Autechre: NTS Session 4

AUTECHRE: NTS SESSION 4 (2018)

1) frane casual; 2) mirrage; 3) column thirteen; 4) shimripl casual; 5) all end.

General verdict: Two hours of almost nothing seems like a pretty natural conclusion to eight hours of nearly something, but that does not prevent it from sucking on the gut level.

I suppose that even Autechre can get tired from a four-week residence at a radio station, because this is precisely what this final two-hour marathon sounds like — tired and out of breath. With but five tracks on it (and the fifth one quite a fraudulent one at that), the fourth volume offers nothing by way of new ideas, except serving as a dutiful wrap-up for all those who live on borrowed time and do not mind having it stretched like a nylon hose because they got nothing better to do anyway than to listen to a single sample looped for eternity.

So here is a quick runthrough. ʽFrane casualʼ is fourteen minutes spent staring at a conveyor belt that splurges out the same robotic part at regular intervals. ʽMirrageʼ is six minutes spent wading in the early morning through a sticky nebula of electronic fog that looks, smells, and feels exactly the same in any given direction. ʽColumn thirteenʼ is seventeen minutes spent stuck in an alien elevator, with the friendly repair technicians convinced, for some reason, that these seventeen minutes will be much better spent with the muzak remaining on rather than off. ʽShimripl casualʼ is twenty four minutes spent in a giant empty refrigerator, breathing in dry ice clouds and staring at all the complex sub-systems of blinking lights.

Finally, the magnum opus ʽall endʼ is one track which, I have to be honest, I finally did not have the patience to experience from top to bottom — or perhaps I did, but I might have fallen asleep near the beginning and woken up towards the end of its fifty-eight minute running length. Yes, that is right: the thing clocks in at 58:21, and you can get in, get out, get in again, get out again, get up, get down, get with it, and get under it at any single particular moment: most of the time it will just be an ocean of calm electronic noise, sometimes quieter, sometimes louder, sometimes with the waves hissing and foaming, sometimes with subtle undercurrents, but mostly about as consistent as any real ocean with a quiet, stable breeze blowing over it. Chill!

Now, actually, all of these things kind of make sense within the overall context of the NTS Sessions. Since the basic idea behind all of them is to have more or less the same fun that you do with Youtube videos when playing them at 0.25 speed, it makes all the more sense to give the fans a special two-hour long goodbye, just to make you properly savor and digest all the tiny microcell elements that constitute a goodbye. Therefore, as far as multi-part artistic gestures go, I have no problem with the album. But it goes without saying that getting it to properly «register» is equally hard on its own or as part of the entire 8-hour experience: where each of the previous sessions had at least occasional moments that could grab my attention, this one is background electronic muzak that makes a very good job at making you treat it as such. If there are actually people in this world that are not doing chores while the session is on, Jeff Lebowski promises to eat his heart out.

Concluding this entire sub-section, I must stress once again the surprise at all the glowing reviews of the NTS Sessions — not that there were many of them in the first place, since Autechre are long past the peak of their fame, but most of those that did come out spent their digital space gushing at the many wonders and thrills offered by the experience. Personally, I am just not convinced that a semi-improvised eight-hour session by an aging avantgarde electronic duo could be consistently wonderful and thrilling even theoretically — though the first volume, as I have already written, did offer a somewhat fresh and exciting take on the old formula. Perhaps it is all about the ambitiousness: people, sometimes unknowingly, are so hungry for monumental artistic feats these days that the mere introduction of a Gargantuan gesture like this one gets them all aroused. Or perhaps Autechre have simply mutated into that particular kind of dinosaur which only stimulate the aut bene, aut nihil principle when people write about them.

Regardless, I have to state that NTS Sessions are a partial success on the microlevel (there is still potential in the old formula) and a general failure on the macrolevel — not only is the eight hour length no longer an impressive feat of originality by itself (sure, the whole thing runs longer than The Disintegration Loops, but who really cares?), but I am afraid that the entire «less is more» principle has ambiently hummed its last ambient hum just as well. Other than a tiny bunch of niche fanatics, this kind of product is not likely to appeal to anybody, and what once used to be a feat of free thinking and artistic exploration has turned into a routine way of making a living. Maybe I am dead wrong, and maybe, as one particularly gushing reviewer wrote, "itʼs as if the preceding decades of work were acts of research leading to that point". But to my mind, thatʼs like saying the same about something like Tom Waitsʼ Bad As Me — a good record that shows tremendous professionalism and maturity, but does not tell us anything about Tom Waits and his badass attitudes that we have not already learned decades ago. And really, with Autechre it is even more confusing, because how exactly do you rate and assess an Autechre record if you do not use originality of approach as the single defining parameter? (The only way in which you could salvage something like Confield, with its obviously clear-cut departure from tradition that even the coarsest layman could observe). I have no answer here, and I doubt anybody has — certainly nobody, so far, who has ever written anything about them. 

Autechre: NTS Session 3

AUTECHRE: NTS SESSION 3 (2018)

1) clustro casual; 2) splesh; 3) tt1pd; 4) acid mwan idle; 5) fLh; 6) glos ceramic; 7) g1 e1; 8) ninefly; 9) shimripl air; 10) icari.

General verdict: More of the same old: this oneʼs largely for all fans of digital balls clanging against each other.

With this third session, the downward slide continues: it has even less of a personal identity than the second one, and most of the tracks intuitively feel like unnecessary variations on ideas that have already been presented in better form. So, instead of trying to come up with generalisations that might sound pompous and mean jackshit, let me just make a few brief comments on the individual tracks here:

ʽclustro casualʼ — eleven minutes of busting particles in a small electrified container, with traces of bass rhythmics and synthesized ambience; the track outlives its coolness by the end of the second minute. ʽspleshʼ — nine minutes of Pong in a deep underground cavern; at least there are occasional new players with originally sounding balls joining the game from time to time, so the nine minutes are not a complete waste. ʽtt1pdʼ — twenty-two minutes of crackling electricity and humming wires, almost scary in a few places where the overdubbing gets out of hand, but it takes a LONG time to get to those places from anywhere. ʽacid mwan idleʼ — twelve minutes of a complex, but single, repetitive pulse that may be their idea of an automatically generated alien SOS; in any case, believing in that interpretation and getting in that game might be the only way you could actually enjoy all twelve minutes of it.

ʽfLhʼ: now this here is one track that I really like. It almost seems attached to a basic 4/4 tempo (though the groove is actually skewed), against which the electronic pulses engage in complex twisted patterns in a King Crimson-type manner. The tempo / melody combination seems fairly unusual for Autechre, and the slight subtle tone changes of the pulses from beginning to end are fun to trace. Lighter and less typical than everything else on here, although the trackʼs special qualities will inevitably get lost in this ocean of sound.

