Autechre
Encyclopedia
Autechre are an English electronic music
duo consisting of Rob Brown and Sean Booth, both natives of Rochdale
, Greater Manchester
. Formed in 1987, they are one of the most prominent acts signed to Warp Records
, a label known for its pioneering electronic music and through which all Autechre albums have been released.
While heavily associated with IDM
(intelligent dance music), Booth and Brown are ambivalent to relating their sound to established genres. Their music has exhibited a gradual shift in aesthetic throughout their career, from their earlier work with clear roots in techno
, electro and hip hop
to later albums that are often considered experimental in nature, featuring complex patterns of rhythm and subdued melodies. Move of Ten
, their most recent EP, was released in 2010.
Autechre have also recorded under various pseudonyms. One of the duo's earliest recordings was a 12"
under the alias Lego Feet, released in 1991 on Skam Records
. The majority of releases by the mysterious "umbrella project" Gescom
, most of them on Skam, have been attributed to Booth and Brown, among other artists.
(ɔːˈtɛkər ). However, they have explained that the name can be pronounced in any way one sees fit. Booth explains: "The first two letters were intentional, because there was an 'au' sound in the track, and the rest of the letters were bashed randomly on the keyboard. We had this track title for ages, and we had written it on a cassette, with some graphics. It looked good, and we began using it as our name."
's graffiti
scene in 1987 when they both lived in Rochdale
. Heavily influenced by electro and hip hop
, they began trading mixtape
s and then creating their own compositions
while collecting a handful of cheap equipment, most notably a Casio SK-1
sampler
and a Roland
TR-606
drum machine
. Their first release was Lego Feet, a 12" recorded under an alias of the same name brought out by Manchester's Skam Records
. Their first release as Autechre was the single "Cavity Job
" in 1991, released on Hardcore Records. Two more tracks appeared during the following year, under the now finalised Autechre name, on the Warp Records compilation Artificial Intelligence, part of the series of the same name
. The compilation contained "The Egg", later reworked for their first full length release under the title "Eggshell".
, which became a surprise success, reaching the top of the UK Indie Chart. The album had a cool, calculated feel, with clear techno and electro roots, but also showed hints of the rhythmic flourishes and tuned percussion that would later become an important feature of their work. An EP of remixes of Incunabulas "Basscadet
" was released the following year. 1994 also saw the release of Amber, an album featuring a more ambient
, less percussive approach than their debut.
The Anti EP
was released shortly before Amber and is as yet the only Autechre release to have an explicit purpose: it was a protest against the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994
, which would prohibit raves, defined as any gathering of nine or more people where rave music is played. Rave music was defined as music which "includes sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats". The record came wrapped in a seal, on which was printed a legal warning: "Flutter has been programmed in such a way that no bars contain identical beats and can therefore be played at both forty five and thirty three revolutions under the proposed new law. However we advise DJs to have a lawyer and musicologist present at all times to confirm the non repetitive nature of the music in the event of police harassment."
, their third album, as well as the EPs Anvil Vapre and Garbage. Featuring a stark monochrome cover designed by The Designers Republic
, with whom Autechre have long held a close association, Tri Repetae was perhaps their most sparse and deliberately cold work yet, exhibiting stripped down mechanical beats and an increasingly more subtle use of synthesizers. Often considered a classic of mid-1990s electronic music, Tri Repetae and its associated EPs were combined into a two disc set entitled Tri Repetae++, which was released in the United States. An official promotional video was created by English visual artist Chris Cunningham
for "Second Bad Vilbel" from Anvil Vapre. This would be his first music video and the duo's second, their first being Jess Scott-Hunter's video for the single "Basscadet". The Anvil Vapre video featured rapidly cut shots of industrial machinery and robotic movement, synchronized with the music. Cunningham later re-edited the video in 2002, following his disappointment with the original: "It was intended to be completely abstract but it didn't quite work out that way". A two track vinyl-only EP entitled We R Are Why
, similar in style to Tri Repetae, was available to buy during certain concerts and via mail order during 1996.
Autechre released three records in 1997: the full length Chiastic Slide
, and the EPs Envane
and Cichlisuite. The latter EP consists, as its title suggests, of five remixed versions of "Cichli" from Chiastic Slide, though they sound remarkably distant from the industrial
-influenced, loop-heavy style of the original source. Containing four tracks, each around the eight minute mark, Envane
is a coherent EP that showcases a strong hip hop influence, featuring a clear vocal sample (taken from "No Awareness" on Dr. Octagonecologyst
) and scratching
on its opening track, "Goz Quarter". Radio Mix
was also released in 1997. A rare CD-only promotional recording, it contains an hour long DJ mix of other artists' tracks, some of them remixed by Autechre, as well as a short interview edited sometimes to the point of incomprehensibility.
