POLL Radii -- Autechre :: Untilted :: LP8

Vinyl might not be the best way to listen to these, but getting them is a nice way for me to rediscover then. And if there's one thing I know about Autechre's music, it is always rewarded with a revisit and a bit of hindsight

My headcanon thinks of Confield, Draft and Untilted as a trilogy and a very specific era of Autechre

Yeah I've mentioned about that here before, I've heard it called the "Mechanized Trilogy" which totally works for me as a label for it. When they came out they split the fanbase, and I was, for many years, disappointed and skeptical, but I probably have listened to these three the most until Exai, which I feel is their definitive career statement (despite how much NTS feels to be it - there's something so iconic about nearly every tune on Exai)

Untilted very much my favorite of the three. Confield is incredible but it also feels like it's putting my brain in a vice - Draft is too abstract even for an Autechre freak like myself. Untilted on the other hand is like sticking your head into a pinball machine. It's like the 3-D version of Chiastic Slide.

Agree with you on Exai by the way, NTS is definitely their grandest by some measure but it is also uh....really fucking long. Exai is so killer start to finish, I really hope they don't chicken out reissuing it cuz it's a 4xLP

I'm rereading my post from 13 years ago upthread where I mention that I don't really like this album and I guess it just took me a really long time (over 10 years) to finally "get" this album.

I've now totally come around on Untilted, I think I would now place it in top tier autechre (along with NTS, Exai, Confield and Chiastic Slide).

xp thankfully I grabbed Exai and the lovely L-event EP on wax when they dropped

Draft is my fav of this trilogy fwiw. Untilted definitely took the longest for me to get into of any of their records, but I love it so much now, it's got an upbeat energy and ... "sense of humor"? that is more subdued or lacking in their prior albums to that point outside of Envane maybe

Yeah I've mentioned about that here before, I've heard it called the "Mechanized Trilogy" which totally works for me as a label for it. When they came out they split the fanbase, and I was, for many years, disappointed and skeptical, but I probably have listened to these three the most until Exai, which I feel is their definitive career statement (despite how much NTS feels to be it - there's something so iconic about nearly every tune on Exai)

― octobeard, Friday, March 17, 2023 8:08 AM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah I was thrown by all three and I still have difficulty with Confield despite going back to it quite a lot - it's a very "settle down Beavis" album to me - like, if they'd just changed the velocity of some of the sounds on Cfern and Pen Expers and allowed the undercurrents to breathe a little more they'd potentially be my faves, but the timbre of some of those percussion sounds hurt my head. They're overtly heavy and claustrophobic and I just have a hard time enjoying them.

Exai is one I really need to go back to. Elseq too. I'm not sure how or where they sit in my mind, if only because each release from Exai onwards felt like a LOT of material to sift through and subsequently eclipsed the last one in terms of scale. It can take years, even decades, for me to fully grasp what an Autechre album is doing, so when a long album is succeeded by an even longer one it can be pretty exhausting trying to keep up.

My headcanon thinks of Confield, Draft and Untilted as a trilogy and a very specific era of Autechre. Draft and Untilted, especially work as two sides of a coin: up until then the most percussion-driven stuff they'd done with subtle layers of melody and harmony just bubbling under, barely noticeable on the first few listens.

This is exactly why I struggled with Draft and Untilted when they came out despite loving Confield right away. Confield is definitely challenging; each track is like a puzzle to be solved, but it has more overt harmonically beautiful content (e.g. the synths in the second half of "Pen Expers" and all over "Uviol"). That kind of stuff is present on Draft and Untilted but it's harder to dig out. I love them all equally now though.

Untilted definitely took the longest for me to get into of any of their records, but I love it so much now, it's got an upbeat energy and ... "sense of humor"? that is more subdued or lacking in their prior albums to that point outside of Envane maybe

OTM, though I get some perverse humor from Draft as well; "Theme of Sudden Roundabout" is basically built out of fart sounds.

They solved music with "Surripere" and "Augmatic Disport"

LOL, never heard that in Theme Of Sudden Roundabout. Those 'farty' sounds remind me a bit of the VERY HEAVY kick-type drums on Cfern (which I feel are too loud and intrusive)