Moving on, ʽglos ceramicʼ is thirteen more minutes of humming electric wires, although midway through they change direction and the track becomes more industrial in nature, with jackhammer percussion a-plenty, and the humming largely replaced by clanging. The change is curious, but it only happens once, and I would rather go back to my Einstürzende Neubauten records than relisten to the second half again anyway. ʽg 1 e 1ʼ is another slightly unusual track that may or may not show some Fripp/Eno influence, beginning with a minimalist «piano» melody and then transitioning into an extended avantgarde «guitar solo» (or maybe «bagpipe solo», whichever analogy you find closest) — another relative standout that does not at least remind me of any of those guysʼ past glories.

The last three tracks, however, are a borefest. ʽnineFlyʼ is ten more minutes of Pong, only this time with the actual sound of the ball hitting the wall taken out and only the echoes of its trajec­tories audible to us victims. ʽshimripl airʼ is sevn minutes of symbolic ambience — symbolic, because the sound is barely audible; it is like a musical picture of a silent stream of air that actually tries to portray it realistically — not the most interesting audio experience, believe me. Finally, ʽicariʼ is... guess what, twenty more minutes of Pong, albeit with slightly more complex trajectories than before.

As you can see, occasional fresh ideas are still popping through on occasion (ʽfLhʼ and ʽg1 e1ʼ in particular, though I have seen several fans dismiss ʽg1 e1ʼ as something too «un-Autechre», which is probably why I singled out and liked the track), but mostly it just continues to seem that the inspiration / innovation / careful pre-planning were largely spent on the first two hours, and now the boys are largely back on autopilot.

Autechre: NTS Session 2

AUTECHRE: NTS SESSION 2 (2018)

1) elyc9 7hres; 2) six of eight (midst); 3) xflood; 4) gonk tuf hi; 5) dummy casual pt2; 6) violvoic; 7) sinistrailab air; 8) wetgelis casual interval; 9) e0; 10) peal ma; 11) 9 chr0; 12) turbile epic casual, stpl idle.

General verdict: Messy, unpredictable, unreliable, and ultimately boring — so much more like the good old Confield-era Autechre to which we have gotten used to in this century.

Unfortunately, Autechreʼs second week of residence at NTS seems to have... not exactly drain their inspiration, but rather steer them back into their comfort zone of predictable unpredictability. It is almost as if they suddenly realized that things were becoming way too structured and orderly, to the extent that, God forbid, somebody other than a hardcore Autechre devotee could begin to enjoy their music — and so NTS Session 2 hastily corrects that embarrassing mistake by making the beats more fussy and complex, the sonic effects more percussive and jarring, the programmed melodies more dissonant and disjointed; in short, everything we have known, loved, and hated about Autechre since Confield.

This means that, theoretically, all I could do is try and make a few comments on individual tracks, but even those are hard to come up with, since nothing about these particular compositions sounds particularly fresh or original to my ears. Sometime after the first hour of the usual casseroles clanging against each other in a randomly teleported kitchen, the session begins to chill out: lengthy tracks such as ʽe0ʼ introduce an element of ambience, which is a relief after all the chaos, but except for giving your ears a break, there is nothing particularly interesting about that ambience, either.

Since there is not a single track here that managed to strike a chord with me, I will just say what I think about the five of them that go over the ten-minute mark and, thus, must have been of special importance to Booth and Brown. The first one, ʽelyc9 7hresʼ, is a good example of the general judgement offered above: ten minutes of nearly melodyless explosive electronic percus­sion, with no buildup whatsoever, so you learn all about those festering sonic bubbles in the first twenty seconds and then have to repeat your lesson for ten more minutes. The 15-minute long ʽviolvoicʼ sounds like a fine-tuned digestive system of a stationary android: for fifteen minutes, you get to hear him swallow, digest, burp, fart, and defecate, very occasionally taking short quiet breaks as the next cartload of food is brought in. (If it sounds intriguing on paper, believe me, it will not sound nearly as intriguing once you get the actual hang of it). ʽe0ʼ is the first lengthy ambient track, with a nice swirling, spiraling rhythm track that sounds like nothing Brian Eno has nor already introduced to the world a dozen times. ʽ9 chr0ʼ is fifteen more minutes of messy electronic digestion, except in a slightly more claustrophobic environment.

Finally, the pièce de résistance on the album is arguably its final track — it has the (actually meaningful) word ʽepicʼ in the title, it clocks in at 21:30, and its soundscape is clearly supposed to be the most creepy and intimidating on the record, with a suspenseful vision of some hellish alien environment that, for once, takes you outside the borders of Autechreʼs computerized micro­cosm and transfers you into a parallel dimension. I really wish I could enjoy it more than I do; unfortunately, twenty minutes of an almost unchanging soundscape have largely outlived their value ever since we learned all about the limits of the ambient genre in the Seventies and the Eighties — and, even more unfortunately, the atmosphere in question does not so much trigger any fresh associations in my mind as it reminds me of certain (not half-bad, actually) generic soundscapes in old PC games (say, Phantasmagoria II: A Puzzle Of Flesh, if you ever happen to remember that one from more than twenty years ago).

I can admit that there may be quite a few fans out there who will enjoy the second session more than the first, since it so much less rhythmic and, therefore, gives the riff-raff nothing to latch on. But to me, it seems that at this point, even if Autechre have clearly ceased to be a relevant force in modern music, they are still doing more interesting things when they are doing them to a beat than when they are doing them to a primordial soup.

Autechre: NTS Session 1

AUTECHRE: NTS SESSION 1 (2018)

1) t1a1; 2) bqbqbq; 3) debris_funk; 4) l3 ctrl; 5) carefree counter dronal; 6) north spiral; 7) gonk steady one; 8) four of seven; 9) 32a_reflected.General verdict: 

Just one more average journey through the world where all older genres of music have been substituted by their robotic counterparts. Which actually makes perfect sense.

Well, instead of five years and twenty volumes, they only waited two years and gave us four volumes — although, with each of the sessions running around 120 minutes, the total still exceeds elseq 1–5 by about three hours. And once again, of course, like a total moron I have to listen to it all and offer my uneducated judgement on whether Autechre have once again rolled out a steaming pile of robo-shit, or whether they have once again taken music in an unpredictable, mind-blowing, trail-blazing direction that only a select few will be able to follow in an age when electronic sound has become the default soundtrack of its generation, but not quite in the way in which Autechre might have envisioned it twenty-five years ago.

