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28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pity the Machine..., November 3, 2000
This review is from: autechre (LP5) (Audio CD)
This is my favorite Ae album, and the crowning achievement of Sean Booth and Rob Brown's career so far, in my opinion. They depart into uncharted territory, and pull off a major coup. Few bands have so successfully reinvented themselves in mid-career; fewer still have forged a completely fresh sound. This sound isn't as accessible as their previous work (which wasn't that easy-going to begin with!), but I sensed almost immediately a powerful musical vision lurking behind the difficult music. Many other reviewers have described this vision in language more vivid than I can conjure. Yes, it does sound like a computer running an endless unsuccessful defrag on itself. Yes, you can imagine it tells the story of a robotically-enhanced scientist at war with his augmentations. However you put it, this album says something about the man-machine relationship as profound and prophetic as Kraftwerk's "Computer World." My take on this album's perverse brilliance is that it makes the listener feel pity for machines. The irony being, of course, that machines have no feelings (at least in this pre-AI era). Ae's music has always sounded like it was made by--and sometimes for--machines. But the machines that whirred, clicked, grinded, and thumped on previous albums seemed like invulnerable colossi, and I always found this a bit off-putting--scary, impressive, but off-putting. Incunabula, Amber, and Tri Repetae++ all brought to mind impressive, futuristic, but often sterile lanscapes filled with immortal machines. Here, we're no longer looking at landscapes/listening to soundscapes. Instead, Ae bring us inside the mind of the machine. It is a claustrophobic, disorienting, but totally fascinating experience. The machines we inhabit are definitely mortal, perhaps mortally wounded. They spit out strange pattering rhythms, and quirky, touching melodies. They suffer from Tourettes and Obsessive-Compulsive disorder. They undergo life-cycles from birth to death before our eyes/ears. When I listen to a great soul singer like Marvin Gaye or Sam Cooke, I feel a surge of emotion that comes from a sense that they are singing about my life and my experiences, more eloquently than I ever could. I feel like I share a special human bond with them. Ae have managed a more daunting task; they've brought me as close as is humanly possible to feeling a special bond with machines. Amazing.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
:o, December 19, 2005
This review is from: autechre (LP5) (Audio CD)
After being blown away by this album for the upteenth time, I decided I might as well write a review. This is an album that I listened to occasionally for a few months, finding it interseting, enjoyable, but not stiking me as being one of their better works, before it snuck up on me and I had an an oh s#%t revelation. Thus leading me to the conclusion that it's the best album they've produced (followed closely by Confield) and one of the best electronic albums(or albums period) ever.
This music isn't drill n'bass, so comparisons to Aphex, or Squarepusher don't make any sense, honestly theres not much that came before or since that this resembles. The rhythms are fascinating, based on a primary groove, usually kept by an insistent pounding bass drum, it's pattern varying mathmatically but never straying completely from the initial rhythm. That bass is then more or less ensconced with various elements, that run off in rhythmic tangents, while brilliantly acting as texture and melody as well. What also blows me away is that using the same very intense, dense noisy sound structure for all of the songs, and similar textural concepts, Autechre are still able to create emotional mood swings from one piece to the next; from angry banging industrial/hiphop type numbers (acroyear2/777/underBOAC) to contemplative & melancholic (Rae/Vose In/Fold4Wrap5/Drane2). They don't go quiet and ambient for sad sections, or harsh & fast when they want to be hard, all emotions are contained in a single musical concept.
Speaking of emotion and concept, the euphoric/bittersweet tone of Drane2, along with it's strange and imaginative instrumentation and application, make it one of the most brilliant songs I've ever heard. Although I think that can be said for this album in general. Maybe you'll agree, maybe you won't. All that's above is the conclusion I've come to, open up your mind and your ears and decide for yourself.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Au turns the envelope inside out. Brilliant stuff., September 18, 2000
This review is from: autechre (LP5) (Audio CD)
This is, without a single caveat, the best thing autechre has put out. After taking a half dozen recordings to define and stretch the definition of 'intellegent' electronic music, it seems autechre found a new mode of filtering their ideas- Throughout this whole recording, there seems to be some abstract continuity in how every track was approached. It's like instead of just laying the ideas down, they took the concept, exploded it into hyperdetail, and turned it inside out. For whatever reason, the tracks on this record are capable of engaging my synapses and engulfing my senses in an unparalleled manner. And nothing they have done since has managed to cast such a galvanizing effect either. But enough esoterica. Compared to other autechre albums, the tracks are, on the whole, characterized by considerably more complex rythms(in terms of the application of a wider vocabulary of 'odd' time signatures and polyrythmic leanings), a less ambient feel, and maybe a more percussive choice of samples, though this aint exactly minimal d&b. It still makes for an absolutely blissed out listening experience for me, as well as a terrific long-distance driving experience. 'Rae' is just super sublime, what with the manic john mcentire sounding drum track and ringing synth washes over top- BTW, the realplayer version you hear on this page is all compressed and does it no justice. 'vase in' starts out like the soundtrack to some future renessiance ghetto with automata pimps dressed up in knickers and cod pieces. or something. But that's the great thing about autechre, and especially this album- you're going to know it's great because its sure to ellicit some wacked out mental images as you try to imagine where this music belongs, or where it came from. And to reiterate, they samples above are super-compressed and really belie how good this albums sounds on a halfway decent stereo- The realplayer version of 'acroyear2' sounds absolutely, pathetically anemic to rancorous thwap & skree that starts this whole album off with proper authority. anyway, if you're still debating on whether to buy it not, go on cuz even if you hate it you can use the mostly blank cover to draw pink bunnies on or diagram your ten step process for dominating the world via unceasing midget exploitation.
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