An untitled record (typically known as LP5
or simply Autechre) followed in 1998, continuing the duo's path into further technical precision, experimentation, and what some feel to be audio abstraction
. It has been seen as a transitional work, with Brown commenting in 2005 that "a lot of people have cited it as a classic Autechre album because it bridges the gap between the guys who liked our old stuff and the guys who got propelled on to our new stuff."
1999 saw the release of their first Peel session EP, consisting of three unreleased tracks for British broadcaster John Peel
's show for BBC Radio 1
in the complex rhythmic style of LP5, as well as a vinyl-only limited edition promotional EP entitled Splitrmx12
. 1999 also saw EP7, which is classed by the group as an EP despite being over an hour in length,
EP7. Demonstrated by Confield
(2001) and Draft 7.30
(2003), as well as the Gantz Graf
EP (2002), listeners could hear Autechre's move into a musical territory built upon almost unrestrained rhythm backed by sparse melodies buried further back in the mix than ever before. Although still strongly connected to the IDM genre tag, tracks like Confields closer "Lentic Catachresis" seem to momentarily sever all ties the duo have with electronic dance music
, even in its broadest sense. In a similarly chaotic fashion, the title track from Gantz Graf inspired an iconic video by British designer Alex Rutterford
, featuring an object (or an agglomeration of objects) synchronized to the music as it morphs, pulsates, shakes, and finally dissolves. Rutterford, who had previously created an unofficial video for the Tri Repetae track "Eutow" as part of the Channel 4
music programme Lo-Fi in 2001, claimed the idea for the "Gantz Graf" video came during one of his LSD
trips. The second Autechre Peel session EP was also released in 2002, containing four new tracks that were named by John Peel himself. Autechre released two collaborative albums with Andrew M. McKenzie's Hafler Trio
collective during the following three years (see collaborations).
The reactions by both professional critics and fans to the release of Confield were mixed, as perhaps expected, though generally positive. Some publishers even went so far as to say it exhibits the duo at "the top of their game" and "cements Autechre's name in the pantheon of sonic visionaries", as well as praising its intricate, ambitious and unsettling nature. According to Sean Booth, "most of Confield came out of experiments with Max
that weren't really applicable in a club environment." In contrast, 2003's Draft 7.30 was seen by some as a relatively easier record to grasp, combining Confields sonic abstraction and ambition with splintered, harder beats that recall more the duo's interest in techno and hip hop, such as in the almost glitch hop rhythm of "V-Proc". Booth stated in an interview around the release of Draft 7.30 that "[rhythm] doesn't seem to limit us in the way it did when we first started. Now I think we just get it, we're totally fluent in it and can be more expressive."
Untilted
(a play on the word "untitled"), the duo's eighth album, was released in 2005. It roughly continued the sound of their previous two LPs, though featured compositions that mutated greatly during their duration, typically alternating between passages of ambience and heavily processed, precise beats, such as on "Ipacial Section". Its final track, "Sublimit", is at almost sixteen minutes Autechre's longest composition to feature on any of their albums. The release of Untilted was followed by a two month tour that took the group around Europe, America and Japan, but withdrew them from studio work for an unusual length of time. The outcome of this, coupled with a forced change in studio setup, was a gap of three years between releases, longer than ever before.
, was finally released in early 2008. In stark contrast to Untilted, it is made up of twenty tracks, more than any other Autechre release, each typically around 2–5 minutes in length. The download-only Quaristice.Quadrange.ep.ae
EP that accompanies it (as well as the Versions bonus disc and three tracks released exclusively through the Japanese iTunes
store) brings the total length of music released during their Quaristice era to over five hours. Among this is the hour-long, extremely minimal "Perlence subrange 6-36" that closes the EP. The sound of Quaristice, while unusually erratic, is arguably highly representative of Autechre as a whole: it contains washes of ambience, and heavily processed and textured sound design, together with beats both typical of IDM and resembling the techno and hip hop that influenced the duo in their early days. Each track on Quaristice was edited down from lengthy improvised sessions between Booth and Brown, some of which were released in longer versions on Quaristice. Quadrange.ep.ae. Although Sean Booth has stated that the FLAC release of Quaristice is the actual product, the album was also released by Warp Records as a double LP and a single CD as well as an elaborate two CD edition by Warp Records. Limited to only 1000 copies, and containing both the regular album and Quaristice (Versions), this special edition was packaged in a photo-etched steel case. It sold out within 12 hours of being announced.