All four sessions were recorded by Autechre during a four-week residency at the experimental-avantgarde NTS radio station in London in April 2018, and then released in all possible formats (digital download, CD, vinyl) as a single package, or as four different albums, whichever you prefer; like elseq, I will cover each volume separately, since it is not possible to write a single review for eight hours of music (even Autechre music), and also because this time around, there are clearly very different vibes to each of the sessions.

In all honesty, I originally made a vow that if the first couple of tracks turned out to be «unlistenable» (that is, would largely consist of chaotic robo-noise), I would bypass the pledge of completism and simply ignore the projectʼs existence — not even because of the life-is-too-short reason (I mean, who are we kidding: most of us are still spending most of that life on trivialities, no matter how short it is), but simply because I would have nothing to say about it anyway, other than reiterate my usual complaints about Autechre making music for the little green men who live in transistors and capacitors, rather than us mortals.

But I was pleasantly surprised — Session 1 actually turns out to be the most structured and sensible release from Autechre in quite a few years. Naturally, it is not «one hundred and twenty minutes of totally awesome music with not a second of time wasted without reason»; but it is the closest they ever came to creating their own jam-based album, sort of like an electronic equi­valent of a Cream or Grateful Dead live performance. Most of the compositions are groove-based, with steady beats providing a welcome anchor while additional electronic tracks supply the «improvisational» melodic content (hey, I even said «melodic»), whose patterns can stay largely the same throghout or can actually shift and develop (this is the only thing that makes twenty-minute long behemoths like ʽgonk steady oneʼ bearable).

Contrary to gushing fans and reviewers, I do not discern any particular innovation in these grooves, sticking to my usual guns (Autechre pretty much reached their innovative peak at the turn of the millennium and have been riding the coattails of their own past glories ever since), but the session does not really need to be innovative — what we have here is a fairly normal, run-of-the-mill chillout party hosted by the duoʼs robot friends, and for once, I feel like I am actually being invited to that party. Besides, the grooves themselves demonstrate a surprisingly high level of diversity, and there are also faint traces of an almost conceptual structure, rather than just a collection of randomly scattered, messy ideas.

For the first eighteen minutes, your senses get pummelled by the slow, heavy, straightforward, almost blues-rockish beat of ʽt1a1ʼ; against that beat, screechy and squeaky soundwaves create the effect of an electronic swamp, festering with iridium toads and silicone mosquitoes. Once the effect has acquired an almost lulling quality to it, the track segues smoothlessly into ʽbqbqbqʼ, eleven minutes of a quietly bubbling electronic soup, simmering in your average nano-cauldron on your average nano-stove — also surprisingly steady and relaxing for an Autechre release. Then itʼs back to harsh, groovy business with ʽdebris_funkʼ, whose rare usage of actual words in the title is quite appropriate for the actual music (the groove does sound like it was clumsily re-assembled from a dropped, broken, and scattered funk rhythm), and ʽl3 ctrlʼ, whose ultra-speedy «click rhythm» actually forms a backdrop to a real crescendo of sound — a gradually assembled storm of dissonant ambience, wild enough to justify the presence of ʽcarefree counter dronalʼ, a relatively short glitchy interlude before the next part of the show.

That second part is where things begin to get rougher and also a bit more predictable (ʽNorth Spiralʼ reminds me of the familiar «Autechre plays Pong» territory), and I am not sure that ʽgonk steady oneʼ really deserves a 22-minute running length even with all the rhythmic and textural changes that it introduces along the way — but it is structured somewhat like a progressive, multi-part electronic suite, and I am sure fans will have a great day picking it apart and slobbering all over the individual components. In comparison, ʽfour of sevenʼ sounds almost like a retro sonic tribute to the old schools of acid house and IDM, from 808 State to Aphex Twin — it is almost danceable, with a trippy electronoboogie bass line and looping melodic overtones, not to mention the good old cosmic space vibe. And then it leads into ʽ32a reflectedʼ, which acts as a bona fide ambient conclusion to the whole experience: seven minutes of kaleidoscopic bliss, although some of the tones might be too sharp for listeners with sensitive ears.

In short, this is not so much Autechre trying to be innovative as it is simply Autechre jamming around with decent ideas — it probably did not take them too much time, with all the experience on their hands, to come up with these grooves, but that might be precisely the reason why, even with all the insane length of the experience, this is still their most accessible piece of product in years, if not decades.

Autechre: Elseq 5

AUTECHRE: ELSEQ 5 (2016)

1) pendulu casual; 2) spTh; 3) spaces how V; 4) freulaeux; 5) oneum.

I wish I could say that Autechre have saved the best for last, but this sort of implies that I have an idea of what is best for Autechre, and I do not. I am, however, almost ready to say that they saved the most diverse bunch of tracks for us — on this fifth volume, there is no single overriding theme, rather a little bit of everything, in a final recapitulation of all the sides of their musical philosophy that matter. Or pretend to matter.

So, the first track is more wind whistling down the naked electric wire, along with some more wind fluttering in the electronic sails of a ship that takes nine minutes to get nowhere in particu­lar, with each of the nine minutes completely equivalent to any other one. Then, ʽspThʼ kicks in with some rhythm, and the sonic snaps and blasts take on a slightly more melodic quality, if you can take «resonance», «reverberation», and «echo» as synonyms for «melody», that is. ʽSpaces how Vʼ, accidentally true to a part of its title, does throw you out in space, with an astral perspective represented by the usual means (canvas synth hum + quasi-randomized bleeps and beeps of passing unidentified flying objects). ʽFreulauexʼ is the liveliest track of them all, with a deconst­ructed techno rhythm that still remains marginally danceable, while in the background somebody seems to be conducting research on dynamite at a distance of about fifty miles away.

Finally, ʽoneumʼ could be called the «grand finale» — not only of the fifth volume, but of the entire project in general, as it is the most sonically fleshed out, loud, grand, and ominous track of them all, with a high-pitched, disturbing, but solemn electronic pattern running uninterrupted in the background and auxiliary broken up mini-patterns quickly rising to the surface and extingui­shing themselves in the foreground. Does this make it sound grand? It's not that grand, really. It's the kind of track that they could probably knock off in a couple of hours these days, given their overall expertise and stuff. But it has a familiar emotional ring, unlike so many of these Elseq sequences that have no emotional ring whatsoever.

