Double LP
Two mid-period Autechre masterpieces available again on vinyl for the first time since their initial release 20 or so years ago. Let's go back to front - Quaristice is still a monster (and the one with the algorithim 'hit' on it), a kind of roadmap for everything that embodies what's so gripping about Autechre, skirting around and in-between so many innovations in electronic sound/production/design (whatever) that it both makes a mockery of and unwittingly typifies the taxonomy of IDM. This is music that is so insanely cerebral you often feel like you might need to take a course in order to process it, but don't deny you can't also feel it deep down in your plums, too. Like taking a ski class way above your skill set, but where's the fun in not trying ('fun' isn't an especially Autechre-relevant word, but here we are). By 2008, they weren't seen as the hot property they were during the late 90s. More fool everyone else. Untitled, which came three years earlier, has a seemingly low-key position in the duo's catalogue, though its sound is anything but. It's another double disc beast, but the songs here are much longer and labyrinthian, changing shape and direction in supple invisible ways - glitch into 2step? No problem at all, but how?. Where you start is a way removed from where you end, what you might understand as dissociative if the architecture didn't feel so precise. How they imagine these songs into being is a true wonder, pure future alchemy that through the uncanny decay and glitch reveals the inspired human touch present inside the flailing machine. The best of their kind? Hard to bet against it.
FFO: Squarepusher, SND, Pansonic, Polygon Window