On 13 January 2010, Warp Records announced Oversteps
, Autechre's tenth album. Originally slated to be released in March, it was released a month early in digital form on Bleep.com to those who preordered it; the CD and deluxe vinyl editions were released on 22 March 2010. A two-month European tour occurred in support of the album, followed by limited shows in Japan and Australia, the latter breaking a 15 year absence. The sound of Oversteps, as with Quaristice, is greatly eclectic, though it is perhaps their most noticeably ambient
release since 1994's Amber. Autechre then compiled a mix for the magazine FACT, released in February of the same year, that consisted of tracks by artists as diverse as J Dilla
and Necrophagist
. On 25 May 2010, Warp Records announced the ten track Move of Ten
, an EP by the duo in conjunction with the release of Oversteps. The digipack CD and the two 12" vinyl version, as well as a high quality download, was released on 12 July 2010.
In 2011 the release of a collection of EPs, excluding Move Of Ten, was announced on the Bleep Website, with artwork from the Designers Republic. Entitled EPs 1991 - 2002, it is set for physical release on 11 April 2011. The boxset includes a CD copy of their first EP, Cavity Job, the first time it has been released on the format. In 2011 as part of Warp's 'Made In Japan' relief concert for the victims of the 2011 Sendai Earthquake, an 11 minute piece was released entitled '6852', possibly believed to be part of a previous live recording.
, early hip-hop and electro music, and b-boy culture in general are still evident, with many reviews noting hip-hop rhythms - sometimes heavily obscured or processed, and sometimes explicit even in later work. All of Autechre's live webcasts have featured large amounts of early hip-hop and electro. In a review of Oversteps
, The Wire
noted "Treale" as being "a reminder of Booth and Brown's musical apprenticeship as teenage B-boys".
As Autechre's music and studio setup progressed, reviews started to note influences from farther afield; experiments in algorithm
ic and generative synthesis
, musique concrète
, and FM synthesis drew comparisons with Iannis Xenakis
and Bernard Parmegiani
from critics such as Paul Morley
.
Autechre also cite Coil
as a major influence, with an unfinished collaboration of unknown completeness occurring around the release of LP5
and EP7.
and a few analog synths
in their production, as well as analog and digital drum machines, mixers
, effects unit
s and samplers
. They have also made extensive use of a variety of computer based sequencers
, softsynths, and other applications as a means of controlling those synths and processing the synthesized sounds. Much of the hardware and software they use has been customized by the band themselves. Autechre have also experimented in depth with development environments such as Max/MSP
(invented by software pioneer Miller Puckette
), and Kyma
– amongst others – from 1997 onwards, though it is unclear which are still in use. From 2005 until 2009, they have used the Elektron
Machinedrum and Monomachine
, alongside Akai MPC and Nord Modular in their live performances, although the group appear to have reverted to a software setup for the tour related to Oversteps. It has also been rumoured that Autechre have used military equipment in their work. In 2008, Sean Booth reported that if he were locked in a cell for a year with only one piece of software and one piece of hardware, he'd "probably take a copy of Digital Performer
and an AKG
C 1000 microphone
. "
Other machines that Autechre have repeatedly mentioned in interviews are appreciated for their interface
and aesthetics as much as their sound, including the Roland
TR-606 and MC-202, and the Nord Lead.
Autechre sometimes use generative
techniques, most notably on Confield and EP7.
collective, although Booth admitted in an interview that around 20-30 musicians overall are connected with what he describes as an "umbrella project". Three elaborately packaged albums (Ƴo & h³æ
, Æo³ & ³hæ
, and ha³oe & ah³eo) have been made by Autechre in collaboration with Andrew M. McKenzie's ongoing Hafler Trio
project. These albums are significantly more minimal than any other Autechre release, featuring dense, claustrophobic and noisy drones
. A track called "Elephant Gear", credited to both Autechre and Canadian breakcore
musician Venetian Snares
under the alias AEVSVS, was released on a compilation in tribute to Elektron
co-founder Daniel Hansson, who died in a car accident. Autechre have collaborated with several artists for live performances, including Zoviet France
, Fennesz and Roedelius 3. Telepathics Meh In-Sect Connection, an album by Sean Booth in collaboration with Mika Vainio of Pan Sonic
and Kouhei Matsunaga
, was released in early 2010.
In 2009 they contributed a cover of an LFO song to the Warp20 (Recreated)
compilation, as well as having their song "Tilapia" covered by John Callaghan
.
The compilation CD The Only Blip Hop Record You Will Ever Need, Vol.1, issued in 2002 by David Byrne's Luaka Bop Records, contains a cover version of "gnit" performed by Marie + Scratch. It is performed using only human voice samples.
