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This is a review written by David Hemingway that came with the printed press release for the Draft 7.30 cassette. Thought some of you might be interested in it... Intriguingly, the oblique track titles on Autechre's last album referenced the vivid but unreal mental images experienced in childhood, a white tasteless protein that is the basis of cheese and is used in the production of plastics, adhesives, paints and foods, a child's decongestant, the incorrect use of words and ecological communities living in still water. Confield initially seemed an impenetrable album but - like the recent "Gantz Graf" EP - with repeated listenings was revealed as one of Autechre's best. On the release, Sean Booth and Rob Brown created music that was akin to staring at one of the wonders of the world through a corrugated metal fence or (as Simon Reynolds has suggested) equivalent to the most abstruse graffiti, "where typography is convoluted to the point of illegibility". Autechre's early releases - Incunabula and Amber - were corrupted modifications of techno and electro, shot through with a curious poignancy. Their most recent releases, however, have largely ditched expected melodies in place of increasingly complex machine music. Last year's Confield seemed to push this aesthetic to its logical apex. In Confield, you can hear the detritus of electro, the "trace memories of Chicago and Detroit" (David Toop in The Wire), the vestiges of ruined song. Opening track "VI Scose Poise" sounded like the sound of a ball bearing spinning around a metal dish, "Eidetic Casein" has been compared to R&B from an alternate cosmos. "Bine" took its name from the flexible stem of climbing/twining plants and provided a sonic approximation of this phenomenon. Confield could be electronica's equivalent of gnobotics: In the words of Neumu's Philip Sherburne Confield was "one of the purest approximations of 'machine music' we've heard yet". ...cont |
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One of the greatest misplaced beliefs of the 20th century was that technology could or would resolve everything. Listening to notorious tinkers Booth and Brown, it's easy to imagine that the duo are a celebration of, or at least hugely inspired by malfunctioning technology; technology gone wrong; the abuse of technology, technology's defilement. Their music sounds tarnished. Their records are swamped in glitches of static and murmurs of feedback, crammed with unplaceable sound. Their Tri Repetae LP even bore the inscription "incomplete without surface noise." "I don't think we're actually celebrating machines going wrong," Booth has said, "But we don't care if they do, if we can then understand how and why and use them. If machinery's going wrong it's simply frustrating. The music we create is really considered but we're not afraid to let things do what they're not supposed to." It's frequently reported that Booth and Brown are offered early versions of computer equipment to put through their paces, to record on, to test on, to abuse; message board myth has even suggested that the duo work with "devices apparently cadged from the army". More recently, they're reported to have been modifying software rather than hardware, allowing them the opportunity to shape their materials in greater detail. "303s and 606s are amazing," Autechre were quoted in Modulations - A History of Electronic Music (Caipirinha Press), "The aesthetics of using those two machines together is totally beautiful. But things get really interesting when you've got the opportunity to create you own environment in which to work, because obviously, the aesthetic is completely under your control." ...continued |
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With this software, Booth and Brown claim to make music that evolves at the same pace as their brains. "You can have your entire track changing piece by piece," the duo told The Wire, "And that's what we're into. We like things like a puzzle where it's revealing itself and changing. And you can almost follow it because it works the same pace as your brain works. The trick is not to get it to work faster or slower but to get it in tune with yourself." I've always assumed that the Autechre moniker was a corruption of a sign outside a car workshop just down the road from Warp Records old Sheffield office: 'Autocentre' re-imagined by a duo who grew up on graffiti and electro. In Energy Flash (Picador), Simon Reynolds has even wondered if the 'aut' in their name stand for autism: "Listening, the mind's eye conjurs up a vision of two small boys surrounded by tekno toys, lost in their own little pre-verbal world of chromatics and texture and contour." Interestingly, Autechre have compared their drive with the inquisitiveness of infancy: "We're driven by a child-like fascination and a total curiosity, a love for an aesthetic without really understanding why." "We listen to a lot of our new stuff and it seems to be coming from somwhere other than what we can understand," clained the duo, around the release of Chiastic Slide, "That's probably why it seems slightly magical, I suppose." ...continued |
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At the time of writing, I've not heard the new Autechre album, I've little idea what Booth and Brown have coalesced with their "tekno toys." Though it could be a decoy, Autechre's recent "Gantz_Graf" EP is presumably the best hint as to how the new Autechre album will sound; the most dependable blueprint as to where Autechre are now. "Gantz_Graf" merges dense layers of toxic noise, ear-shredding frequencies and even, submerged in the digital mayhem, singing. "Dial"'s shreds voices and electronic gurgles beneath a rhythm that almost convinces your brain that it could be danced to. On the EP's final track, "Cap.IV", (chapter four?) an increasingly manic rhythm builds over curiosly orchestral chord structures, as more voices slur and warp against the electro clatter. Critiques often seems to [suggest] that Autechre are some how being difficult, wilfully perverse, obnoxious. But for my money, Autechre are absolutely lush... They're fucking banging, basically. the end |
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Nice to see somebody "gets it". Thanks xceque, however you're pronounced... ;) |
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great |
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long time I dont see you at loopz´s |
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i pronounce it 'eggs: yech!" because i dont like eggs |
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Been busy... |
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i always pronounced it like execute with out the t |
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it's pronounced 'zec', you silly billies. Do you pronounce 'xylophone' as 'ekzylofone'? I don't think so! Do you pronounce 'discotheque' as 'disco-tek-we'? No you bleedin don't! :D |
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ZEC? what the fuck execue is way cooler |
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However if you stick an 's' or another 'x' on the end it becomes 'sex'! |
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yeah, well, if you switch the letters around in my name, and add some and take some away, it spelles EXECUE SOUNDS BETTER THAN ZEC |
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if it was pronounced 'zec', should it be spelled 'xeque'? |
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nice interview btw... |
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nice bit of info there =) i like Booth's quote; "The trick is not to get it to work faster or slower but to get it in tune with yourself." |
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thanks... that was great. |
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