New Autechre album - April 2005

Back when Warp's msg board was up, Chiastic seemed the overwhelming favorite, and, I think, on a.m.autechre as well.

I'm not too big on PS2 either.

I was under the impression that "Tri Repetae" has been considered their best for years. If opinions are shifting toward "Chiastic Slide" then I couldn't be happier.

p.s. fuck all you 'more melody' whiners.

I agree with the Chiastic lovers, it's amazing. Cichli is genius.

(I was thinking about nominating it, but other Ae albums were already nominated. There were so many props for "Tri Repetae" and "LP5" floating around, and I think I may have been the only one to comment about the "Chiastic Slide" injustice on those threads.)

I just reviewed some older threads about Autechre ... it's mostly the same handful of people giving props to the same albums (i.e. opinions haven't changed much over the years). "Chiastic Slide" gets respect from this core group, but very little from "ILM at large". Sure, that's a fairly small sample, but that does fit with my perceptions about Autechre over the last ten years.

My favourite Ae sort of changes from day tot day between Amber - Tri - Chiastic. Today I'm in a Chiastic mood.

Tri Repetae was nice - a very different vibe to any of the other albums in that it had comparatively linear beats and stuff. Definitely not my favourite though.

I'm going to put on Amber again in a mo as I've neglected it for ages.

LP5 is truly gorgeous - melodic, rhythmic, inventive all at the same time. I was never a big fan of the first two tracks which just sound like erratic drill'n'bass rip offs but the rest is so so good!

EP7 is really really good too. Kind of an extension of LP5, the second half is particularly great. Maphive6.1 invoking the sound of battling hoardes and then something that sounds like a cross between a piano and guitar comes in.

Confield? I really don't know. It's my least favourite. Some of the sounds are just too harsh for me to accept. The bass drum beats on Cfern are genuinely horrible and sound like a four year old hitting a touch sensitive keyboard at random. When this came out everyone was saying the stand out tracks were "Pen Expers" and "Eidetic Casein" - the former sounding like someone hoovering up iron nails, and the latter like a bunch of toy keyrings all going off at the same time. I only really like the ambient "Uviol" on this one.

Draft7.30 is actually a really clever album. I always felt that with Confield there was no reference at all - it was just alien music, whereas you could really hear Autechre's influences on this record, so much so I once layered Funkadelic's "Who says funk bands can't play rock?" over VProc. There's a big old-skool influence on this too.
The first track sounds like a giant Dune worm pounding along the ground, and the second track makes me think of being on a creepy old pirate ship. Maybe my third or fourth favourite album of theirs.

one of my favorite things about the chiastic period is that they released two great singles off the album. i don't think that's happpened since.

i would love if they dropped some 4/4 or trance on us. could you imagine the melodic build ups? holy fuck.

Can't remember any bad reviews of Chiastic Slide.

try 'slow acid' from the Gescom ISS:SA ep... came out two years ago but the pieces date from LP5/EP7 era.

i play around with "we r are why" a lot when i am mixing - it's one of the few 4/4-ish tracks i know by them.

i have that warp remix comp, but can't recall the track vahid mentions. must investigate...

gantz graf was the one i really didn't get - i think i gave it one or maybe two listens before writing it off. i should probably reinvestigate that, too.

i too hope for something new, not necessarily a change of direction but something... unexpected, i guess.

OH DARN.

Gantz Graf is useless until you see the VIDEO!!! OMG! It's like a virtual lift from my head whenever I hear Autechre's music. I just wish someone could use the same engine for say, the whole of EP7!!

yeah remember misery where kathy bates has the author dude trapped and forces him to write a book the way she wants? i would totally do that for an autechre progressive trance 12". sean and rob! oh sweeties! i'm comin for you!

Btw, the "Gantz Graf" video was useless to me. OOH CGI.

Luckily ULVER"s Silencing the Singing is great for melodic build-ups. I'll stay there for the rest of tonight.

Course if I do wait I'll have to stop reading this thread, don't want my judgement coloured before I've heard it.

According to the schedule on Warp's website, SND are playing all dates on the tour incl. Canada.

I saw SND a couple of years ago and they were similarly awesome. I have no idea why their records are so boring in comparison to their live sets.

But, it does seem to be all about the 'craft' and little else here to me. Doesn't feel like a significant advance in sound compared to the records I know by them (Tri Repetae, Chiastic Slide, LP5) but I do love how smudgy, oily and dark it all feels, it's a very 'live' sounding record. Sublimit' is a bit of an anticlimactic closing track compared to some of their other work though. Doesn't really surpass, or expand my expectations of them as a whole record.

Plus getting home from Camden after tubes have finished = a bitch.