Autechre helped initiate the All Tomorrow's Parties
music festival
in 2000, and curated the 2003 festival.
pirate radio
station in 1991, where they had their own show playing Belgian techno alongside their own demos. Later they would appear as part of Gescom
for their weekly "Disengage" show on Manchester's Kiss FM.
s to coincide with the release of three albums so far:
, portmanteau words, unpredictable grammar
, and deliberate misspellings. Although their first two albums consisted mainly of track titles with easily recognisable words, such as "Bike" from Incunabula and "Glitch" from Amber, this style morphed gradually, resulting in titles like Quaristices "90101-5l-l" and "fwzE". However, certain track names, such as "Theme of Sudden Roundabout" from Draft 7.30 (which references a landmark in their hometown of Rochdale
), offer listeners some degree of clarity. Their release titles, whether intentionally or not, seem to sometimes reference its placement in the Autechre discography: Incunabula
, their full-length debut, takes its title from a Latin word (the plural of incunabulum) which can refer to "the earliest stages or first traces in the development of anything"; Amber, their second album, relates to the second light sequenced in traffic light
s; the prefix "tri
", meaning third, is present on Tri Repetae
, their third album; a simple chiastic
phrase has four parts (their fourth album is titled Chiastic Slide
); both LP5 and EP7 are self-explanatory; Draft 7.30 apparently refers to the thirtieth edited version of their seventh album; Untilted
has eight characters in its title, as well as eight tracks; and Quaristice, their ninth release, features the unusual catalogue number 333, which adds up to nine, a digit which appears frequently in the album's track titles.
Autechre, as with a significant number of Warp Records artists, have long maintained a strong link with Sheffield
-based graphic design company The Designers Republic
. As a result, Autechre's artwork often echoes the distinctly modern, sharp, occasionally minimal style the studio is renowned for. While often digital and abstract in nature, certain covers feature recognisable themes and imagery, such as the rock formations on Amber, the circle of black paint on Oversteps, and the edited photograph of a Frank Lloyd Wright
building on Envane. With the rise of digital downloads as a popular format, Autechre have grasped the chance to produce subtly different artwork for each track on their two most recent albums: all tracks on Quaristice have their own minimal blue, black and white composition of squares; and Oversteps features fourteen black painted circles, one for each of its tracks.
, for example, claims that Squarepusher
"doesn't like Autechre". However, Squarepusher has indicated he respects Autechre, and calls their music "smart". Opinion has also been divided on the specific qualities of the duo's music. Of LP5, for example, reviewers said both that "all the songs are cut from the same sonic cloth" and that it was "one of their most diverse ... works to date".
Autechre are well aware of the incongruous reactions their work elicits, saying that descriptions of their music "usually run contrary to each other" and that "every time we have an album out, we get conflicting reports". As with many artists, they have themselves raised questions about their earlier work; Rob Brown mentioned that Incunabula and Amber retrospectively sounded "cheesy" in a 2008 interview with Pitchfork Media
prior to the release of Quaristice.
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
duo consisting of Rob Brown and Sean Booth, both natives of Rochdale
Rochdale
Rochdale is a large market town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amongst the foothills of the Pennines on the River Roch, north-northwest of Oldham, and north-northeast of the city of Manchester. Rochdale is surrounded by several smaller settlements which together form the Metropolitan...
, Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 2.6 million. It encompasses one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom and comprises ten metropolitan boroughs: Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan, and the...
. Formed in 1987, they are one of the most prominent acts signed to Warp Records
Warp Records
Warp, commonly referred to as Warp Records, is a pioneering independent British record label, founded in Sheffield in 1989, notable for discovering some of the more enduring artists in electronic music....
, a label known for its pioneering electronic music and through which all Autechre albums have been released.
While heavily associated with IDM
Intelligent dance music
Intelligent dance music is a term that describes an electronic music genre that emerged in the early 1990s. The genre is influenced by a wide range of musical styles particularly electronic dance music such as Detroit Techno...
(intelligent dance music), Booth and Brown are ambivalent to relating their sound to established genres. Their music has exhibited a gradual shift in aesthetic throughout their career, from their earlier work with clear roots in techno
Techno
Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan in the United States during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988...
, electro and hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
to later albums that are often considered experimental in nature, featuring complex patterns of rhythm and subdued melodies. Move of Ten
Move of Ten
Move of Ten is a 2010 EP by the electronic music group Autechre, released by Warp Records. Like Oversteps, Move of Ten has packaging and artwork by The Designers Republic, and was released in mp3 as well as 16 and 24-bit WAV formats on 14 June 2010 via the bleep.com online music store...
, their most recent EP, was released in 2010.
