... 6. Calbruc 7. Recury 8. POLL 9. Nuane -- Autechre :: Chiastic Slide :: LP4

X-101, I can see what you mean, actually, despite once being a big pre-Confield Autechre fan. I do think that Chiastic is their most consistent album, very very few filler tracks compared to the others (which have towering highs but then several relative zzzz's).

Recury please.

anyone got a link to the original Brooklyn Bridge photo?

OK, I actually looked at the cover of Chiastic again and I'm now as baffled as the rest of you.

'Tewe' but as per the Tri Repetae poll I don't expect my favorites to be a majority winners

I think it's worth noting that autechre is the only techno I had ever bought and wasn't influenced by liking any other techno before I picked up autechre albums. I might be the only person here who can say that. At some point in my autechre collecting I did buy a couple ambient albums by brian eno and tangerine dream... maybe that affected my pallet

IMO autechre's hey day is Tri-Repetae - Confield (save one track on Gantz Graf)

really close tie between Tewe and Cipater for me though

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

maybe their most coherent album... might privilege the first and last for that reason, but think i'll pick cipater for being the best track to get from a kinda down feeling to thoughtful. also for the way the drums switch up, and the tiny bass in the beginning to the more expansive sound in the second half. and one of their best wandering synth lines

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Closer than I thought! Also:
POLL4, Wrap5 -- Autechre :: LP5 :: LP5

Even Hub got a vote!

Is Pule really 8 and a half minutes long?

Sad that no one voted "Calbruc" though. "Pule" sux~!

Calbruc is too "WHHOOMP WHOOMP KAH!" for me.

Listening to Pule out of context... I think this is the reason the second half of the album drags for me. I like Ae's more shimmering, ambient fodder (Uviol and Overand spring to mind), but this goes on for ages with very little going on other than some nice echoey high-ends.

Hub is underrated.

I've managed to acquire all the reissues of the first three albums and it's great to finally spend some quality time with Incunabula, which I've never really done.

Hoping they release Chiastic/LP5/EP7 soon. Is this on the cards? OHMIGOSHIWILLDIE

PS - Hub is underrated. Definitely one of the weirder things they'd done up to that point.

did i mention Hub is underrated?

speaking of Hub, I'm sure I can hear, very faintly, the tune of 'The First Noel' playing in the background

I've had it up to here waiting for Warp to reissue Chaistic / LP5 / EP7 / Confield. Is this even on the cards? I'd love these on vinyl.

is this their best

one of them

crunch crunch crunch

it's super gorgeous and one of the most truly winter albums i know of

which is crunchier though, this or Tri Rep?

Rettic AC is incredible, especially for the time

Tri Rep crunches more, but this is def their most wintery one imo.

"pule" underrated in this poll

Literally 'dicks' in Romanian.

Carry on.

melody is just a bunch of poppin' boners

CIPATER

I think this poll would get more votes today

Found a jazz version of Pule, which isn't very appealing but at least someone has transcribed it and presumably understands how to count it.

Their Cichli is better, but it's just such a great piece:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P22JX0lsK-Y

I don't know if its their best overall but IMO its their best 90s album. it's held up really well. it also seems like one of their biggest evolutionary leaps, to me this is where the rhythms really started to loosen up and swing

Remember when these were difficult albums to get into? Lol

the way the beat shift in "cipater" just completely changes the center of gravity of the song, gah

its their best 90s album. it's held up really well.

no need to let time prove worth, this was obvious twenty (fuck) years ago

I don't know if its their best overall but IMO its their best 90s album

yep this sounds right! right up there with untilted and exai for me

every second of "Nuane" is just omfg life

otoh if you told me in 2001 that I'd one day prefer confield to chiastic ...

ignore me, back to loving this fantastic album

I remember that AMG had a 3/5 review for Chiastic for a long time, which definitely colored my perception. Conversely, I think the heads on the Warp forum checked this album the most as Ae's best.

Calbruc is too "WHHOOMP WHOOMP KAH!" for me.

― The Great Cool Lulu who sleeps in Riley... (dog latin), Monday, 15 November 2010 00:49 (nine years ago) bookmarkflaglink

It is exactly the right amount of WHHOOMP WHOOMP KAH!

Oh I love it now. I mumble that 'WHHOOMP WHOOMP KAH! NyyyyeeeeOOOWWW' thing to myself and get funny looks in Tesco

'What is your favourite Autechre bit to sing to yourself while shopping' would be a good thread idea

The Acroyear2 melody is definitely my idle whistling tune of choice.

