(idm) EP7: better late than never; or beating a very dead horse.

From sun rob and his arkestra
Sent Tue, Jul 27th 1999, 03:10

well well well. 

for reference's sake: the first autechre i heard was tri repetae++; and my
favorite AE thus far is LP5. followed closely by cichlisuite and amber.

EP7 is quite amazing.  a few tracks wander off a little far into the
digital noise and sonic grit territory that worked so well to bridge the
tracks of LP5, but here they seem to be intended to stand alone.  eh.  but
the good tracks...wow.  the opener 'rpeg' is the best thing AE has done
recently, possibly ever.  hypnotic, echoey, digital and
organic/underwater/fluttery at the same time. and that stuttering at the
end kills me dead. 'ccec' is pretty nice, too, almost sounding like a
gescom track (weird distorted hip hop) remixed by the more abstract
version of AE (squeaky squiggles and minor keys shifting in the
background.)

basically, i think it's great, and it's in the process of modifying me as
a listener on how to hear it, kind of like LP5 did. there's some stuff on
here that will probably take a long time to warm to, but then there's
stuff that's immediately accessible, at least in autechre terms. 

big drawback is that nothing (i have the domestic) savaged the back cover
art.  i don't care too much, but when an artist takes such care with the
total package and the design, putting a giant logo that clashes with the
miniaturized type everywhere else is kind of crass. the nothing logo is at
least ten times bigger than even the word "autechre."  

and a great booklet full of those angular squiggle drawings, probably the
best visual counterpart to AE since chris cunningham's sinister vibrating
machines. 

rob

btw- the post is referring to my review, not the EP!  it sounds fresh to
my ears...aligned with LP5 but not the same, as some have claimed.  even
if AE is using some of the same equipment or processors or
whatever--people, james brown used bass, guitars, drums and voice for
decades and nobody complained. sheesh.