Autechre have also recorded under various pseudonyms. One of the duo's earliest recordings was a 12"
12-inch single
The 12-inch single is a type of gramophone record that has wider groove spacing compared to other types of records. This allows for louder levels to be cut on the disc by the cutting engineer, which in turn gives a wider dynamic range, and thus better sound quality...
under the alias Lego Feet, released in 1991 on Skam Records
Skam Records
Skam Records is an independent Electronic record label based in Manchester, England, founded by Andy Maddocks around 1990. Skam also runs a smaller sub-label called 33.-History:...
. The majority of releases by the mysterious "umbrella project" Gescom
Gescom
Gescom is an electronic music project based in England with close ties to the band Autechre. The name is believed to have been derived from Gestalt Communication...
, most of them on Skam, have been attributed to Booth and Brown, among other artists.
Pronunciation
Booth and Brown pronounce the name Autechre with a Rochdale accentLancashire dialect and accent
Lancashire dialect and accent refers to the vernacular speech in Lancashire, one of the counties of England. Simon Elmes' book Talking for Britain said that Lancashire dialect is now much less common than it once was, but it is not yet extinct...
(ɔːˈtɛkər ). However, they have explained that the name can be pronounced in any way one sees fit. Booth explains: "The first two letters were intentional, because there was an 'au' sound in the track, and the rest of the letters were bashed randomly on the keyboard. We had this track title for ages, and we had written it on a cassette, with some graphics. It looked good, and we began using it as our name."
Early years (1987–1992)
Brown and Booth met through ManchesterManchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
's graffiti
Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
scene in 1987 when they both lived in Rochdale
Rochdale
Rochdale is a large market town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amongst the foothills of the Pennines on the River Roch, north-northwest of Oldham, and north-northeast of the city of Manchester. Rochdale is surrounded by several smaller settlements which together form the Metropolitan...
. Heavily influenced by electro and hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
, they began trading mixtape
Mixtape
A Mix Tape or Mixed Tape is a compilation of songs recorded in a specific order, traditionally onto an audio Compact Cassette.A Mix Tape, which usually reflects the musical tastes of its compiler, can range from a casually selected list of favorite songs, to a conceptual mix of songs linked by a...
s and then creating their own compositions
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
while collecting a handful of cheap equipment, most notably a Casio SK-1
Casio SK-1
The Casio SK-1 is a small sampling keyboard made by Casio in 1985.It has 32 small sized piano keys, four-note polyphony, with a sampling bit depth of 8 bit PCM and a sample rate of 9.38 kHz, a built-in microphone and line level input for sampling, and an internal speaker...
sampler
Sampler (musical instrument)
A sampler is an electronic musical instrument similar in some respects to a synthesizer but, instead of generating sounds, it uses recordings of sounds that are loaded or recorded into it by the user and then played back by means of a keyboard, sequencer or other triggering device to perform or...
and a Roland
Roland Corporation
is a Japanese manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, electronic equipment and software. It was founded by Ikutaro Kakehashi in Osaka on April 18, 1972, with ¥33 million in capital. In 2005 Roland's headquarters relocated to Hamamatsu in Shizuoka Prefecture. Today it has factories in Japan,...
TR-606
Roland TR-606
The Roland TR-606 Drumatix is a programmable analog synthesis drum machine built by the Roland Corporation from 1981 to 1984. It was originally designed to be used with the Roland TB-303, a monophonic analog bass synthesizer, to provide a simple drum and bass accompaniment to guitarists without...
drum machine
Drum machine
A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums or other percussion instruments. They are used in a variety of musical genres, not just purely electronic music...
. Their first release was Lego Feet, a 12" recorded under an alias of the same name brought out by Manchester's Skam Records
Skam Records
Skam Records is an independent Electronic record label based in Manchester, England, founded by Andy Maddocks around 1990. Skam also runs a smaller sub-label called 33.-History:...
. Their first release as Autechre was the single "Cavity Job
Cavity Job
- External links :***...
" in 1991, released on Hardcore Records. Two more tracks appeared during the following year, under the now finalised Autechre name, on the Warp Records compilation Artificial Intelligence, part of the series of the same name
Artificial Intelligence (series)
Artificial Intelligence is a series of albums by Warp Records released from 1992–1994 to exhibit the capabilities and sounds of electronic music. Warp described the new music as "electronic listening music" to clarify that it was meant more for the mind than the body...
. The compilation contained "The Egg", later reworked for their first full length release under the title "Eggshell".
Incunabula and Amber (1993–1994)
In 1993 Warp released their debut album, IncunabulaIncunabula (album)
Incunabula is the debut album by electronic music group Autechre. It was released in 1993 and is the seventh album in the Artificial Intelligence series. The album's title has also been typeset as , as all Artificial Intelligence releases were...
