Autechre – EP7

Ah yes, an EP that lasts 1h10m, very EP.

Word word word word

Interesting as a transitioning piece from lp5 to more abstract confield. Incredible stuff. Left Blank At max volume!!!

The beginning of the end for Ae, more duds than good. Still, a few classics like Maphive6.1. But soon, up their own asses they go with the boring Gantz Graf and Confield.

edit I was wrong about this record. It's an excellent follow up to LP5. I'm not wrong about the work that followed this album. I don't know what mood I was in when I listened, but a follow up listen made me realize my error.

I have a slightly different version of the EMI pressing, based on the runouts:

a-side: WAPEP (E/P) 7-02 (WAPE 7-1) C-1-1- 1
b-side: WAPEP 7-02 (WAPE 7-1) D-1-1- 1 FA

Everything between brackets is x-ed out, the E/P x-ed out seems like a P and E morphed into one letter. The FA is hand etched.

Mine is a slightest different version I guess.

The ‘lines’ on the labels are correct. 1 line on a-side, 2 lines on b-side.

Runouts are slightly different too:

a-side: WAPEP7-01 (WAPEP7-01) A-1-1- 1
b-side: WAPEP7-01 (WAPEP7-01) B-1-1- 1

Everything between brackets is x-ed out

Reading these comments/reviews, it's interesting how many people insist on this being an album, when it is actually an (albeit long) EP. Let's just take it from the horse's mouth (the creators as well as the freaking title), shall we? That they regularly crank out EP's that are longer than some actual albums is just part of the fun, innit? No need to color it anything else really.

Just pulled this baby out and ran through he degritter and wow it sounds even better than I . this is Autechre running at peak performance in my humble opinion. I think they peaked with LP5 and this EP7 was right up there too.

Fun fact: with the silent gap for the hidden tracks removed EP7 is actually 3 minutes longer than LP5 (67 minutes vs 64 minutes).

EP7 is better heard as EP7.1 and EP7.2 and not as a whole. I prefer 7.2 as it seems to hint more towards Confield than their earlier stuff. EP7.2 would be almost perfect if it weren't for Maphive 6.1. This is more of a personal thing though...the decision to keep ringing that "bell" tone around 2.30 minutes on completely ruins the track for me...I simply delete that track and it feels like a solid EP...again, a personal thing. Overall, this is two decent EP's though, very nice.

Probably one of the best new-era autechre album in the way that it successfully manages to mesh complicated beat patterns with poignant noise melodies to create superb atmospheres.