Chiastic Slide [ORIGINAL RECORDING REISSUED]

Someone once compared the music on Tri Repetae as the sound of machines chattering away to each other in the dark. If so, then this record is the sound of those machines trying to drag themselves out of a dark tarpit under the glare of acetylene lights on some forgotten evil robot construction site.

No, this isn't an easy record to get into, but with time, it reveals what is, at its heart, some of Autechre's most beautiful music. It's brutal and stark in its delivery sometimes, but it's nowhere as difficult as Confield.

"Cipater" starts off with a slow hip-hop influenced beat that's just somewhat...off. Over the course of the piece, the melody slowly develops, the first rhythm drifts out and is replaced by a second one, which lopes along in an odd 3/4 vs. 4/4 friction. It then segues into "Rettic AC," which is a two-minute wash of tuned static with a slight melody poking through the mist. It's very similar to "Caliper Remote" on LP5.

"Tewe" is a shambling, limping beast that trudges through, leaving only fragments of melody and a sloooowly developing rhythm track in its wake.

"Cichli" is the centerpiece of the record, one of Ae's most disorienting *and* beautiful pieces. It takes a bit to realize that the whole track is in 5/4, but because the drums are programmed so well, it doesn't seem forced a bit. As it rumbles on, a slow string melody ala "Vletrmx21" gradually builds and drifts into the foreground until the drums gradually fade out and the result is a gorgeous two-minute chorale.

"Hub" as a track of seemingly disconnected beats that coalesce and dissipate around a slow melody. Not bad, but nothing we haven't heard before.

"Calbruc" enters with an absolutely punishing drum track that sounds like pistons in need of oil. At the 1:30 mark, the whole effect changes when the strings and a single bell enter, harkening back to the chorale-like melody of "Cichli."

"Recury" follows with a floating, clanging beat overlaid with menacing open-fifths from the strings and what sounds like reversed church bells, which intermingle with what sounds like either a whale sound or a dead siren. Very neat.

"Pule" has a pizzicato string line that just seems to drag on for about eight minutes. Nothing special, but pleasant just the same. Of course, it acts to soften the listener up for "Nuane," which is just menacing.

A disjointed beat box pattern characterizes the first part of the track. It's definitely in four, but, like much of the rest of the album, you really have to listen closely to keep your place. The whole thing mutates very subtly over the course of twelve minutes, and though nothing changes much, it's still engaging, and a darn classy closing track.

Smog and darkness seem to permeate the whole record. Much of the sounds use sound as if they were once analog, and living up to Tri Repetae's promise, there's plenty of surface noise here, not to mention quite a bit of grease seeping through the cracks. The polished chromes of their earlier work have been replaced here with rust and oil, but the melodies that struggle up out of the grime are among the most beautiful they've ever come up with. Most of the pieces are very long and take their time to develop, and this is not an immediately accesible album, which is probably why many listeners panned it at first.

It's also worth mentioning that this record shows them pursuing a much more hip=hop influenced approach, which along with the analog sound, they pretty much abandoned for LP5. This approach is also used a great deal on Envane, the EP that followed this record (which is possibly my favorite record of theirs). The Cichlisuite EP, if you can find it, contains radical reworkings of the title track, most of which sound like either throwbacks to Tri Repetae or steps to LP5.

There are albums out there that make great background music, or thinking music, or driving music. Chiastic Slide is not in any of these categories. It is your "turn off the lights and do nothing but listen" kind of music. Some have said it is repetitive and boring but if you listen to it under these circumstances you'll find layers of detail there you never knew existed.

The structure and form of these pieces are very unique and unlike earlier Autechre works, for example, the first track shifts and pulsates into a completely different rhythm halfway through without the listener even knowing it until after the fact, then eventually fades out into ambience in a style much less loopy-sounding than some of their earlier works. The interweaving Autechre melodies we know and love are still there, just buried deep under layers and layers of samples, sometimes not even recognizable until you've heard the disc a few times. Track 3 is one of those tracks that can't be described, bizzare soft-metallic synth leads and sharp string-plucking sounds form a most unlikely combination that works. Track 8 is a mesmerizing ambient track which starts with a very autechre-ish melody remeniscent of their Amber style, which eventually disappears into a sea of warbling melodic waves, remeniscent of late-night b movies. Track 9 is arguably one of autechre's best tracks of all time, starting with a formulaic mechanical beat, then suddenly turning into a slower, almost hip hop style track, while autechre takes ambient vocal sounds, even feedback, anything they can get ahold of, into a swarm of digital harmony.

There is definitely more movement on this disc than previous Autechre works, and the entire CD starts and ends without any space between the tracks, some are crossfaded. There's so much going on, so much to listen to, yet it is so controlled and precise, that this CD is anything but boring, and once you like it, you'll wonder why it took so long.