, which became a surprise success, reaching the top of the UK Indie Chart. The album had a cool, calculated feel, with clear techno and electro roots, but also showed hints of the rhythmic flourishes and tuned percussion that would later become an important feature of their work. An EP of remixes of Incunabulas "Basscadet
Basscadet
"Basscadet" is a song released by Autechre as a single under the title of Basscad,EP . The accompanying EP consists entirely of remixes of the namesake track which originally appeared on Incunabula, Autechre's 1993 debut album with Warp Records...
" was released the following year. 1994 also saw the release of Amber, an album featuring a more ambient
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
, less percussive approach than their debut.
The Anti EP
Anti EP
- External links :* at the official Warp discography * *...
was released shortly before Amber and is as yet the only Autechre release to have an explicit purpose: it was a protest against the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994
Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994
The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It introduced a number of changes to the existing law, most notably in the restriction and reduction of existing rights and in greater penalties for certain "anti-social" behaviours...
, which would prohibit raves, defined as any gathering of nine or more people where rave music is played. Rave music was defined as music which "includes sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats". The record came wrapped in a seal, on which was printed a legal warning: "Flutter has been programmed in such a way that no bars contain identical beats and can therefore be played at both forty five and thirty three revolutions under the proposed new law. However we advise DJs to have a lawyer and musicologist present at all times to confirm the non repetitive nature of the music in the event of police harassment."
Tri Repetae, Chiastic Slide, and LP5 (1995–1999)
1995 saw the release of Tri RepetaeTri Repetae
-++ :The bonus disc is made up of the EPs Anvil Vapre and Garbage .-External links:* at the official Warp discography.* at Bleep ....
, their third album, as well as the EPs Anvil Vapre and Garbage. Featuring a stark monochrome cover designed by The Designers Republic
The Designers Republic
The Designers Republic was a graphic design studio, founded on 14 July 1986 by Ian Anderson, and based in Sheffield, England. It was known for its anti-establishment aesthetics, while simultaneously embracing brash consumerism and the uniform style of corporate brands, such as Orange and Coca-Cola...
, with whom Autechre have long held a close association, Tri Repetae was perhaps their most sparse and deliberately cold work yet, exhibiting stripped down mechanical beats and an increasingly more subtle use of synthesizers. Often considered a classic of mid-1990s electronic music, Tri Repetae and its associated EPs were combined into a two disc set entitled Tri Repetae++, which was released in the United States. An official promotional video was created by English visual artist Chris Cunningham
Chris Cunningham
Chris Cunningham is an English music video film director and video artist. He was born in Reading, Berkshire in 1970 and grew up in Lakenheath, Suffolk....
for "Second Bad Vilbel" from Anvil Vapre. This would be his first music video and the duo's second, their first being Jess Scott-Hunter's video for the single "Basscadet". The Anvil Vapre video featured rapidly cut shots of industrial machinery and robotic movement, synchronized with the music. Cunningham later re-edited the video in 2002, following his disappointment with the original: "It was intended to be completely abstract but it didn't quite work out that way". A two track vinyl-only EP entitled We R Are Why
We R Are Why
We R Are Why is an Autechre promo released by mail-order and available at some concerts, by Warp Records in 1996.-External links:** ....
, similar in style to Tri Repetae, was available to buy during certain concerts and via mail order during 1996.
Autechre released three records in 1997: the full length Chiastic Slide
Chiastic Slide
-External links:* at the official Warp website....
, and the EPs Envane
Envane
-External links:* at the Warp Records discography....
and Cichlisuite. The latter EP consists, as its title suggests, of five remixed versions of "Cichli" from Chiastic Slide, though they sound remarkably distant from the industrial
Industrial music
Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...
-influenced, loop-heavy style of the original source. Containing four tracks, each around the eight minute mark, Envane
Envane
-External links:* at the Warp Records discography....
is a coherent EP that showcases a strong hip hop influence, featuring a clear vocal sample (taken from "No Awareness" on Dr. Octagonecologyst
Dr. Octagonecologyst
Dr. Octagonecologyst is the debut solo album of American rapper Keith Thornton and the first album he released under the alias Dr. Octagon. It was released May 6, 1996, on Bulk Recordings in the United States and Mo' Wax in the United Kingdom, and re-released in the US on DreamWorks Records in...
) and scratching
Scratching
Scratching is a DJ or turntablist technique used to produce distinctive sounds by moving a vinyl record back and forth on a turntable while optionally manipulating the crossfader on a DJ mixer. While scratching is most commonly associated with hip hop music, since the late 1980s, it has been used...
on its opening track, "Goz Quarter". Radio Mix
Radio Mix
Radio Mix is a CD-only promotional recording by Autechre. It is mostly made up of continuous, DJ-style remixes of other artists' tracks, and is considered extremely difficult to get hold of...
was also released in 1997. A rare CD-only promotional recording, it contains an hour long DJ mix of other artists' tracks, some of them remixed by Autechre, as well as a short interview edited sometimes to the point of incomprehensibility.