All of which leads us to the final question — so was this project really worth it? Five CDs worth of new material, was this some sort of big, ambitious, rejuvenating musical statement to shatter the bounds and coils of modern electronica? Well, don't take my words at face value, given that my electronic expertise still remains limited, but I dare say bull. There are some moments on this mammoth (most of them contained on the promising, but disappointing first volume) that could rank up there with Autechre's best, but on the whole, this is simply the hugest demonstration that Confield brought the duo to a dead end — as off-putting and puzzling as that release was, not a single Autechre album since that time has truly built up on its reputation and promise, and this is just the latest and greatest in a series of attempts to jump over their own heads. A futile enter­prise, that, considering that they lost their heads with Confield. At least in 2001, this was exciting. In 2016, for the most part, this is boring — and bland. They are not pushing any boundaries for­ward; they are still working within a set formula, except we are still sometimes trapped by the illusion that there's some sort of revolution going on when there isn't. Of course, if you are one of the few for whom listening to Confield is as normal and ordinary a practice as to others it is listening to Mozart, or the Beatles, or even Miley Cyrus, that gives you an entirely different perspective; but that's a highly specialized thing, and I hate getting into that sort of nuances. I just hope they won't take five more years and come out with a 20-volume album — if this «more Autechre is better Autechre» shit ain't stopping any time soon, I'm definitely not going to bother.

Autechre: Elseq 4

AUTECHRE: ELSEQ 4 (2016)

1) acdwn2; 2) foldfree casual; 3) latentcall; 4) artov chain; 5) 7th slip.

After two highly disappointing volumes, it would be near impossible for the next one to continue the same trend — and indeed, we have a return to shorter tracks, more dynamic flows, and less arrogant minimalism here. I think that this one is the archetypal «glitch» entry in the series, since most of the tracks are dominated by various types of glitching... but I'd rather take endless glit­ching over 20-minute long crackle-and-hum sequences anyway.

Only one of these numbers, ʽfoldfree casualʼ, runs on softer fuel, largely free of harsh percussion (except for one brief section in the middle) and dependent on «electronic church music» sustained synth textures in the background, arguably as close as Autechre are willing to come to conventio­nal understanding of «beauty» in this entire project. But it lies between ʽacdwn2ʼ and ʽlatentcallʼ, both of which thrive on crazyass percussion loops and glitches a-plenty, and also allow for some build-up elements (which essentially means gradually adding extra synth overdubs in the back­ground, as if we were slowly zooming out into space). I cannot say that anything here surprises or astounds me in any way, but at least the tracks are structured like glitchy mini-suites, with intro­ductions, themes, bridges, and codas, rather than a single musical idea stretched out to 20 minutes because we're the first artists who ever had the artistic thought of stretching a single musical idea out to 20 minutes (not really).

The last two tracks are the most technically unlistenable ones, but they are also mercifully short: ʽartov chainʼ briefly returns you to the «whistling down the wire» sonic patterns of the previous record, and ʽ7th slipʼ is the ultimate in tape manipulation (sounds like somebody recorded some­thing, sped it up ten times, then slowed it down fifty times, then put it on vinyl, played it with shaky hands, and there you go — a direct line to God for six and a half minutes). That last track sure is a fresh sonic experience for me, but whether this should be cause for celebration remains a big question. But at least you cannot accuse them of being boring.

Even with all the «energy» here, though, it is still hard to get rid of the feeling that, somehow, there is neither any true joy of creativity behind these tracks, nor any particular meaning — it's just one of those many «woke up with a lazy desire to engage in some glitching» days. It used to be so that this music, to me, brought on images of hardworking nanites running about their busi­ness in an electronic nano-anthill; the nanites of ʽacdwn2ʼ and ʽlatentcallʼ, however, seem rather tired of life and are continuing to run about their business just because they have nothing else to do — had they had a choice, they'd much rather sit by the fireplace and read Moby Dick, but no, they are still being put to work by relentless slavedrivers. Viewed in that light, Elseq 4 might even be hilarious — Dad-Electronica! — but to do that, you'd need to listen to all of Autechre in chronological order again, and the human life span cannot come to terms with that.

Autechre: Elseq 3

AUTECHRE: ELSEQ 3 (2016)

1) eastre; 2) TBM2; 3) mesh cinereaL.

I think this one's the longest of them all, even though it also only has three tracks. For the third installation in the series, I guess we're kind of going ambient — except for the second and shor­test track, whose function is to function as Mr. Rhythm, briefly entertaining you in between Mr. Atmosphere and Mr. Chaos. That said, I am not quite in the clear as to why Mr. Rhythm had to sample the «Boom-Boom-Thwack!» pattern from ʽWe Will Rock Youʼ, and why the idea of lis­tening to seven minutes of boom-boom-thwack (everything else comes in the form of nearly inaudible rhythm tracks and occasional fuse bursts) should be realized in the «breathing space» between two sonic mega-monsters.

The first of which basically just sounds like the wind howling in naked electric wires (for 22 minutes) — there's about three chords there, endlessly repeated over a sustained hum, and while I'm all for slowing down and taking your time to enjoy nuances in this madly rushing world of ours, this seems to be taking the idea too far. At least when Brian Eno does these never-changing soundscapes, they can be used for background accompaniment because they're pretty; using this track for background accompaniment is impossible unless you also happen to casually drink castor oil and eat skunk droppings for breakfast, and make no distinction whatsoever between Van Der Graaf Generator and Britney Spears, because they're all «pop slop» to you.

The third track is at least nicely chaotic: this is «Pong meets Art Rock», as the geometric-soun­ding patterns are rendered less percussive and more melodic. Again, though, the problem is that at no point (other than a weird fade-out and a quick build-up back to basics in the middle) does the track offer any development, at least not the kind that could be observed by the naked ear over a couple of casual listens. Worse still, even a short, economic sample of ʽmesh cinereaLʼ triggers no image in my head — I can't even say that this is a decent industrial soundscape, because it does not have the grimey grittiness, the merciless grind that goes along with good industrial. It's just the sound of several electric currents interacting with each other. Hello, I'm Current #1, nice to meet you. Hi, I'm Current #2, let's get married and have a short circuit. That's the story of our lives in a nutshell, and we're going to be telling it to you for 25 minutes.

Of course, we should be reminded that these three tracks are not standalone entities — but then again, what kind of superman would want to listen to all five Elseq volumes in a row? That's even more of a challenge than trying to read all of Ulysses in one day. The only reason why these tracks are so lengthy is that they really want you to pay attention — to understand how serious these sonic textures are, because if they weren't serious, what kind of moron would the artist have to be to stretch them out for so long? If it's big, it's important. And if it's important, it's your fault and nobody else's if you refuse to see that importance. So prepare yourself to open your mind to the transcendental artistic significance of the feedback hum of the naked electric cord, and after ten consecutive listens you will have outgrown the proletarian concept of melody and ready to face the world of music from a completely alien perspective. Or — who knows — maybe God-like perspective?..

