Draft 7.30

Autechre | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 8, 2003)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Warp Records
• ASIN: B000089HD9
• Also Available in: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #170,618 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The fertile sonic imagination of Autechre wanders through the digital wilderness on Draft 7.30, burying understated melodies with dense noise from the avant-garde fringe. Since their more mainstream dance beginnings, Autechre’s Rob Brown and Sean Booth have operated in the same non-rhythmic, wired turf occupied by Oval, Plaid, and other experimental techno artists. But they’ve always retained an echo of their earlier accessibility, using recurring themes that give their music a Boards of Canada-like elegance. On the other hand, recent work like 2001’s Confield has involved a more cerebral mix of order and chaos that lacks such carbon-based ballast. Draft 7.30 goes even further off into the land of 1s and 0s, manipulating theories and formulas with a fascination usually reserved for higher math classes. Your ability to listen and enjoy will depend on your tolerance for difficult concepts and willingness to embrace chaos. --Matthew Cooke

From URB Magazine

(Warp) Autechre’s duo status is apt, as producers Sean Booth and Rob Brown’s abraded compositions gestate and alternate between antitheses, generating evenly split opinions. With Draft 7.30, Autechre’s seventh LP, Booth and Brown settle on neither ideal, though they play both against the middle. Opening with hollowed jungle drums and cracked-leather creak, unsteady as if momentarily dazed by glint through damp tropical canopy or the porthole of a sweltering galley, they plod into the equally wafting "IV VV IV VV VIII." "6ie.cr" welcomes the chunky crunch of rotted robo-funk (revisited on "V-Proc") before "Tapr" descends into the off-kilter obtuseness of their last outing, Confield, sounds swelling, contorting and flailing. Draft’s second half will hold more sway over those pining for the minor-key melodiousness of works through Tri Repetae++, summing up these DSP surgeons whose swarming nano-bots question whether to rend or repair.

Tony Ware

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the hills are alive with the sound of music...eating itself., April 10, 2003

By 

Michael Kayser (Boston, MA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Draft 7.30 (Audio CD)

I have to say that I honestly don't know how they do it. I listen to some relatively "different" stuff-- prefuse, mum, books, etc. -- but all of them, as "out there" as they are, have a certain grounding in familiar melodic and rhythmic patterns.

the last two autechre albums, by contrast, are unique (in my collection anyway) in the sense of utter, stupefied bewilderment they generate with each listen. I simply have no frame of reference for this. Yet, in certain moods, I find it an immensely satisfying listen.

As with confield, I find there to be something peculialy organic about this album, much more so than autechre's previous output. With all of the glitchery and oblique processed beats, it nevertheless feels as though there is something *alive* in this music.

Also like confield, I find this to be particularly good music to listen to when you don't feel like listening to music. There is something decomposed about it, something cannibalistic, something destructive... it's as if you're hearing the elements of music shredded, and smashed, and pureed, and strained, and then finally reconstituted -- into something that, miraculously, ultimately, reaffirms your faith in music.

If that doesn't help you understand the appeal of the new autechre, think of it this way: a lot of the essence of rock'n'roll lies in how *dirty* it is. But if the rolling stones are a pack of young ne'er-do-wells with grime on their faces and unkempt hair, autechre is a mossy, shapeless, moving hulk of mulch and smashed silicon chips, wired incorrectly and coming after you.

now, which is scarier?

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, November 11, 2005

By 

sigfpe "sigfpe" (Oakland, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Draft 7.30 (Audio CD)

What's amazing about this album is that I find it compelling - and yet it barely satisfies anyone's definition of music. It's harsh, has little in the way of melody, nothing ever seems to repeat consistently enough for me to say it has a rhythm, and yet over and over again I'll put it on and listen to it.

I'll try to articulate what I feel about it. For one thing, when you get over a certain hump it's not boring. It simply doesn't repeat. You're trying so hard to latch onto any kind of repetition in an attempt to find some kind of rhythm. But each time it almost repeats it's different and once you think you've seen the new pattern it trips over itself and slips from your grasp. And yet it's not random. It's just so damn interesting.

I have to admit I also like the sounds - the glitches, the clicks and the static. Probably comes from years of tinkering with electronics and computers. There are no organic sounds here - this is pure electronica trying to sound like electronica. Few of your sweeping synth sounds sewn from silky smooth superpositions of sine waves. This stuff is digital with corners, ugly angles and steps.

If you've only time to listen to one track, and you're not sure which one to try, have a go at Surripere. It starts off pretty accessibly with haunting notes (not glitches, not clicks, actual notes) and a heartbeat-like rhythm, though in true Autechre fashion it twists and turns skipping a beat here and there intertwining with other less predictable sounds. Of course this apparent accessibility is just there to lull you into a false sense of security as the music slowly decays into much more convoluted Autechre territory. 6ie.cr also has plenty of more accessible sections.

But don't just listen to the easy bits. It's all good, every bit of it. And I really can't explain way. Just get it.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars mix of old and new, April 9, 2003

By 

A. Johnston (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Draft 7.30 (Audio CD)

When Lou Reed dropped 'Metal Machine Music' in 1975, it was rumored to be more a ploy by Reed to get dropped by his label than an effort to turn pop fans into noiseheads. Whatever the case, the album comprised of grating experimental electronic music alienated Reed from fans and label reps alike.

With its density and abrasivness, Autechre's 'Confield' was seen in a similar light by many of the group's fans. While their elite following applauded it as their most forward-thinking album, others found it almost unlistenable. Some thought it the group's attempt to lower their own profile; others felt it was the only logical conclusion for a band tailed by dozens of imitators. Whatever the case, Confield was the duo's most talked-about album since Tri Repetae. Amid an already divided fanbase, any chatter about the group softening up was crushed by the mighty Gantz Graf single of 2002.

Which brings us to Draft 7.30. Tonally, the album is of the same stock as Confield. The sounds are still rusty around the edges; their trajectories wild upon exiting the speakers only to come back together on the way back like some sort of hi-frequency boomerang. The beats still hit as if recorded by the head of a microphone driving a pack of nails through a concrete wall. The melodies -- yes, the melodies -- creep up like the smoke after a well set series of base charges topple a skyscraper.

What makes it so different than Confield? The feel of it. Music purists can dismiss the level of personal expression inherent in electronic music all they want but this album simply feels warmer than its recent relatives. Where Gantz Graf sounded more like a machine teaching itself how to destroy, Draft 7.30 uses the same core ingredients to build a dense yet inviting meshwork. Fans of Confield's calculus will find just as many equations here. Those turned off by all the math and who long for a return to the group's roots will find hope for a return to the group's more melodic past.

As usual (and for better or worse) this isn't anything Autechre has released before. It is no less Confield 2 than it is Peel Sessions 3. It's simply the closest thing the group has released to a complete picture of their entire 10+ year history. Evidence of every phase in the duo's history is present here from the serene Amber to the chu-chu-chu-chunky Chiastic Slide. It is no retrospective though. It is too alive for that.

Rumors persist that this is the duo's swan song. If so, they're doing it perfectly.