'Gelk' is their catchiest melody I reckon.

d sho qub would be in my head for weeks

Every time I listen to this album it reminds that that random autechre track that keeps popping up in my head once every couple of weeks is called "Hub"

that one conjures up an image of being on a chessboard with a huge chess knight stomping towards me and then retreating.
I love medieval Autechre. Maphive6.1 fits into that schism too.

love "maphive6.1," wish they had a few more like that one

having just now listened to all of it, if we're discussing best autechre albums of the 90s, my vote would go to ep7

it's so good. along with lp5 it's my fave. Just gets overlooked because they class it as an ep

I often wonder how much the album artwork affects my perception of these records. As well as being one of my all time favourite groups, they've got some of my favourite sleeve art ever. (Although not sure about Exai or Confield - I need those explained to me)

Brad, if you're hearing lots of melodies, at least on the opening two tracks, we've definitely got different ears. Only towards the end of Ipacial Section is there a discernible bassline (although there is a LOT of sub bass on these tracks)

Also there are a lot of human voices and noises on Untilted which I'd never really paid much notice of before - not something they'd really done since Ccec on EP7 I think?

break

also by overwhelming demand, that Fermium video (official, btw):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doue-G-tun8

hard agree about trirep being a little dry. it still has honestly never fully clicked for me. and since that was the first one I bought, I sure have tried a lot. luckily it was the ++ edition with the garbage + anvil vapre eps as a bonus disc. I took to those instantly and kept going with the group.

with untilted, I also wasn't super into it when it came out. but weirdly, I had heard some of live bootlegs from that tour first, and although I dug some of it (esp "sublimit," hard to argue with that one), I found the album a bit disappointing as a whole in comparison to those live sets. that glasgow art school soundboard recording from 2005 in particular, which is still one of my favorite autechre things. but I got over it. untilted rules.

I've said this before here but Tri-Rep and the records around that time really could use a remaster. Also agree it's not aged well (I also still revisit for Clipper and Eutow/C-Pach (also don't discount the Japanese bonus track Medrey and that iconic Ae Juno-106 bass synth) and sounds tinny and brittle.

Untilted is definitely a jam, and especially a wild headphone listen. And yes there's melodies, but 90's Ae fans were blessed with vibe like atmospheres and melodies from tracks like Cipater, Cichli, Rae and Corc that had syncopation, progression and more traditional expressions of straight forward emotions like melancholy or swagger, rather than the autistic spasms of most of the songs on Untilted with some chords buried in the mix, discovered after a half dozen listens on nice cans. To describe that record as "full of melodies" is like saying Low's HEY WHAT is full of great drumming and percussion. It's there, mostly expressed up front in a single track (LCC), but not exactly the focal point, which was their intention.

if nothing else it would be nice to neuter some of those high pitched noises. "Stud" makes me feel like I'm eating a box of nails.

Listening to Untilted this morning I heard a lot of similar sounds and textures to Dots and Loops, especially between "Sublimit" and "Contronatura." They both sounds like (and I guess are) very programmed records built partly from vintage electronic sounds -- like you're listening to a hard disk (one that's occasionally unreadable, in the case of Untilted, though I think this especially because my copy skips in some CD players as I mentioned in another thread).

Got a replacement for my LP5 and it also skips on the first track on both turntables I own. I think it must be something to do with how hard and heavy that track must be mastered as it isn't so much skipping like it's damaged excpet the needle is being jogged forward

I also hear an actual glitch in both acroyear and rae on mine. Definitely feels like an issue with the master and not the physical pressing. Anyone else hearing this? Might try and record my copy. Otherwise it's a good sounding pressing. The analog format absolutely softens the digital textures in a good way

got the reissue on now and man I forgot how crunchy every track on this album is. every single beat is sick. I can't believe this LP wasn't sampled constantly. and people thought this was a step down from Tri Rep? get outta here. "Recury" alone is so far ahead of everything they'd done to this point.

Just found out that "cichlid" is a type of fish that includes tilapia

also krib https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelvicachromis_pulcher

My wearing autechre t-shirts to find other fans strategy had a near miss - someone wearing a draft 7.30 shirt walked past at high speed and went into the supermarket by the bus stop i was waiting at. i then saw him through the window in the queue, he caught my nts shirt and we exchanged a thumbs up, then the bus came. he looked like he was about 12 - ok maybe 18, idk - so not sure how i would have handled any potential conversation.

Xp no way. 25 years of Autechre lore fandom and I had no idea they were such big fish stans

(last week i crossed someone on the street wearing a uniqlo "Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre" t-shirt whilst wearing my uniqlo "Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi bridge and Atake" t-shirt but he didn't notice and i didn't say anything)

xp All the tracks on Cichlisuite seem to be at least tangentially fish-related.

"Characi(dae)" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characidae

"Pencha" is the Bengali word for "owl" and "Bhutum Pencha" the Brown Fish Owl specifically: https://en.banglapedia.org/index.php/Owl

"Yees Land" is an aquatic-themed level from the Sega Genesis game Space Harrier II where you fight enemies that resemble jellyfish, clams, and frogs https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Space_Harrier_II/Yees_Land

That last one is kind of a stretch but seems very on-brand for Autechre.