to me. i think my real favorite on this is 'overand.' i just... can't resist the ambient.

xp haha yeah. clickity-clackity

xpost haha, back when Confield came out nearly every review had to have a token mention of "insectoid robots" in it.

it's that slow progression from pure ~technics~ to something that fringes on emotion/humanity by the end that i can't get enough of. in a lot of ways it's like the soundtrack of an AI feeling for emotion, if i'm not being too romantic about it.

― kelpolaris, Tuesday, 3 April 2012 17:33 (Yesterday) Permalink

In many ways each Autechre composition is the aural equivalent of attempting to make machines feel human emotion, with varying levels of success.

Googling "autechre insectoid robots" is pretty funny actually.

love that they did untilted and quaristice back-to-back.. one is so thorough, consistent, repetitive, and HARD, while the successor is their most varied and 'unhinged'. hope they do something drastically different from oversteps/move of ten

Love Oversteps. Should revisit it soon. Best I their latter day records I think.

It's probably my second-favorite of theirs (favorite is a toss-up between Untilted or Confield).

untilted is really underrated. 'iera' and 'sublimit' are amazing tracks.

well I've done a complete 180 on this album. I'm with DJP, if you listen to too much Aphex or u-ziq or Squarepusher it'll kind of color what you're looking for which is unfortunate since Ae doesn't really compare with those three on too many levels. TBH in the beginning I hated the "mathiness" of these guys but I kind of understand that what they really do is just exploit your brain's ability to recognize patterns. Also I'm impressed with how much they've been able to hide in the mix - I always thought stuff like "Girl/Boy Song" or "Greenways Trajectory" was complex because there was such a rush of sound and so many beats, but Ae seems to intentionally mess with your expectations when it comes to melody, and some tunes (like "Garbagemx", not on this album, but it's a good example) change A LOT when you notice stuff like "hey, this bass line just shifted at the end, where did that come from", only to realize it's been that way THE WHOLE TIME. And "Eutow" totally deserved to win this poll, that THX sound gives me chills every time .

http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2016/jun/08/stylewatch-pantone-448c-ugliest-colour-world-opaque-couche-australian-smokers-fashion

Don't bother with a C/Pach or switching to Rotar, just get it Overand throw away your Clipper.

looolll, I saw that article and thought the same thing

I remember reading a review claiming there was something 'hidden' in the front cover if you stared at it long enough, any truth to that? I sure as hell don't see it.

that reviewer was likely on the same acid as Booth and Brown were while recording these beats

that guardian link was in the first comment of one of the articles linked above.

I'm an obsessional Ae fan but I literally never listen to this album or Incunabula. Every track repeats a single idea, pretty much. Also that colour is very like the "positional" colour we used to put in place of photographs yet to be scanned when doing layout in the 90s.

I remember exactly where I was when I first heard tracks off this record. It had just been released and I was in the basent of a "Cybercafe".

Here, to be precise.

*basement

Also makes me imagine that "Eutow" is Brown-era Orbital if they happened to be on Warp.

― Ou sont les cankles d'antan? (Leee), Monday, November 1, 2010 9:00 PM (seven years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol i had this exact thought while listening to “clipper” just now

Back in the nascent IDM heyday of emerging apps and Artificial Intelligence comps, "Clipper" was the first Autechre track to really catch my ear, making me a fan for life.

Garbagemx36 is the best track

when i saw them live they threw in a snippet of second bad vilbel

the show gave my ex a migraine

i thought it was okay but christ are these guys shit at track names

Could have been worse, they might have called that one Glossop (twinned with Bad Vilbel).

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OJuvZUsKoQ0

just curious does anyone else find this album incredibly harsh on the ears? if I listen at a decent volume my head will be buzzing for an hour after. other Ae albums don't do that.

it used to be my go-to and the one I recommended to people first, for some reason. but someone on ILX pointed out what you pointed out to me, and for some reason it never occurred to me. but you're right.

Idk I’m having a hard time understanding how this is less harsh than almost everything that came after !

sounds great, btw

the 2nd to last track does have some high pitched tones that verge on the painful

maybe … turn it down?

This record I find exhausting because many of the tracks loop a single idea for much longer than it remains interesting. I just shut it off in frustration.

at the same time, it's got Clipper.

i don’t mean to make any assumptions about your age, matttkkkk, but i’ve definitely heard that as a common criticism of 90s electronic music (including trip hop, etc) from young ppl.

i think it’s a fair criticism, and i’m tempted to feel lucky that i “experienced it as it” (it being my youth, i mean the 90s electronic music scene “was happening” (getting into yawnsome ok boomer territory)

but this is probably completely wrongheaded because i also remember a “day 1” allmusic writer telling me in 97 (this anecdote predates his tenure at the site) that he couldn’t stand depth charge (j saul kane) because “the loops just go nowhere”. in the same conversation he told me he was happy with cichlisuite (new at the time) because he could finally listen to autechre without getting bored. he also told me richard devine and phoenicia were better than autechre because their tracks “developed more”, so obviously not all his opinions aged well (he was an early otto von schirach booster, lol)