An untitled record (typically known as LP5
LP5
On US and German pressings, the hidden track is moved to its own 12th track, while the silence after "Drane2" is shortened by three minutes. The hidden track is not found on vinyl pressings....
or simply Autechre) followed in 1998, continuing the duo's path into further technical precision, experimentation, and what some feel to be audio abstraction
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
. It has been seen as a transitional work, with Brown commenting in 2005 that "a lot of people have cited it as a classic Autechre album because it bridges the gap between the guys who liked our old stuff and the guys who got propelled on to our new stuff."
1999 saw the release of their first Peel session EP, consisting of three unreleased tracks for British broadcaster John Peel
John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...
's show for BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...
in the complex rhythmic style of LP5, as well as a vinyl-only limited edition promotional EP entitled Splitrmx12
Splitrmx12
Splitrmx12 is a vinyl-only promotional recording by Autechre. The release by Warp Records was limited to just 3000 copies.The A side is a version of the tracks "Weissensee" and "Im Glück" by Neu!, from the 1972 self titled album Neu!.-Track listing:...
. 1999 also saw EP7, which is classed by the group as an EP despite being over an hour in length,
Confield, Draft 7.30, and Untilted (2000–2007)
The new millennium brought about a drastic change in Autechre's style, initially indicated by the heavily generativeGenerative music
Generative music is a term popularized by Brian Eno to describe music that is ever-different and changing, and that is created by a system.- Theory :There are four primary perspectives on "Generative Music" Generative music is a term popularized by Brian Eno to describe music that is ever-different...
EP7. Demonstrated by Confield
Confield
Confield immediately divided fans upon its release. Pitchfork Media gave the album an 8.8/10, the highest they have ever rated an Autechre album, claiming that, "For those willing to take these times in stride, Confield promises elegant production, accessibility in moderation, and one of the most...
(2001) and Draft 7.30
Draft 7.30
Draft 7.30 is the seventh album by the electronic music group Autechre. It was released by Warp Records in 2003.The name Draft 7.30 supposedly derives from the album being the 30th edited version of the album. The artwork for this album was created by Alex Rutterford. "Theme of Sudden Roundabout"...
(2003), as well as the Gantz Graf
Gantz Graf
DVD-External links:* at the official Warp discography .* in making the "Gantz Graf" video.*...
EP (2002), listeners could hear Autechre's move into a musical territory built upon almost unrestrained rhythm backed by sparse melodies buried further back in the mix than ever before. Although still strongly connected to the IDM genre tag, tracks like Confields closer "Lentic Catachresis" seem to momentarily sever all ties the duo have with electronic dance music
Electronic dance music
Electronic dance music is electronic music produced primarily for the purposes of use within a nightclub setting, or in an environment that is centered upon dance-based entertainment...
, even in its broadest sense. In a similarly chaotic fashion, the title track from Gantz Graf inspired an iconic video by British designer Alex Rutterford
Alex Rutterford
Alex Rutterford is a British director and graphic designer working mostly on music videos. He studied graphic design at the Croydon School of Art and graduated in 1991. He started his professional career by designing graphics on sets for films such as Judge Dredd. He was a member of the design team...
, featuring an object (or an agglomeration of objects) synchronized to the music as it morphs, pulsates, shakes, and finally dissolves. Rutterford, who had previously created an unofficial video for the Tri Repetae track "Eutow" as part of the Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
music programme Lo-Fi in 2001, claimed the idea for the "Gantz Graf" video came during one of his LSD
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an...
trips. The second Autechre Peel session EP was also released in 2002, containing four new tracks that were named by John Peel himself. Autechre released two collaborative albums with Andrew M. McKenzie's Hafler Trio
Hafler Trio
The Hafler Trio is a conceptual and sound art collaborative between Andrew M. McKenzie, the only permanent member, and guest musicians. The project has seen the release of numerous albums and CDs in experimental musical styles ranging from electronica, cut-up, ambient, environmental soundscape,...
collective during the following three years (see collaborations).
The reactions by both professional critics and fans to the release of Confield were mixed, as perhaps expected, though generally positive. Some publishers even went so far as to say it exhibits the duo at "the top of their game" and "cements Autechre's name in the pantheon of sonic visionaries", as well as praising its intricate, ambitious and unsettling nature. According to Sean Booth, "most of Confield came out of experiments with Max
Max (software)
Max is a visual programming language for music and multimedia developed and maintained by San Francisco-based software company Cycling '74. During its 20-year history, it has been widely used by composers, performers, software designers, researchers, and artists for creating innovative recordings,...
that weren't really applicable in a club environment." In contrast, 2003's Draft 7.30 was seen by some as a relatively easier record to grasp, combining Confields sonic abstraction and ambition with splintered, harder beats that recall more the duo's interest in techno and hip hop, such as in the almost glitch hop rhythm of "V-Proc". Booth stated in an interview around the release of Draft 7.30 that "[rhythm] doesn't seem to limit us in the way it did when we first started. Now I think we just get it, we're totally fluent in it and can be more expressive."
