Autechre – Quaristice

There are few bands I follow as obsessively as I do Autechre. They had me captivated from the beginning. Hell, even "Cavity Job" has this unique electro-industrial sound. Nevermind, that, though, their recognized beginnings in soft and smooth, richly programmed but minimal ambient IDM/electro still are fresh and new to me to this day. Then I when "Anvil Vapre" and then "Tri Repetae" came out and I was shocked at how much they had changed, adding elements of noise and combating percussion that didn't exists. Fast forward to "Confield" and you see this experimentalism at its height, being almost anti-musical. It took me a long while to get used to that album. Then, slowly, they started to warm back up a bit.

Still for a lot of people, though, this experimentalism was too much for people to handle. They wanted some good old fashioned electronic lounge music. Understandable, as I did really appreciate that period a LOT. A lot more than "Confield," which I did end up liking after I forgave them for deviating so greatly from "Incunabula." To be frank, it has to be one of the most interesting and truly experimental records I have ever heard. Nevermind Merzbow, Captain Beefheart, Nurse With Wound, whoever-- this is very unique in a genre that is often saturated with more experiments to repeat results of previous experiments than it is with truly groundbreaking work. This being said, their experimental work is totally defendable. Frankly, it has always been at the core of their work, too. Anyone who has seen them play live can attest to this. They don't play their songs. No, instead, there's a flurry of disks being shoved into keyboards and quickly thrown out, a neverending barrage of constant change.

That still doesn't mean that everyone who likes the experimental work is going to like the IDM work and vice versa. It's almost like these are the two sub-bands that make up Autechre. Well, enter "Quaristice:" a compromise, a little something for everyone. First off, note that there are 20 tracks, the longest one being a bit over 7. This gives them plenty of freedom to experiment with all sorts of ideas. And indeed they do. There's a little bit of glitch to every one, at least in one sense or another, but they actually do let melodies and rhythms take precedence. ittedly, though this album is warm and organic in a way that a lot of the recent ones have not been, you'll find it is a bit on the dark side.

Some highlights:
1. "Altibzz" is "Kalpol Introl" if it were from "Tri Repetae."
2. "IO" is a nice mix of crunchy, lo-fi and really clean sounds, giving it this 3D quality. It's got this great, totally indiscernable vocal sample that sounds like a dying HAL over top a buzzy beat and a quirky key melody.
3. There's something to "Perlence," how it can't make up its mind about whether or not it wants to be hip hop or a battle of wits between two rhythms.
4. "paralel Suns" is a dense, waterfall of bubbly synth over a vacuous, yet melodic drone. AWESOME.
5. "Tankakern:" electro beat with this thundering bass that makes it sound like it's been recorded in a cave. Equally cavernous sounds to go with.
6. "rale." Whoa. Dark, like black hole dark, evil, menacing electro with some glitchy flourishes. I want more of this.
7. "Fol3" finds Autechre taking the sounds (in this case, they seem as if they are samples of some mechanical action but cropped so that they're not recognizable) and making rhythms out of it.
8. "90101-5l-l" is very heady experimental acid.
9. "Theswere" could have appeared on "Amber" with its bright synth line and string section.
10. "chenc9" is classic Autechre with a frentic rhythm section and a bright, slow, vibrato synth line over it.
and they finish with two tracks, each a slightly different take on ambient.

I cannot wait to see this live!!!!

It's hard to believe that Sean Booth and Rob Brown have been experimenting with sound for over 16 years now, ever since their first release, Incunabula, on Warp Records. It is perhaps their unique programming approach to analog synths, custom Max/MSP patches, micro granular effects, and mathematical rhythms, that pushed the envelope of sound exploration to the common studio techniques of today. Can the UK duo continue and reinvent the sound? I'm on my fifth listen of Quaristice, Autechre's 9th album, and the definitive answer is: yes. The twenty tracks on a digital release which I snatched from bleep (including exclusive artwork for each track!), maintain the indisputably unique Autechre sound. The beats are still chopped, the sound waves decomposed, and the structure erratically twisted. But unlike Autechre's previous LP, Untilted, this 2008 release is warmer, less noisier, and at times even melodic (there are even strings buried deep in one of the tracks). The genre starts to glide closer to abstract and minimal ambient, with an occasional glitchy quality of other worldliness. If by some miracle this is your first Autechre experience, brace yourself for a unique and unforgettable experience, if you can hold on. For the rest of us, it's just a necessity for our complete anthology. Too bad that the special, limited to 1000 copies edition, with an additional CD and a photo-etched steel casing sold out within the first 12 hours of announcement.