Autechre: Elseq 2

AUTECHRE: ELSEQ 2 (2016)

1) elyc6 0nset; 2) chimer 1-5-1; 3) c7b2.

Okay, most of this second volume (just three tracks in total) is like one gigantic game of Pong, or, rather, two or three games of Pong played at the same time. The first track is 27 minutes long, and the only point of that is to start out fully fleshed out and then gradually shed them sound layers one by one, so that at the end of this sonic striptease we just have a bunch of waves of noise: the balls are gone, but their force fields still remain, and the ripples swing over one another long after their original cause is no longer visible. I think they did this stuff many times before, and it is merely the length of it that is new here — if you derive mystical pleasure from multiple bings, plings, psshts, burps, twirps, clicks, and clucks, be their guest.

On the up side, the first track sounds positively nice, cozy, and melodic when compared to the third track — twice as short, fortunately, but five times as irritating: think all the noisiness of the first volume, but without its sonic power: thirteen minutes of what sounds like a cross between radio static and somebody trying to bore through a concrete wall with a badly dulled and poorly powered electric drill. Some people actually pay money to be tortured by this stuff for no reason whatsoever (most likely, people who have way too much happiness in their everyday life and are looking forward to reduce it by any means possible). Bad news is, there's nothing even remotely innovative about these sounds in 2016, and without the shock factor, this is just dull in every possible manner — emotional or intellectual. And by «dull», I mean «dull as if being slowly cut apart with a very dull blade», that kind of dull.

In between the two, there's a short five minute interlude that arguably provides most of the enter­tainment — a percussion track that sounds as if somebody were furiously bashing his drumsticks on the surface of a thick, boggy marsh, and, appropriately, a synth pattern emulating the incessant croaking of little froggies, hiding somewhere near the surface (although, allegedly, froggies can­not really croak under the water, but I guess everything is possible in the alien worlds of Autech­re). This at least sounds like decent material, idea-wise, for a better developed conceptual track (perhaps they should send it to Björk or something), but little good does it do, sitting crammed there between two silly sonic monsters.

I think I almost like the way that the Pitchfork people tried to describe this volume: "If you ever wondered what it would really mean for Autechre to take an uninhibited plunge into the weirdo void, now you have your answer", they said. Most of the stuff people write about Autechre (and especially people over at Pitchfork) is meaningless and clichéd anyway (and that's not to be taken as an offense — writing something not meaningless about Autechre is almost as hard as explai­ning the Kamasutra to a Mennonite), but I like the "weirdo void" reference. A void is usually supposed to be just a void — there can be no difference between «straight void» and «weirdo void» by definition. Somehow, though, Autechre have often managed, and now they manage it again, to produce a sonic void (in the sense that there's really nothing going on) and justify its existence by the mere fact that they're weirdos. Honestly, this is mostly just annoying filler that is the electronic world's equivalent of Kenny G. Get that? Weirdo void! I am certainly not buying into it just because it's weird (and, actually, it's not even that weird any more — it's simply produced by weirdos, which is a weirdly different weirdness).

Autechre: Elseq 1

AUTECHRE: ELSEQ 1 (2016)

1) feed1; 2) c16 deep tread; 3) 13x0 step; 4) pendulu hv moda; 5) curvcaten.

Admit it, the last thing you want in your life is to be left without a new Autechre experience every few years — because what would be the meaning of that life? How else could you even begin to penetrate the deepest mysteries of the universe? One good listen to a new Autechre al­bum — isn't that pretty much the equivalent of reading the complete works of all major figures in existentialist philosophy, or at least the equivalent of a master's degree from MIT? Could modern art truly survive without being exposed to the latest and greatest in abstract electronic noise from two geniuses who keep revolutionizing the scene every few years in ways so deep and subtle, most people don't even notice it?... If that is your way of thinking, too, then to you, 2016 will be the awesomest milestone in Autechre history, as Booth and Brown assault and overload our senses with not one, not two, not three, but five albums released on the same day: 247 minutes of brand new Autechre product, enough to keep one away from Selena Gomez and Lukas Graham for at least... uh, well, for as long as it takes for the next Autechre album to come out.

Technically, Elseq 1-5 is really just one album, counting as such in typical discographies and not even analyzeable in terms of separate discs, since it was only made available as a digital down­load (CD format is way beneath these guys' level now, and a vinyl release would go against the digital fetish); but even for a guy like me, who is not used at all to detailed dissections of electronic epics and prefers condensed and superficial assessments, 247 minutes is a bit too much to sit through in one go without going mental (if I listen to it on headphones) or driving every­body around mental (if I go for the speakers). And regardless of whether we hate it or love it, we have to admit the mammoth nature of the enterprise, so I suppose it does merit several reviews after all — let alone the fact that at least some of the 1-5 volumes do have their own specific features, and counting them separately wouldn't hurt.

Elseq 1, in particular, feels like the heaviest and most aggressive volume of the lot, mainly due to the opening blast of ʽfeed1ʼ: eleven minutes of what sounds like strong electric current run through a large set of interconnected and savagely slashed cables — sparks blasting in all direc­tions, and any organic being that dares penetrate even the remote periphery of the field created by this mess getting fried instantaneously. A simple, brutal, and strangely effective track, probably their «angriest» in years and years, and, of course, barely listenable to everybody with inborn aversion to digital feedback. However, the second lengthy epic, ʽc16 deep threadʼ, seems more interesting — not least because it is driven by a very cool rhythmic pattern, one that sounds stuck somewhere in between a huge dripping faucet, two giants playing table tennis, and a railroad man driving spikes in an underwater section of the tracks. Everything else that goes on at the same time is a mix of radio static and iron-soldering noises, rather typical of Autechre, but it is really the cool percussion tone that deserves special attention.

The other three tracks are marginally more melodic: thus, behind the slightly trip-hoppy rhythms of ʽ13x0 stepʼ you will find sonic patterns that sound like alien melodies, transmitted from the distance of several thousand light years and re-converted into music to the best ability of the signal-capturing device — some frequencies lost and some implied by the brain rather than actual­ly heard; ʽpendulu hv modaʼ sounds like some Brian Eno ambient track that keeps getting interrupted through poor transmission, as you twist, bend, and re-direct the poor antenna to get to hear at least something; and only ʽcurvcatenʼ returns us fully to drum-'n'-bass territory in order to end things in the same ballpark where they'd started, only on a slightly more quiet note.

