Autechre, I/E Magazine, 1995
From I/E Magazine; Issue #9; Fall 1995.
Transcript
Autechre
Like the awry cyber-phonetics of its name, the music of Autechre is constructed of myriad pieces of a jumbled, psychic puzzle. They carve architecturally perverse sculptures in sound, the hysterical nature of their corrosive rhythms and divers textures parodying The People's argument of what is or isn't (gulp) techno.
"We don't really give a shit where we sit with our contemporaries," says Sean Booth, who with Rob Brown is one half of Autechre. "The techno scene doesn't exist the same way it did 12 or 16 months ago, which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned; we don't have to put up with as much shit music." The 1994 scene Booth refers to certainly wasn't sure how to assimilate Autechre's first album Incunabula (Warp/TVT). Despite the flurry of quasi- dance beats and burbling synth patterns, the contexts within which the rhythms are placed har one's sense of order, creating a friction which doesn't seem to jibe with the lucid sound environments. Incunabula positions the duo on the developmental cusp, although the shattered thrusts and exploding ballistic missiles of a track like "Bronchus" heralded their future directions.
One of the incongruities about Autechre lies in the faint glimpses of influences one can see reflected in their shining metal surfaces. They came together when Booth was introduced to Brown by a mutual friend around 1987. "Rob was a veteran DJ, as I was," says Booth. "We started doing mixes together, making beats using turntables, tapes and stuff. I had an old, fucking cheap and nasty Casio sampler we'd use, then gradually we worked in drum machines, keyboards, all kinds of shit." The basic tenets of their sound is realized through a combination of analog and digital synthesis, much in the same way that their forebears-Kraftwerk, Juan Atkins-operated, though the German pioneers are the more direct antecedent. Booth maintains that he's "always preferred music that is inventive rhythmically, where the rhythm is actually the focus of the track. You had some cool melodies and rhythms coming our of Detroit around '87/'89, though we found that style a little less interesting as time went on."
And as time went on, it became evident that what they found more interesting was exploring rhythm not just as a means of inertia, but as a means to bisect the very building blocks of sounds them- selves. This is where Amber (Warp/TVT) comes in, one of the least understood and most progressive electronic recordings released over the last year. Melodies seem to coalesce and become absorbed into the bewildering labyrinths of tones the duo conceive. It's remarkably easy to find oneself getting lost amongst the chemical agents phosphorizing in the eddies of "Glitch" or embark on a trip down the psychedelic avenues of "Nine." On the other hand, you can also experience the unsettling crumbing of time in a haze of electronic "Foil" or wonder how to escape the threat of the rioting, gigantic automatons of "Teartear" who advance methodically but soon overtake you in a storm of sequenced mortars. Either way, you leave the sonic theatre amazed, delighted-and a trifle afraid.
The confrontational aspects of Autechre's modus operandi helped to gain them some particular notoriety after the release of the EP Anti (Warp), created in opposition to Great Britain's Criminal Justice Bill, which has already passed its way into law, Booth paraphrases an explanation: "The Bill is a piece of legislation that essentially says that if there is more than none people in a field dancing to rave music they're criminals and can be arrested. There's loads of shit in it. It's worded so vaguely and ambiguously that it also affects the homeless, the squatters, people like that. As far as we're concerned, this kind of legislation is like censorship, which we're certainly opposed to in any way." Anti's three tracks make no bones about their attitudes, "Lost" stimulates some angry, gnarled beats. "Djarum" suggests a congregation of souls surviving through E-induced anarchy, and cachophony forms the nucleus of "Flutter", which sounds like the duo's machines are in cardiac arrest. "It was basically a piss tape-you know, us saying how fucking stupid the government is," Booth continues. "The record was put out to make people aware of this bill in the first place. A lot of people didn't even know it was on the books at all."
Are they at least aware of Autechre? According to Booth, the public perception on the band is that "people seem to like what we do, but I don't ask them why."
Unnecessary--you can hear the reasons spilling out from the punctured mix.