POLLhelic Triangle -- Autechre :: Confield :: LP6

"VI Scose Poise" is one of my favorite Autechre tracks from any era. In fact it's probably the first thing I'd play for someone who's never heard them.

i don't think I would have been that intrigued to hear more if it was the first thing I heard by them! I do think it and cfern are ok but inessential - but pen expers is a glorious piece of beauty hidden within chaos.

not chaos so much as force. a velvet fist in an iron glove.

DL is OTM in describing this as "organic". I love how they sampled rubber bands wrapped around a shoe box for Parhelic Triangle, and the use of sampled bell sounds on that same track and Cfern. Some of the sounds and textures are never used again in their later work.

Also agree with frogbs describing this in the context of each track being its own room in a museum exhibit. Their music definitely began to sound "sculptural" starting here. Sometimes I feel like this album is their actual debut, and everything prior was under a different band name.

BTW - back in 2001 I'd have picked Uviol or Pen Expers. Now, I'd probably go for Parhelic Triangle or Eidetic Casein. The former is one of the most compelling and unique tracks they've ever composed.

yeah Parhelic is top 5 Ae for sure. If forced, I would probably choose this as *the* Autechre album, although I love their recent work too. It's the first album where they discarded dance rhythms altogether. Altho I love their bangers and boom-bap workouts, this is the emergence of their own unique and untouchable thing.

Huh, did they really sample those things, octobeard? I can definitely hear the rubber bands. Super interesting as I rarely think of Autechre as being sample-driven

Their music definitely began to sound "sculptural" starting here.

what does this mean?

xp yes, it was mentioned in the WATMM AMA years ago. I don't have a link to the comment.

They've used samples a lot. Decco loc's beats are apparently wood and rubber sounds recorded. I believe Rob mentioned some field recordings of NYC were samples used in M39 Diffain. A tissue was draped over a microphone for the static textures of Rettic AC. Clearly some wood creak samples in M4 Lema

Much of Draft 7.30 uses samples of wooden blocks - "xylin room" being a direct reference to this.

yeah I don't know for sure, but I'd bet the marble bounce sounds in Krib are also samples rather than DSP per se too.

BTW that song is seriously gorgeous.

Listening to that track now, and it’s gorgeous and uniquely weird.

It’s been ages and ages since I last listened to Draft, which was the first AE I reviewed professionally. At the time it wasn’t thrilling me … but in retrospect, yeah, there was definitely a wood on wood vibe.

It’s a little arid for my taste, but “surripere” is immense if you crank it up

I love Krib

Maybe that's why I'm not so hot on Vi Scose Poise - I feel they perfected a similar idea with Krib a few years before

Draft and Untilted have massively massively grown on me since they first came out. I really didn't think much of them at all and for a long time figured Ae had lost the plot.
They're among my favourites now

How have I never seen this before?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tiVmPXNzdM

Watching this, it dawned on me that Cfern is conceptually very similar to Miles Davis' Nefertiti, a modern jazz tune which is notable for the melodic instruments (the horns) staying anchored to a similarly-repeating cycle without any solos while the rhythm section (bass, drums, piano) improvise around them