On the whole, the energy and loudness of this stuff does make it seem like an improvement on Exai at least — and I'd be the first to admit that there are a few nifty sonic ideas here, though whether they actually «work» on some metaphysical level or if my mind just clings to them be­cause of the sheer novelty factor is unclear. And let's not even get started on whether these few nifty sonic ideas deserve to be framed in 52 minutes of running time, especially since we've only just begun with the grand experience.

Autechre: Exai

AUTECHRE: EXAI (2013)

1) FLeure; 2) irlite (get 0); 3) prac-f; 4) jatevee C; 5) T ess xi; 6) vekoS; 7) Flep; 8) tuinorizn; 9) bladelores; 10) 1 1 is; 11) nodezsh; 12) runrepik; 13) spl9; 14) cloudline; 15) deco Loc; 16) recks on; 17) YJY UX.

The old popular saying goes that «more Autechre is better Autechre», because the only thing to beat five blows of an electronic jackhammer is fifty blows of an electronic jackhammer, and the only thing to beat fifty blows... well, you get it. From this point of view, what could be better than, finally, to have ourselves a double CD of brand new Autechre material — one hundred and twen­ty minutes of slaughtered prime time in total? And, come to think of it, how come it happened that it is only now, in 2013, twenty years into their illustrious career, that Booth and Brown have finally decided to go all the way?

Unfortunately, at the moment (I have only sat through twice through the whole thing — maybe a third listen could clinch it, but then you'd have to pay me), my answer is crude, simple, impolite, and nasty. All too often, one is tempted to mask the poor quality of one's creative ideas with sheer quantity. A turd is just a turd — a mausoleum of turds piled atop each other is a work of art if you manage to mold it into an imposing shape. And no, I am not going as far as to suggest that most of the tracks on Exai are «electronic turds», because I wouldn't even know what that is, much less what would one look like coming from Autechre's guts. But I am going to suggest that there is nothing of interest to look forward to on Exai, and that is that.

Formally, this is a retreat back from the curious synthesis of «melody», «humming tone», and «jarring noise» on Oversteps into the safer, tried and true territory of their post-Confield recor­dings. Once again, it is the confused-and-confusing sub-atomic beats that rule the day — and it is true that Booth and Brown have a seemingly infinite amount of combinations to try out, but this would be more of interest to an expert in combinatorics than a simple listener who cannot remem­ber ever pledging to decipher, catalog, and analyze every percussive pattern generated by the two geniuses. In other words, it no longer stimulates me even on a purely detached, «intellectual» le­vel — no more than a tenth generation video game targeted at the same old market.

Even worse, much too often it looks as if they are not trying at all. The longest track on the album (ʽbladeloresʼ) runs for twelve minutes on what seems like one and only one musical idea — a leisurely revolving «warped» noise wave, twirling mysteriously in the background while the usu­al jackhammers are put in «relaxed» autopilot mode in the foreground. There is nothing innova­tive about this, and from an atmospheric point of view, it seems so boring that I wouldn't even be able to be lulled to sleep by whatever is happening. The second largest track (ʽcloudlineʼ) is a bit more dynamic, but overall, I must say that I get more excited when pressing my ear real close to the back panel of my computer — I mean, why bother listening to the faked life of microchips when you could just as well enjoy the real thing?

I wish I could produce a slightly less clueless impression here, but, in all honesty, I have nothing interesting, insightful, or pleasant to say about a single one of these tracks. As far as I am concer­ned, Autechre have simply returned to the bland, uninspired «craft» of their Draft 7.30 stage, and this album, huge as it is, can only be a donation to the staunchest of fans — personally, I am not going to be bowled over by the sheer hugeness of this offering. Bottomline: if Confield is all of your life and the village green beyond it, Exai will add an extra 120 minutes of happiness — otherwise, spare yourself the misery of trying to «get it»: just think, instead of one listen to Exai you could have spent the same time on five Beach Boys albums! Just this one thought is quite sufficient to solidify the thumbs down.

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Autechre: Move Of Ten

AUTECHRE: MOVE OF TEN (2010)

1) Etchogon-S; 2) y7; 3) pce freeze 2.8i; 4)    rew(1); 5) nth Dafuseder.b; 6) iris was a pupil; 7) no border; 8) M62; 9) ylm0; 10) Cep puiqMX.

Okay, the good news is that, even if Oversteps and Move Of Ten were released within months of each other (technically, the latter is counted as an EP, because it «only» runs for... fourty-seven minutes? yeah, fairly short, only the size of two average early Beach Boys LPs), they sound fairly different, and each one is impressive in its own way. The people at Pitchfork preferred to define the difference quite formally — pointing out that Oversteps is more ambience-oriented, whereas Move Of Ten is more sharply beat-focused. That may be so, but it does not really capture the dif­ference in sensations.

I would rather say that Move Of Ten is a «spooky» counterpart to the Big Unnerving Clock of Oversteps. We are not just back to the beats, we are back to the icy, snapping beats, the frosty synths, the freezing white noise — the old sights of the Autechre factory working at below zero temperatures, where each movement of the robot begins with breaking the thin crust of ice that re-forms every five seconds. Only this time the sound is mastered in a way that places you, the listener, somewhere above that factory — as if it were completely ensconced in some under­ground cavern, and you were trying to dig your way in from the top.

The exact technical means to ensure this echoey, cavernous sound are a mystery to me (ask a technician), but they were hardly accessible to Autechre in the 1990s — whoever claims that all Autechre sounds the same (not an unreasonable claim, but depends on the coarseness of your grain, of course) should go back to Tri Repetae and see how far they have progressed in that re­spect. Whether there is any substantial difference in the structure of the beats and the texture of the melodic patterns is another matter.

There does seem to be an evil, aggressive side to Move Of Ten that you do not often encounter on Autechre albums — for instance, ʽrew(1)ʼ is almost funky in its progression, with twisted, dis­torted bleeps snapping at you from under cover, making it one of the «nastiest» tunes in the entire repertoire of the duo. On stuff like ʽiris was a pupilʼ (hey, some real words!) the dark side is more subdued, reduced to several overdubs of murmuring wave patterns expressing situational dis­content with each other. But the evil presence is felt everywhere, as if, finally, all of Autechre's microchips were learning their basic emotions.

