I feel I may have missed the boat with the majority of the discussion over Booth and Brown's newest release, but due to the exceedingly harsh criticism Autechre has been receiving over their latest effort something must be said. I find it inconceivable that individuals who purport to enjoy so much of Autechre's backcatalog are failing to find something wondrous and touching within Confield. Are they really listening? Do they even understand what they are listening to? Since LP5, Autechre's releases have had a tendency to initially "fall on deaf ears", so to speak, garnering negative comments and reviews in the first weeks/months after release, only to later be collectively embraced as groundbreaking music with much to share for those who listen.
The complexity of the music defies easy acquisition of a definite initial impression. Even now after years of listening I can pop in almost any Autechre release and still occasionally find new sounds and relationships between layers that I have never noticed before. The subliminal subtleties contained in Autechre's music are where its true power lies, and are what most of the recent naysayers are totally overlooking. If you don't like Confield after 2-4 initial listens, leave it alone for a while; a few weeks should easily suffice. When you come back to it, I guarantee you'll hear more than you did in your previous excursions. To immediately judge this album is akin to flipping through a 600 page book in 5 minutes and afterwards attempting to give a detailed plot synopsis. It can't be reliably done. No one has fully absorbed Confield yet in the limited time it has been available to our ears. So, save yourself from ignorance and spare the list your criticism til you're sure you're hearing everything. :)
-unit