From Nuutti-Iivari Merilainen Sent Thu, Feb 4th 1999, 10:31
back when the black dog and autechre peel sessions circulated in various electronic formats, i did not bother to chase after them as i believed that eventually they would be released in one form or another. it seems that i have turned to a materialist, but i really enjoy having the peel session triplet as tangible objects, not just bits on my hard disk. yes, it is the music that counts, but being more or less marginal in a commercial sense, it is important that people who appreciate the music should support the artists that compose it. i am not putting up a fight with those who do not care about the issue of copyright, just stating bluntly that those who deem the music worthy enough for listening should pay for the privilege to do so (and i do not mean the monthly connection fee for the local isp). but enough of that. temporally, the autechre ep falls between 'amber' and 'tri repetae' (as far as i can judge from the actual transmission date) and at least for me, the music reflects this period. angry, effect-heavy sounds with the beginnings of the mathematical-sounding rhythm programming found from 'tri repetae' onwards. 'drane' is an absolutely stunning track, the string layer modulated with something that sounds like heavy machinery. since i got the record today and listened to it just once before coming to work, i have yet to reflect on 'milk dx' and 'inhake 2'. on a first listen, the ep is a perfect addition to anyone's autechre collection. the black dog ep is what black dog was. hyperactive rhythm programming with rather difficult twists and turns, beautiful melodies and very interesting chord intervals. as with the autechre ep, i got it today so no deeper thoughts as of yet, but the ep does bring back a lot of good memories from the 'artificial intelligence' series era. the boards of canada ep is stunning, with 'olson' as the high moment. i especially like the effect of the sampled dissonant choir (sampled from 2001, i would gather) running behind the rhythm and melody. it creates an eerie effect, and i can really see the monolith floating in space (consequently, a few weeks back i was playing an ambient set and the organisers had set up a video screen in the room; guess what was showing?). also, the change of rhythm from broken beats to an overlaid straight one nearer to the end is a touch of grace. the vocal sample and the seagulls give a nice ambient feeling, too. as for the others, 'aquarius' and 'happy cycling', they are not as strong on their own, but as a collective whole, the ep gives everything i could hope for just one record. 'olson' makes this ep a almost better than the first boards of canada on skam. as for the design, i still find designers republic to be one of the designer collectives worthy of respect. just the facts, nothing else. blank space is beautiful. i do have a bias on this, because i tend to go towards clean layouts and readability in what small bits i do that could be considered as graphic design. i have been reading too much on visual display of information lately, so there is one bias as well. but i like the covers in all their plainness (compare to autechre's last album - the round cardboard sleeves are a touch of genius). i am scraping the surface here, but i wanted to bring forth my subjective view on this matter. some might feel that warp are cashing in; i think they are not. for those that are not under the umbrella to hear the actual peel transmissions and are too lazy and/or too morally rigid (like me) to hunt after the bootlegs, this triplet is essential. on a side note, a 74-minute slice of the abovementioned ambient set will be available on-line in realaudio really soon, in addition to my other set at the same party with more difficult dance material, which was mostly autechre and gescom tracks with some boards of canada, link and others thrown in. i will throw a note on the list when they are on-line. -- diversion : nuutti-iivari meriläinen : gordon at diversion dot org communications : http colon slash slash www dot diversion dot org slash