Which might be timely enough — if the idea here is to start elevating the consciousness of the musical AI these guys had been developed for twenty years now, I'm all for it, not only because it provides them with a bit of reason for further existence, but also because it might eventually con­vince me and other sceptics that electronic music has not gone the way of rock'n'roll, but still holds the key to the future. The important thing is to keep on bridging the gap between the human and the robot, and that might take some time. As for now, thumbs up for this one more tiny step for mankind, giant leap for monolithic integrated circuit.

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Autechre: Oversteps

AUTECHRE: OVERSTEPS (2010)

1) r ess; 2) ilanders; 3) known(1); 4) pt2ph8; 5) qplay; 6) see on see; 7) Treale; 8) os veix3; 9) O=0; 10) d-sho qub; 11) st epreo; 12) redfall; 13) krYlon; 14) Yuop.

Finally, a real change of pace — overcoming the «Confield block» once and for all, Autechre release their freshest release in a decade. Some have suggested a return to the icy ambience of Amber, but in reality this is more like a democratic synthesis of Amber and Confield, almost to the point where you'd think they were dubbing a 1994-flavored track over a 2000-flavored one and then smoothing away the rough edges.

Actually, the whole «return to Amber» thing was probably invented by people who never got further than the first track: ʽr essʼ (oh God, those hideous titles...) is, indeed, one of those freezing cold synthesizer whirlwinds the art of which these guys had mastered ages ago. Atmospheric and not overtly exciting, but a surprising start nevertheless — no beats! no microchips! no static! just the good old icy stateliness.

But over the next few tracks, gradually, yet knowingly, they are once again building something new. The beats, the chips, and the static will be making frequent visits, for sure, but the primary emphasis is on synthesizing «old-fashioned» sounds: harpsichord hammers, xylophones, little bells and musical boxes, so that more than half of the compositions weave the pattern of a giant, tremendously complex electronic clock — one that you have accidentally locked yourself within. The music does not so much «resonate» here as it simply «scatters» all around, in one large sea of ringing, springing, tinkling, dazzling, whatever.

The actual selected chords are never happy — as we all know, musical boxes help create cuddly magical worlds for little boys and girls, but these ones, like everything else Autechre does, are just completely emotionally neutral, yet still vibrant and active «signs of life». After all, a musi­cal box, or a giant clock, or a primitive (or not so primitive) life-form is emotionally neutral by defi­nition — you can get totally amazed at the complex internal structure of all these things, but it's not as if they would be infecting you with their own amazement, which they do not have. And so, just sit back and enjoy another... umm, documentary by Booth and Brown, this time one from the life of large mechanical concoctions punching each other and exploding in miriads of ringtones, cadences, and dissonances.

Individual highlights are practically non-existent: the only difference is between the «major chi­mers» (ʽknown(1)ʼ, ʽpt2ph8ʼ, ʽsee on seeʼ, etc.) and the more old-fashioned beats-and-bleeps that could have belonged on Draft 7.30 or any other of all those «Confield clones for dummies» (ʽilandersʼ, ʽqplayʼ, etc.). The album does get nicely bookmarked — with retro-brushed ambience of ʽr essʼ at the beginning, and then the same ambience criss-crossed with the kaleidoscopic chi­mes on the last track ʽYuopʼ. Actually, ʽYuopʼ is a bit different in that all of its «sprinkly» sound seems to be radiating into outer space, resonating at us from far, far away (or maybe it's the other way around — cosmic rays breaking through the atmosphere? whatever), so it's an appropriate­ly «universalist» coda for the whole album.

Altogether, the approach is simple in theory and not too awesome in the sheer number of new ideas involved, but with the gazillions of electronic albums out on the market in 2010, even one new idea, consistently implemented in lots of different ways, is not to be taken too lightly. And I have yet to see an electronic (or a non-electronic, for that matter) album that could serve as a bet­ter textbook on all the tricks and treats of The Big Chime — I'm still picking echoes out of my buzzing ears, a tedious, but not wholly unpleasant procedure. Thumbs up.

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Autechre: Quaristice

AUTECHRE: QUARISTICE (2008)

1) Altibzz; 2) The Plc; 3) IO; 4) plyPhon; 5) Perlence; 6) SonDEremawe; 7) Simmm; 8) paralel Suns; 9) Steels; 10) Tankakern; 11) rale; 12) Fol3; 13) fwzE; 14) 90101-5l-l; 15) bnc Castl; 16) Theswere; 17) WNSN; 18) chenc9; 19) Notwo; 20) Outh9X.

Finally, time for some change... cosmetic change, that is. Quaristice is said to have grown out of a lengthy, spontaneous «jam session» by Booth and Brown, over which they managed to over­load their fantasies and create in­numerable sequences of sequences. Consequently the sequences were sequenced into somewhat inconsequential subsequences, so that Quaristice consists of a record-setting twenty tracks, few of them running over four minutes — rather a rude violation of Autech­re's normal work philosophy, I'd say.

Those who are particularly disturbed by this rudeness will probably want to own the limited edi­tion 2-CD version of the album; the second CD consisted of several alternate versions, presented closer to their original incarnations and our usual expectations of Autechre. Basically, you not only get to see the idea as such — you get to see its birth, growth, maturation, gradual and painful realization of its utter meaninglessness / uselessness, and, finally, its slow death from natural causes or a quickly staged suicide.

The main LP generally focuses on the idea itself — one of Autechre's usual grooves, reduced to mini-size. Supposedly, this should give Quaristice a more dynamic aspect: instead of just chillin' out to long patches of ambient waves or sweetly purring microchips, you get to see rapid changes of texture that may or may not form a musical story. Who knows, you might even start making predictions about what's it's gonna be like five minutes from now — a situation formerly unthin­kable with Autechre (because the most likely outcome is — «five minutes from now, it's going to be exactly as it is right now, plus a jackhammer»).

Problem is, apart from shorter track lengths, the only shift is backwards: they are continuing the subtle regression to the «icy» atmosphere of their early albums. Most of the percussion parts are heavier, once again with an industrial flavor, and the accompanying minimalistic keyboard parts speak either of the hand of doom or of the face of eternity. The opening track is so deceptively serene you'd think they were covering a Brian Eno sonic painting — but once ʽThe Plcʼ breaks through with its jiggly beats, paranoid pseudo-record-scratching noises and cold blasts of MIDI winds, it's back to old school again. Very old, as a matter of fact.

On the other hand, I fully admit that «atmospherics» is back here, in a big, big way. The whole thing should be played loud, in headphones, preferably in a dark room, and eventually these so­nic waves will flush you out in outer space, rather than cram you inside your dusty computer proces­sor. But the «individual» tracks, short or long, do not really work as individual tracks — at best, they work as one more soundtrack to the art of running along the streets of an alien world. Each street has a finite length, yet few, if any, have an unforgettable face of their own.

