Well, what can be said about this night. I've read numerous reviews
of Autechre gigs here on this list, but nothing had adequately
prepared me for the experience. Special thanks goes out to all at
Ultramack productions, and the S&E possee for putting together an
amazing night.
We arrived at the place at about 9:30, after a very worrying mixup
with tickets on our part, we finally went in at about 10. The place
is really small and intimate. Max capacity of about 200 I'd say and
all the gear was set up at one end of the room. There was some really
good electro being played by one of the Decal boys who played a lot og
really good stuff. A couple of Kraftwerk tracks were played and some
u-ziq tracks were played and well recieved by a more than excited
crowd. Bascially till about 12, the decla crew took turns at spinning
funky music. They even played some grandmaster melle melle :)
At about 12pm the lights went down, the smoke went out and the crowd
started to roar. This was it. Autechre walked out and started doing
last minute checks with their gear. As you can imagine, the
atmosphere was electric at this point and when that first bass note
rung out, my chest cavity nearly exploded. The music rolled out over
me and the characteristic crunching sound and deep *deep* melodic
resonance started to rise and roll, and the crowd loved it. I swear
to god, the place rocked. They played an amazing set. I hardly
recognised anything they played at all, but it all sounded angelic. I
spent about 15 minutes with my hands over my head swaying to the
groove as wave after wave of pleasure swept through me. They seemed
to just go with the flow.
I don't have any specific memories of any tracks that they played, I
was too absorbed in the music to pay attention to it, but I do
distinctly remember thinking at the time that I really hope that this
is the direction their new album will take.
Anyway, after what seemed like hours they just faded out the music and
left. I asked Sean if they were going to come back on again, but he
said that that was thier thing done, that they really enjoyed
themselves and that they'd be back. I suppose you can't argue with
that really. They came, they played, they blew my mind away. Asking
for more was a bit unfair really.
After a few minutes of confusion, Dean Cleary came on and started
playing some absolutely crazy stuff. Was that a wolf howling or
whalesong? When the first few notes of Keynell rang
out.. wohoo... that was great... the crowd went mad again.. he played
about 45 minutes of Autechre and Gescom. Mag sent the place balistic,
and his mixing was inspiring.
After about 1:15 he started to move into the hip hop arena and played
some pretty good stuff. This suited me fine, coz all I wanted to do
at this point was sit down and rest my aching body.
Towards the end of the night the music swung back again and he finised
up with a couple of tracks off Tri Repetae ( eutow &c/pach i think ).
What a night.
Thanks again Ultramack. BTW, for those who didn't make it, the Funnel
will host Phunk City every Friday night. Upcoming events include
u-zip, Alex Patterson, Mixmaster Morris, Wagonchrist and apprently
they intend on keeping such a high standard going. A friend was
talking to a guy in the loo who said they were doing their utter best
to persuade Mr. Jennkinson to attend, but said that this was an
extremely difficult thing to organise :)
Anyway, anyone else who was there and has clearer memories, please
post them.
-hjw