Customer Reviews

Tri Repetae++

5 star:		(71)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is the only review I plan to write about Autechre, so I'm placing it here where the curious will be most likely to come across it. Tri Repetae is placed midway between Autechre's early ambient sound, and the dissonant, impenetrable "music" on the recent LP5 and EP7. While some might say that Autechre's sound is so diverse from album to album that it defies categorization, I think there is a distinctive Autechre sound. The sound is mechanical and repetitive; many reviewers say it sounds like it was made directly by machines with no human intervetion at all. There are melodies, but the sounds embody a relentless austerity. The question then becomes, is music which sounds like it is made by computers, only suitable for computers?

The answer of course is no. There are a ton of Autechre fans out there who find their music not only intellectually stimulating, but emotionally moving as well (I can only bow to these hardy souls). To me, their music is so cold that it is perpetually off-putting, no matter how many times I pick up a disk to "give it another chance" (and I have done this countless times. In fact, I kept buying their CD's to see if I would suddenly "get it"). I think Autechre is a good litmus test of how far from the mainstream one is willing (or able) to travel. Certainly, the journey is not for the emotionally unstable, especially the latest albums (or perhaps it is only the emotionally unstable who appreciate their work. I can't decide if a love of highly mechanical music is a sign of emotional damage, or emotional fortitude). In any case, if you think you might enjoy a journey into an utterly alien aural landscape, with none of the usual "human" touchstones to guide you, you should pick up Tri Repetae, or Incunabula or Amber. At the very least, you will have been introduced to what is considered a seminal work of electronica; at best, you will have entered a sort of sonic bliss which I respect but can't fathom.

More than any other elektronik album to date, Tri Repetae++ has completely changed the way that I perceive music. It was my first Autechre album (now I have all LP's) and I still listen to it more frequently than any of their other albums. It achieves virtual perfection through the degradation and reconstruction of machine-like blips and chirps, constucting 10 absolute masterpieces of the ambient genre. This album also reaches a pure medium between the tranquil and melodic past of Autechre and their newer, complex machine-driven rhythms.

Dael, Clipper, and Leterel start things off really well, each taking a simple syncopated rhythm and generating a hard-hitting beat that lasts for several minutes. Melodies permeate through these beats, however, and the direction of the tracks never seem lost. Each can hold your attention throughout for the 6+ minutes that they all last for. Rotar is perhaps the weakest point on the album - but that doesn't say much. It is still very unique and interesting, yet its intense complexity is what makes its eight minutes of listening to - a little long. "Stud," which is almost ten minutes in length, is truly fascinating. It begins with a pulsating beat, full of distorted scratches and hums - then, the melody hits. It sounds as if a machine is actually singing to you. At times, it seems a little paranoid, but the overal uneasyness of the track is brilliant. The next several tracks are also exquisite. "Eutow" distorts virtually everything in itself, and is probably the most famous track (if not the strangest) on the album aside from "Clipper." It never loses its punch though - even after frequent listens. "C/pach" is intensely groovy and is great to listen to in the car. Its jupming beats and funky rhythms are something that must be repeated often. "Gnit" is also a great one, generating a melody out of its own beats that builds and decays several times before the end of the song is reached. "Overand" is kind of creepy, repeating the same bell-like hums over and over, while also repeating this sullen bass loop very quietly as drums loom silently in the background. It is very interesting. Then there is "Rsdio," the 10+ minute closer. It, like "Stud," has a pulsating beat that builds and builds throughout the song until it actually becomes danceable. The melody is great too. It is purely mechanical.

All in all, Tri Repetae++ is on virtually every level, Autechre's best release and their most monumental at that. It is a double disc, the second of which features two EPs, which are very nice to listen to as well. The album balances two genres of Autechre's work and is the seam that holds their early and later work together. It is a true masterpiece. While it may never be recognized as the masterwork that it is, buy it and learn for yourself just how amazing and comforting this recording is. Listen to it while you read - or while you do homework - or while you sleep. In any instance, you will soon find out that the only problem with the album is how to stop listening to it. It just doesn't get any better than this.

TRI REPETAE was originally released as a single disc in the U.K. in November 1995. Disc 2 contains two previously released EPs: ANVIL VAPRE and GARBAGE. Autechre: Sean Booth, Rob Brown. With TRI REPETAE, Sean Booth and Rob Brown's music undergoes a quantum evolutionary leap from the relatively muted modular mathematics of INCUNABULA and AMBER into a tortuous, insectoid cybernetic funk. Menacing robotic mandibles and steel-plated wings now render the electro tics and hiphop scratches, as though Booth and Brown have decided to work exclusively in the medium of rusty Erector-kit mechanics. For many Ae-heads, this third album and the EPs that preceded it (GARBAGE and ANVIL VAPRE) represent Autechre's pinnacle achievements. TRI REPETAE++ combines all three desirable items in one generous double-disc package. Such album tracks as "Clipper," "Rotar," "Leterel," and "Gnit" are like oversized cricket automatons--hulking scrap-heap assemblages of melody and shearing wrought-iron armature too ungainly to do more than flex a leg joint or twitch an antenna. In comparison, ANVIL VAPRE's "Second Bad Vilbel" and "Second Scout" are models of lethal anatomical efficiency. These are hydraulic super-ants, built for speed, purpose, and determination using the scant workshop remains of nosebleed-techno tracks and dismantled monster trucks. The melodically exquisite GARBAGE dovetails neatly with the album's less flattening moments ("Dael," "Eutow," "C/pach," "Overand," "Rsdio"), the circuit-board tweakings mimicking dub ("Piobmx19") or disclosing the human ghosts in Autechre's machine.

