From Nuutti-Iivari Merilainen Sent Tue, Jul 21st 1998, 11:27
From Nuutti-Iivari Merilainen Sent Tue, Jul 21st 1998, 11:27
In a world where commodification of information has become the norm and anonymity is scarce, Autechre are not willing to participate. Gradually they have shifted from semirepresentational covers to just covers, with nothing but the information to keep track of the physical location of the music. The CD cover of their fifth album is matte black with a silent carving of the words "autechre" and "ae" on it, accompanied by a sticker with the required producer, label and copyright information. The inlay is a plain cardboard rectangle with track names. The CD is blank. The vinyl covers are of plain recycled marsana cardboard with a half-circle access cut for the records and the same sticker as on the CD. The word "autechre" is embossed almost unnoticeably on the sleeve. The records themselves are inside white cardboard inner sleeves with the other half being rectangular and the accessible end cut to match the half-circle of the vinyl. Track names are printed white on black on the label on each side. Unless one is well versed in the electronic music circuit, it is not possible to even start to guess what the music is like. The music is information, a constant flux of change in varispeed data. According to Gibson, Cyberspace is "A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity." (William Gibson: Neuromancer, 1984) Autechre's fifth, unnamed album could as well be the aural equivalent to Gibson's Cyberspace. It is an audio space yet explored, an uncharted territory of the non-mathematics and non-logic of emotion. It is a rain of data structures in a machine-generated landscape. Like all uncharted territories, this one is not without its difficulties. It is emotionally very hard to access without prior experience with previous Autechre records. As with any analytical field of science, one must first study the basics before being engulfed by advanced theory. Such is the case with this album as well; to begin to appreciate it, it is almost required to start from the beginning, from "Incunabula" to "Amber" and "Tri Repetae", "Chiastic Slide" to the fifth Autechre album (not forgetting the intermediate single releases). Though the progression is not really required as one can just listen, it helps to hear Autechre's progress from the soothing ambience through unparalleled emotional response to mathematics and to the abstraction of data on the latest album. It is unjust to even to try to classify or label the record in any way. Though it is initially very hard to access, the rewards are great. This is a very involving record, definitely something that can not be played in the background (unless one has unparalleled skills of concentration). The last track has several minutes of silence between two songs. The last one goes yet unnamed. -- nuutti-iivari meriläinen -> xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxx.xxx : diversion communications technostructuralist + information architect + media designer