From dis2 Sent Mon, May 25th 1998, 22:41
From dis2 Sent Mon, May 25th 1998, 22:41
I found a promo of the latest Autechre album in the local store today - pretty pleased with that I can tell you, practically ran home to play it. It still doesn't have a name - On the press release it's descriptively called LP5, and on the record itself it just says AUTECHRE ALBUM in big white letters. I don't really want to write anyhting too judgemental on it at the moment - I've only listened to it 3 times so far, and my opinions of autechre albums seem to change wildly over the first week or so. As usual, my fist reaction was 'what the fuck?' At first I thought I'd put it on the wrong speed. ACROYEAR2, the first track is very like Pencha off the Cichlisuite EP, with the same cluttered, superfast beats. My first reaction was to put it down to 33, but then I remembered this was an album not a single and it already was at 33. I soon got used to the speed and was grinning away with it. The main melody sounds like it was played on some old analogue synthesiser, and overall the song was pretty cool (This kind of worries me though - when I first listened to stuff like Clipper, 2nd Bad Vilbel, Cipater and Nuane, I didn't like them much, even though they're now among my all-time favourite tracks). 777 is the second track. No relation to 444 as far as I could tell. The melody is cut up and suppressed under dense Autechre-beats (that's the only way I can really describe them - they don't really have any comparisons). Strangely enough, it reminded me of that bit at the end of Superman III (I think it's 3, the one with Richard Pryor) where the woman gets covered in cables and turns into a robot. Scared the hell out of me when I was 10. Anyway, after that there's RAE. This is a lovely track, based on the nearest thing the album has to a hip hop beat covered in these beautiful warm drones. It slows down halfway through, with the drones carrying on. MELVE is just a little plinky plonky 2 minute or so track. Quite nice, like Pule of Chiastic Slide, but with a more natural xylophoney sound. VOSE IN seems more simple than most of the other stuff on the album, and grooves along quite nicely. Some characi-type modulations on top of a catchy little melody and suprisingly straightforward hip hop beats (actually they sound like one of the jungle breaks, I think it's the apache - the one that goes bass..snare...bass.snare slowed down to about 120bpm). The track ends with 2 minutes or so of seemingly random computer noises. FOLD4WRAP5 is pretty interesting. It sounds like it's slowing down gradually throughout the whole track. I'm not sure whether it actually does or whether this is some clever trick with the beats. Whatever it is, it sounds pretty damn good, with synth washes similar to those on the 7 Hills Clash celsius remix. UNDER BOAC is a bit more percussive. It sounds quite like something of Spooky's Found Sound, Concussion perhaps, but with a definite autechre twist. It's got some fucked with voices on the start - no idea what they're saying. Quite a scary track, but it's growing on me (Don't they always?) CORC is probably one of my favourites at the moment. If you've heard the last track on VVM/3EF split single, it starts off with some electronic distortion similar to what's used in that, which is then structured into a beat. A melancholy Autechreish melody goes over the top. CALIPER REMOTE is the Bucephalus Bouncing Ball type track. It's quite short with some lonely sounding chimes over the top. ARCH CARRIER is fucking great. A catchy, bouncy synth line backed by ominous stings which cut out halfway and are replaced by strange modulating noises. The melody then gradually simplifies into just a few repeated notes. This track kind of reminded me of a chase scene from a movie. It would go much better than most of the bombastic bullshit that gets plastered over movies nowadays. DRANE2 is the last track. It starts with a noise that sounds like some sort of horn instrument, albeit one not played on this planet. The boucing ball effect is back agin, this time playing different pitches of a noise that forms the melody. This is one of those hypnotic tracks, like the PIOBMX of Garbage or Stud, that autechre do so well. It doesn't seem to have any proper beats, just ones pieced together from the different elements of the song, which appear at different points throughout the song making the track build in intensity. Eventually everything cuts out apart from the original horn sound and some strange aquatic chimes. Very nice. Finally, there's a little autechre-scores-a-lilt-advert calypso bit at the end for about a minute or so. It seems like a pretty good album. I'm not sure I'm going to like it as much as Amber, Tri Repetae and Chiastic Slide, but I probably will, as over the last few years I've turned from an autechre fan into an autechre fanatic, as any of my mates will no doubt testify when I get pissed, put Chiastic on and start going on about chiasms and beat structures. As such I'm probably not the best guy to be critical of it. With maybe the exception of Arch Carrier, it's still pretty obscure stuff, and I think the Smash Hits cover still isn't really on the cards. Not that any of this matters to most people on this list, who'll probably be buying it regardless of whether I said it was an absolute piece of shit or the most amazing thing ever in the history of sound. Well, hopefully this'll give you a better idea of what to expect. Oh yeah - the press release said there's a new single out in late July, adn they're playing Glastonbury. Woo-hoo! Dan Shoebridge NP: Smokin' by Super Furry Animals. Quarter of an hour break until I put the album on again...