What can be gained from an album such as Tri Repetae++ is directly proportional to what you put into it. Simply assuming that this is going to make good background music is a mistake you won't make twice, and if you concentrate too hard you may miss some of the nuance that makes the music alive. You need to approach this (as with all later Ae compositions) in an almost zen-like state, accepting and observant. The music reveals its beauty slowly, like the bud of the lotus flower. Patterns in nature are reflected, analyzed, asynthesized and resynthesized digitally onto the surface of the CD. As the label says, "Incomplete without surface noise." Notable tracks include C/Pach, Dael, Clipper, Second Bad Vilbel, Second Peng and Garbagemx36.

Autechre does music that can only be described as...well...Autechre. From their earlier material (Incunabula, Amber) all the way up to their newer releases (autechre, ep7), I've noticed an evolution in the way they make music. Tri Repeatae ++ stands as the perfect example of everything that autechre is capable of. It captures the finer moments from both the ambience~fused earlier years, and the raw mechanical percussion from their later experiments. I like tri repeatae, and theres something really powerful about it. Some of the tracks may sound a little repetative at first, but multiple listens show the subtle progressions that autechre manages to throw in with perfect accuity. It just plain sounds good. Especially with good stereo equipment. Another critic described the percussion as being primal, and i couldn't agree more. When this stuff is loud, your body will acknowledge. Of course, this album does have it's share of hard listens, but that is to be expected from an outfit who's music is so unique. With Tri repeatae, Autechre has given us some of both foods here. Some songs are easily accessable, while others might take while to get in to. This doesn't hurt the album at all, especially when you consider the fact that they've thrown in both the Anvil Vapre and Garbage ep's as the second disc. These ep's are very hard to find seperately, and have a couple of really memorable tracks. My personal favorite would have to be "second bad vilbel", and it starts the second disc out nicely. Definately one of Autechre's darker tracks, this one'll get alotta play in your stereo. This is a must own for fans of electronic music, and certainly the best introduction to Autechre's work.

I'm a huge Autechre fan and own every release still on the market. I rank Tri Repetae++ as their best.

I personally favor the duo's early work (Incunabula, Amber) to the later output (Chiastic Slide, LP5, Confield). This album, coming in the middle of their creative career thus far, mixes characteristics from both eras, with fantastic results.

The early releases were soft, warm, structured, and boasted some of the greatest melodies of any genre. The later releases were the polar opposite of what came before. They were harsh, cold, random (or so they seem), and boasted some great melodies (but one has to look harder to find them).

On Tri Repetae, you get everything. "Dael," "C/Pach," and "Rsdio" sound similar to tracks from later albums, but have the pre-1995 song structure. The rest of the songs on disc one mix the two eras. There is a layer of harsh, cold beats on top of a soft, warm background.

Disc two is a novelty in that it has Autechre's most danceable song (Second Bad Vilbel) and one of their few songs with no beat (Vietrmx19). The songs here are taken from two EPs, and are all strong in their own ways.

I made the "mistake" of buying this album first. Seeing the beauty in this album takes time, and most people won't play an album they dislike more than once. I didn't like this album until about a month after I bought it. I only gave Tri Repetae a second chance because I bought Incunabula and instantly liked it from beginning to end. If you already like Autechre, add this album to your collection. If you're new to the duo, buy Incunabula first. It won't take you long to make your way to this release. I guarantee it.

I bought this, my first Autechre album, a year or so ago and it has proved to be one of the best purchases ever! I had already been into "the Twin" at this time, and was dying of curiosity. Sure, I'd heard internet buzz, noted the surreal name, eerie cover art (or lack thereof), and read twisted descriptions, so I had to hear it for myself. As I listened to it in the dark on the way home, I must say it was a bit freaky! Autechre combines chopped-up beats and distorted samples with melodies so scary you could swear they are incarnations of nightmares, yet so beautiful you could break down in tears at every perfectly placed note. Songs such as "Dael" pound along with cutting metallic percussion, while understated chimes sound in and out as they drown in melancholic reverb. "Clipper" and "Eutow", also excellent tracks, exemplify driving rhythms with fast-paced and powerful notes, while tracks like "Stud" and especially "Rotar" conjure up images of standing next to a creepy house dark and around some impenetrable tarn from some Poe story. Ambient sounds also lurk around, like "Overand" which drowns the room in liquid sonic soundscapes with under-the-surface beats. I cannot say enough good about this album, so I'll stop. I now know that this isn't the most accessible Autechre, like Amber or Envane may be, but what a way to start! All I know is that whether you are new to Ae or a veteran, no collection is complete without this landmark album!

