after an order with warpmart, this morsel arrived. while the keynell remix
was a disappointment (certainly not ae's best work), after hearing the
real audio clips i was eager to get my hands on cichlisuite
the mechanical recovery of cichli from the public to whom it was released
is a success:
i could use excessive compliments to describe this release, another ae
masterpiece, but what is coming across with each new record, with each new
track, is the repeated desire to visualize an image or concept with a
particular sonic device or combination of devices. in tilapia, for
instance, a single sample of a beat is repeated at such a speed that it
becomes part of the melody, certainly not its original intention -- much
as a twenty-four frames of film provides one second of kinetic illusion.
i keep hearing criticism of autechre for being formulaic; if making a
track meaningful (read, packed with information) is a formula, then booth
and brown are guilty of self-plagiarism -- and should be encouraged to
cheat for as long as possible.
i give this release 10 out of 10.
ae.cichlisuite.wap96cd
yeesland 6.23
pencha 6.14
characi 7.23
krib 3.11
tilapia 6.15
29.26
yeesland :: an exciting, moving track with the usual conflict of flanged,
varied-speed beats and wistful, distanced melody. one can almost see the
architecture of a building coming to shape with each beat -- as ties,
rivets and beams intersect and rise to tell a story
pencha :: noisebeats fighting with melody, melody fighting back -- imagine
a soundtrack to a digital burglary, with vague authorities closing in
quickly, melody building in tension, only to find the thief disappear in a
flash when the access noise drops out -- the melody remains to look
around, disappointed
characi :: the pattern of the song takes a minute to establish itself as
the patter or backdrop to a flashbulb and telephone symphony. listen to
capacitors charge up in varying speeds and "places" while dialing a phone
number to a busy connection -- most similar to the original cichli, with
filtered chords chiming at the end
krib :: i laughed at the fauxsynthpop beginning at first, but there is
nothing joyful about this piece, both sad and mercilessly short -- perhaps
ae's shortest and most intense bit. picture a glass marble being tossed
into a cup; by who, you ask? a depressed, alienated child with nothing
else to do and no one else to play with, creating a detailed, melancholy
world out of a simple toy
tilapia :: this is a grating piece at first, with chords that sound
amateurish and out-of-place, but these same chords are replaced with a
different sample, reshaping the beat pattern. except for the underlying
strings, i think that every sample here consists of beats, with sounds
longer than, say, an eighth of a second, simply percussion sped up to the
point that it is indistinguishable from other non-beat samples! this is
the illusion of film applied to sound -- good stuff.
don't miss this record
alex