Adam Piontek said:
Somewhere after that [between LP5 and Confield], however, while I can still
appreciate the music,
it sounds more like experiments they were still working on up until the
day the album was released. It's awesome, interesting stuff - even
visceral and emotional - but on a very different level. It grows on me,
but in a very different way, and when I want to listen to it again it's
much less often than their older work and for different reasons.
That's an interesting take on their more recent work and somewhat bleeds
into my current thoughts when listening to Autechre's last three major
works.
I have been thinking of Autechre's albums, beginning with Confield, in terms
of dynamic systems, Deleuze and Guattari-like rhizomes, perpetually nomadic
journeys, and various other "wandering" or non-closed-ended metaphors.
To see later Autechre tracks as "...experiments they were still working on
up until the day the album was released" can perhaps be taken to mean that
there was an attempt at not approaching a finality, not declaring "it's done
now, that's it." Each track is perpetually and forever (as long as the
music exists) a "work in progress." In doing so, Autechre might be
exploring various developments and tangential thoughts within the music as
their creative imaginations and inclinations allow. It seems that
throughout each song, many changes and shifts - subtle or not - are
occurring, eventually giving rise to what is essentially a new song or a
"song within a song." If you were to think of an Autechre track as a
plant-based organism (like a garlic bulb that sprouts in your cupboard), it
would be sending new growth all over the place, green shoots adding or
removing elements from the original center as it modifies itself. What we
hear is the sonic translation of this behavior, a process of change,
transition, as well as stagnation.
While this does not particularly pay attention to questions of aesthetics or
emotional appeal, it has helped me develop another layer of appreciation for
Autechre (and particularly their later output). Perhaps what makes the
difference for some listeners is this lack of linearity in the later work,
whereas it was very much present in earlier ones.
Rob
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