IDM Mailing Archive

well well well. for reference's sake: the first autechre i heard was tri repetae++; and my favorite AE thus far is LP5. followed closely by cichlisuite and amber. EP7 is quite amazing. a few tracks wander off a little far into the digital noise and sonic grit territory that worked so well to bridge the tracks of LP5, but here they seem to be intended to stand alone. eh. but the good tracks...wow. the opener 'rpeg' is the best thing AE has done recently, possibly ever. hypnotic, echoey, digital and organic/underwater/fluttery at the same time. and that stuttering at the end kills me dead. 'ccec' is pretty nice, too, almost sounding like a gescom track (weird distorted hip hop) remixed by the more abstract version of AE (squeaky squiggles and minor keys shifting in the background.) basically, i think it's great, and it's in the process of modifying me as a listener on how to hear it, kind of like LP5 did. there's some stuff on here that will probably take a long time to warm to, but then there's stuff that's immediately accessible, at least in autechre terms. big drawback is that nothing (i have the domestic) savaged the back cover art. i don't care too much, but when an artist takes such care with the total package and the design, putting a giant logo that clashes with the miniaturized type everywhere else is kind of crass. the nothing logo is at least ten times bigger than even the word "autechre." and a great booklet full of those angular squiggle drawings, probably the best visual counterpart to AE since chris cunningham's sinister vibrating machines. rob btw- the post is referring to my review, not the EP! it sounds fresh to my ears...aligned with LP5 but not the same, as some have claimed. even if AE is using some of the same equipment or processors or whatever--people, james brown used bass, guitars, drums and voice for decades and nobody complained. sheesh.

sun rob and his arkestra <robert.geary@yale.edu> wrote:

quoted 4 lines well well well.

> well well well. > > for reference's sake: the first autechre i heard was tri repetae++; and my > favorite AE thus far is LP5. followed closely by cichlisuite and amber.

You're probably in a minority by finding LP5 their best album. (I personally find it uneven, ranging from awesome to ho-hum.) But ask me next year--I had to listen to Chiastic Slide half a dozen times before I liked it, and now it's my favorite.

quoted 3 lines EP7 is quite amazing. a few tracks wander off a little far into the

> EP7 is quite amazing. a few tracks wander off a little far into the > digital noise and sonic grit territory that worked so well to bridge the > tracks of LP5, but here they seem to be intended to stand alone.

They're a lot better than those transitional squonks (squeek+honk) were in LP5. Then again, I like abstract electronic noise. And, ultimately, I like EP7 better than LP5; it brings to flower some of the new areas they were just starting to explore there.

quoted 1 line ...the opener 'rpeg' is the best thing AE has done recently, possibly ever.

> ...the opener 'rpeg' is the best thing AE has done recently, possibly ever.

quoted 4 lines ...'ccec' is pretty nice, too, almost sounding like a

> ...'ccec' is pretty nice, too, almost sounding like a > gescom track (weird distorted hip hop) remixed by the more abstract > version of AE (squeaky squiggles and minor keys shifting in the > background.)

This was one of my favorites--the frenetic word-salad MC vocal was the perfect contrast to the rather ponderous foreground bleeps and beats. One of those amazing tracks that shouldn't work, but does. The next track, "squeller," sounded like one of the LP5 tracks run through a ring modulator, with some subdued organ(-like) chords thrown in. Very catchy, in a vertigo-inducing way. I like the way they've become more visceral on this and other tracks. Check out "outpt," which has a bit of a Basic-Channel-like feel to it, or the crushingly heavy rhythms of "dropp." A bit of sonic warfare, that last one (as is "netlon sentinal"). Overall, the complex rhythm patters of LP5 are straightened out just a bit--not just a linear, never-repeating rapid-fire train of staccato sounds, but there is more of a sense of phrasing, of building patterns and transmuting them into other patterns. (That's not to say that they weren't doing this before, but at least my ears "latched on" to the structures much better.) Some tracks still seem a bit aimless to me, like "maphive 6.1," which starts with a boffo rolling tympani sample, segues into some metallic percussion samples, meanders around melodically with them for about five minutes, then turns them backwards for a minute to close. Not sure what this one was about, though the backwards tones do transition into those that begin "zeiss contarex," which is a more directed ride through an abstract soundspace of heterodynes aided by a steady 4/4 beat as it turns toward some ominous chords and a looped radio sample. Unlike most of their albums, which have a fairly momentous send-off, "pir," the final track, could almost as well have been the first. It's a pretty straightforward melody-and-counterpoint with a very, um, wet-sounding rhythm.

quoted 6 lines ...

> ... > btw- the post is referring to my review, not the EP! it sounds fresh to > my ears...aligned with LP5 but not the same, as some have claimed. even > if AE is using some of the same equipment or processors or > whatever--people, james brown used bass, guitars, drums and voice for > decades and nobody complained. sheesh.

Actually, there seemed to be a lot more post-processing of sounds compared to LP5. Overall, I find this EP a lot more sonically interesting than LP5, which, IMHO, had the most limited sound-palette of any AE album/EP. Not did EP7 use new samples and digital effects, there was more subtlety in their use of timbres. The bonus track (I ordered the UK version straight from Warpmart) is an entirely beatless exercise in digital feedback. I like it--it's not like anything else on the EP, but rather like some of the better (IMHO) academic computer-music pieces I've heard. Well-tempered it ain't, though, so I suspect some folks here would bleed from the ears if they listened to it. -Ed

quoted 6 lines EP7 is quite amazing. a few tracks wander off a little far into the

> EP7 is quite amazing. a few tracks wander off a little far into the > Actually, there seemed to be a lot more post-processing of sounds compared > to LP5. Overall, I find this EP a lot more sonically interesting than LP5, > which, IMHO, had the most limited sound-palette of any AE album/EP. Not > did EP7 use new samples and digital effects, there was more subtlety in > their use of timbres.

the reason i don't find EP7 as interesting as LP5 is that each track seems to pivot upon the use of a single (identifiable) plug-in or DSP trick... seemingly forgoing actual melodic/rhythymic development to concentrate on the ultra-sonic decimatoring of a melody line or to allow a loop crippled with noise reduction to monopolize the listener's attention. yeah, there is more post-processing, but, to me, it seems as if this is the equivalent of a summer blockbuster movie that trades off on plot for excercises in sonic special effects... but hey, that might be why it's been released as an EP and not a straight-up full-length. ,rj../ ___,">www.gl.umbc.edu/~nworth1