Cutting a long digression in half, Quaristice is a fairly «normal» record compared to everything post- and including Confield, and it will probably stimulate an easier and clearer emotional res­ponse than the pretentious conundrums of its predecessors. There is nothing too radically innova­tive about it, though, and the emotional response itself smells a little moldy, so you will just have to decide for yourselves. Nothing unlistenable here, but still recommended only for absolute be­ginners or total experts.

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Autechre: Untilted

AUTECHRE: UNTILTED (2005)

1) LCC; 2) Ipacial Section; 3) Pro Radii; 4) Augmatic Disport; 5) Iera; 6) Fermium; 7) The Trees; 8) Sublimit.

No news may be good news, but not for the unhappy reviewer. How am I supposed to stress this record's individuality over that of Draft 7.30? Am I really supposed to make good friends with these beats, measure their individual pulses, check their individual temperatures, and tuck each one inside his individual bed of a one-two phrase description? This is definitely not something I remember myself signing for on that unhappy day when I broke my «no electronics!» vow by acquiring the entire Tangerine Dream catalog.

All I can really say is that Untilted is, once again, closer in spirit to Confield: with Draft 7.30, it might have looked like Booth and Brown were taking one step back and reintegrating some mini­malistic melodicity into the package, but now the domain of the computer blip has won this next battle, so prepare yourself for seventy more minutes from the life of the microchip. And it does not even look like the microchip is leading an interesting life these days. No, just the same old routine — get up at 7:00 AM, a bath, a shave, some quick breakfast with the wife, commute to work, get installed, operate, calculate, lunch break, back to work again... everything happening in a rather fussy way, of course, but it's all normal, predictable, everyday fuss.

On second thought, some of these beats are indeed programmed in almost ridiculously complex ways. Something like ʽIpacial Sectionʼ or ʽAugmatic Disportʼ could never even remotely be app­roached by a human being — the same way no human being could ever beat the machine at coun­ting out chess move combinations. But this does raise the question of whether electronic music that may not be replicated or interpreted by a human being can actually be enjoyed by one. These robotic pulsations neither follow our natural rhythms (be it any standard pattern of the 4/4 or 3/4 types), nor do they provide sick deviations to which, after a bit of training, we can attune our rhythms (in a Captain Beefheart fashion). They are simply too much for the nervous system to handle — and end up as «curious intellectual achievements» with no purpose other than showing off one's professionalism.

The only track here which barely hints at a human touch is ʽFermiumʼ, where the beats suddenly become less complex and a little more «trance-inducing» in the good old sense of the word (al­though it still gets way too messy towards the end). And I only write this because, once its cycles started rolling in, it was the only moment on the album that actually made a brief swipe at my at­tention center. Everything else was just totally non-descript. What used to be «magical» is now perfunctory and boring; what used to be «curious» is now predictable.

Hence, one more thumbs down. I used to wonder how the heck these kinds of albums mostly get 5-star ratings and rave reviews on Amazon and other such sites — before realizing, of course, that nobody will ever get interested in a new Autechre album outside of the duo's hardened, de­voted, but very, very small handful of admirers, those who have done a fine job of rewiring their brains towards «The Future» or «The Alternate Reality», as they see it. For me, though, the big­gest problem is that this alternate reality, once you have already broken through, unpacked your tent, and are now beginning to hang your family's portraits on the wall, is pretty damn hard to keep yourself excited about.

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Autechre: Draft 7.30

AUTECHRE: DRAFT 7.30 (2003)

1) Xylin Room; 2) IV VV IV VV VIII; 3) 6IE.CR; 4) TAPR; 5) Surripere; 6) Theme Of Sudden Roundabout; 7) VL AL 5; 8) P.:NTIL; 9) V-PROC; 10) Reniform Puls.

The most revolutionary thing about Autechre's seventh LP is probably the song titles. Where they used to read like ordinary words garbled through electronic malfunctioning, these already look more like random strings extracted from sequences of machine code. And yet, at the same time, lo and behold, one of the titles is a noun phrase in ye good old plain Aenglisc, even though the sonics behind it sound no different from everything else. Ah, say what you will, but this duo simply re­fuses to be pigeonholed. Predictable stereotypes? Leave them for unimaginative suckers like the Beatles or Frank Zappa.

Other than the letters, though, Draft 7.30 should not come across as a major revelation to those who already know the whole story. It regresses a bit from the standards of Confield — once again, notes, tones, and hums get louder and fussier, drawing attention slightly away from the beats, as if they'd realized themselves that with the percussion paradise of Confield, they let their boldness carry them a bit too far. But in doing that, they are really «going back», losing their grip on the art of radical innovation. Scramble these tracks and the ones from LP5, and the only im­mediately felt difference is that Draft 7.30, like Confield, is «hoarser» and «hissier», generating a strictly «computer» ambience rather than trying to expand into outer space.

And I am afraid that difference no longer plays into the hands of Booth and Brown. There is only so much whooshing, scraping, dialing, ringing, pinging, and plinging that one can eat up before the inevitable question — «and...?» If Confield could have got you a-thinking about whether or not this could be the music of tomorrow in an alternate, post-Heat Death reality, Draft 7.30 will only get you a-thinking once more about what you have already a-thought before, presumably more than once. Where are the new sensations? Bring on the new sensations already! Why should it take us more than a decade to study this sub-atomic zoo?

In all honesty, this album is neither emotionally seductive nor intellectually provocative: it is sim­ply boring. Yes, the rhythms are still complex and diverse, but you'd think that, with the kind of creative experience these guys have accumulated, they'd be able to come up with a bunch of those in a matter of several hours or so. Worst thing about it, the individual tracks no longer have any individuality — lower your attention a bit, and you won't be able to tell where one stops and the next one begins, except for maybe a jarring change of rhythmics from time to time. They all just sort of roll along, at the same tempos, with the same gloomy attitude. Ever been a fan of standing in front of a large anthill and stubbornly watching them ants run along in all directions? Well, just replace the ants with electrons, and you have yourself your Draft 7.30.

Not that there is anything criminal about that — it was fairly clear that it would be tremendously hard to follow Confield with something equally puzzling or provoking. As usual, long-term fans with appropriately wired brains and a good deal of loyal patience will find plenty of opportunities here. But for those of us who would rather like to nibble on different pebbles of the musical kaleido­scope, Draft 7.30 might be easy to skip. Thumbs down for a lack of imaginativeness, which, I think, is the most offensive accusation one can throw at Autechre (I tried!).

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