From Christian Stigen Larsen Sent Mon, Jul 27th 1998, 09:47
Quoting Mark Stevens (xxxx@xxxxxxx.xxxxx.xx.xx): | | My favourite Autechre album of all-time is still Amber. Why? Because | everything comes together perfectly. The purple/pink sand dunes on the | cover, the silver void on the inside cover, the silver writing, the | black CD, the titles of the tracks. All of those have created half the | album's feel and mood already -- and that's before you've even pressed | play! Agreed, agreed, agreed! Amber is a personal gem in my Autechre collection. Talking about the cover, the cover and packaging of an album really plays an essential role in transmitting a refined overall feeling. One thing is that Autechre make great music, but part of their genius is also that of delivering a complete artistic _package_. I love the "postcards" they bundled in Tri Repetae, nice photos of the work of another genius (Cunningham). All their albums come in great packaging. Also, their vidoes (only two??) are great. The Anvil Vapre video is perfect in how the visuals are matched with the audio. (They shouldve made more videos). | No other Autechre album has managed to do that (although Tri Repetae | comes close), which has been a personal disappointment for me. All Autechre albums are very distinct. Of course, there is a very clear progression from the days of Incunabula to LP5, since the albums have been released pretty regularly, and you can trace how Sean and Rob change their sound. But still they've managed to make all the albums very distinct in their feel and sound, and in a way it's better to leave the albums as they are and keep on evolving -- that's why all the Autechre albums are special. Apropos their _sound_ changing, I feel there is a "missing gap" somewhere after Amber and Anvil Vapre; for me Anvil Vapre is kind of a starting point of the more "crunchy" Autechre (although I have little knowledge of tracks released between these two works) and the difference in sound from Amber and Anvil Vapre is greater than say Chiastic Slide and LP5. Viewpoints? Anyway, it's good to have my ears massaged by the crunchy sound. -- Christian Stigen Larsen -- http://www.sublevel3.org xxxxxx@xxxx.xxxx.xx http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~chrisl/