I've found myself drawn to technological innovation like a moth to a flame, wanting to upgrade whenever something unique dancing onto the shelves, so it kinda made sense to me to go and try out different types of electronic music. Electronica, techno, dance, IDI; they all seemed to call me and they all seemed like marvels when I picked them up. Sometimes I'd simply sit anmd listen and what I heard would make me want to try new things, heaping sounds on top of one another unitl new classifications were born, and I was always trying to find something that would push the envelope a bit further each time I tried something. And then I ran into Autechre, and I was blown away.

There are some days when the level of what is being accomplished by bands like Autechre absolutely blows my mind. As I sit listening to those sculptures produced by very talented minds, I actually marvel at what they bring into being. By taking machines and a mathematics approach to sound, they produce something unique, a terra made exclusively out of elements shaped by technology, giving listeners like myself things we've never imaged before. Through digitally construed mediums, we've been allowed to taste something that our parents and their parents never imaged, actually allowing us to ride on the shaped experimental surf of some unnamed audio sea for the very first time. Its uttering amazing in that respect alone, with foreign worlds never before experienced finding themselves sonically cultivated in man's existence.
And then there's the music itself.

I've actually never found an Autechre album that I've disliked, although there are some whose results I've managed more splendidly than others. This is one of those albums I've found myself marveling at, me lapsing into places with my eyes shut that almost seem alien to my psyche, and I sometimes find myself having to replay a few times just so I can set it aside. Songs like "leterel" and "rotor" birth atmospheres all their own, robust and ripe with brooding flavors, and they're tastes that I, a sampler sampling, find myself needing to experience over and over again. And those are only parts and the work, the whole, is truly something worth experiencing.
This also includes a second disc as well, with "anvil vapre" and "garbage" on it. The first is remarkably done and milked from the audio veins to the point perfection and makes this worth having for it and it alone. And there are two discs here, giving you something you something alien and yet beautiful at the same time.

This is all just wording, though, and its keeping you from sampling the primordial stew of sound that you should give a chance. Just allow yourself some time to adjust to it if you've new to it, a loose translation of the word "beauty," and you'll find yourself something that'll bridge years of your life.

-TastyBabySyndrome

If you're at all curious about the possibilities of electronic music or just forward-thinking music in general, this album is a great place to start. To me, this is like the "Kind Of Blue" of modern electronic music: it can make great background music but at the same time it rewards close listening. This balance between the accessible and the complex is what makes it such a wonderful album. Autechre's later albums would become more sterile and academic, but on this one, they sound truly inspired. Check it out. Or else.

It must be quite annoying for Autechre to have a fan base a large slice of which, judging by most Amazon.com reviewers here, prefers and harks back to the first three albums. It's not really fair appraisal - a large chunk of their post-Tri Repetae output, Chiastic Slide in particular, is brilliant, definitely recommended further listening. Anyway Tri Repetae is, at a push, the best of the three first much-loved albums. It's like all the best aspects of Incacubula and Amber refined into one glistening masterpiece. Tri Repetae is a bit chunkier and less glacial than Amber, the clanking of machinery always lurks somewhere in the mix. It's drier than Amber and the sound is crisper and closer. It's dancier; too, if you can believe that, with some unmistakable hip-hop influences informing many of the grooves like Dael and C/Pach.
On Dael, ghostly voice samples fade in and out but remain just beyond hearing range, adding a spooky element. Overand is probably one of Autechre's most minimal tracks and would fit snugly on Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works 2. Chirruping frogs kick off Gnit before yielding to a finely honed beat. This is one of my favourite tracks off this album. Autechre truly excel at creating multi-layered sonic sculptures with poignant, forlorn melodies traciong an arc above them (an approach also favoured by Arovane). Stud too is a very strong track that gets under the skin and stays there. I listened to it at low volume the other day and it sounded totally different, much better in fact.
The metallic feel of the record surfaces again in the album's closing salvo Rsdio, which sounds like naked, stoned construction workers performing a religious dance ritual. By Autechre's standards it is a fairly straightforward track at first listen, a meandering dub-infused jam, but as the track unfolds into so much more.
The album cover design is reassuringly minimal. Well, there's nothing, actually, apart from a plain matt gold sleeve and a footnote telling the listener that the album is `incomplete without surface noise'. Inside the tracks are listed but not numbered so manual track selection is tedious at first. Inside, though, there are cards with pictures of blurred machinery, a kind of visual accessory to the music, so you get your money's worth. Although Autechre's music is notoriously difficult to describe, Autechre are an essential listen to anyone even remotely interested in modern music. Like a certain brand of Danish beer, they refresh parts other artists cannot reach.