Untilted
Untilted
-External links:* at the official Warp discography .*...
(a play on the word "untitled"), the duo's eighth album, was released in 2005. It roughly continued the sound of their previous two LPs, though featured compositions that mutated greatly during their duration, typically alternating between passages of ambience and heavily processed, precise beats, such as on "Ipacial Section". Its final track, "Sublimit", is at almost sixteen minutes Autechre's longest composition to feature on any of their albums. The release of Untilted was followed by a two month tour that took the group around Europe, America and Japan, but withdrew them from studio work for an unusual length of time. The outcome of this, coupled with a forced change in studio setup, was a gap of three years between releases, longer than ever before.
Quaristice and Oversteps (2008–2011)
Their ninth album, QuaristiceQuaristice
-Quaristice :A second disc, entitled Quaristice , was included in the limited edition.-Release history:-External links:* *...
, was finally released in early 2008. In stark contrast to Untilted, it is made up of twenty tracks, more than any other Autechre release, each typically around 2–5 minutes in length. The download-only Quaristice.Quadrange.ep.ae
Quaristice.Quadrange.ep.ae
Quaristice.Quadrange.ep.ae is a 2008 download-only EP by the electronic music duo Autechre, released by Warp Records. It consists of alternative versions of tracks from the Quaristice album and is classified as an EP by the duo despite being more than two hours in length...
EP that accompanies it (as well as the Versions bonus disc and three tracks released exclusively through the Japanese iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
store) brings the total length of music released during their Quaristice era to over five hours. Among this is the hour-long, extremely minimal "Perlence subrange 6-36" that closes the EP. The sound of Quaristice, while unusually erratic, is arguably highly representative of Autechre as a whole: it contains washes of ambience, and heavily processed and textured sound design, together with beats both typical of IDM and resembling the techno and hip hop that influenced the duo in their early days. Each track on Quaristice was edited down from lengthy improvised sessions between Booth and Brown, some of which were released in longer versions on Quaristice. Quadrange.ep.ae. Although Sean Booth has stated that the FLAC release of Quaristice is the actual product, the album was also released by Warp Records as a double LP and a single CD as well as an elaborate two CD edition by Warp Records. Limited to only 1000 copies, and containing both the regular album and Quaristice (Versions), this special edition was packaged in a photo-etched steel case. It sold out within 12 hours of being announced.
On 13 January 2010, Warp Records announced Oversteps
Oversteps
Oversteps is Autechre's tenth album, released on Warp Records. The album was made available for official download on bleep.com and the Japanese iTunes store on 22 February 2010; the CD and deluxe vinyl editions were released on 22 March 2010...
, Autechre's tenth album. Originally slated to be released in March, it was released a month early in digital form on Bleep.com to those who preordered it; the CD and deluxe vinyl editions were released on 22 March 2010. A two-month European tour occurred in support of the album, followed by limited shows in Japan and Australia, the latter breaking a 15 year absence. The sound of Oversteps, as with Quaristice, is greatly eclectic, though it is perhaps their most noticeably ambient
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
release since 1994's Amber. Autechre then compiled a mix for the magazine FACT, released in February of the same year, that consisted of tracks by artists as diverse as J Dilla
J Dilla
James Dewitt Yancey , better known by the stage names J Dilla and Jay Dee, was an American record producer who emerged from the mid-1990s underground hip hop scene in Detroit, Michigan...
and Necrophagist
Necrophagist
Necrophagist is a German death metal band, founded and fronted by Muhammed Suiçmez; a German-born, Turkish guitarist and vocalist. The band is known for its rapid and technical compositions....
. On 25 May 2010, Warp Records announced the ten track Move of Ten
Move of Ten
Move of Ten is a 2010 EP by the electronic music group Autechre, released by Warp Records. Like Oversteps, Move of Ten has packaging and artwork by The Designers Republic, and was released in mp3 as well as 16 and 24-bit WAV formats on 14 June 2010 via the bleep.com online music store...
, an EP by the duo in conjunction with the release of Oversteps. The digipack CD and the two 12" vinyl version, as well as a high quality download, was released on 12 July 2010.
In 2011 the release of a collection of EPs, excluding Move Of Ten, was announced on the Bleep Website, with artwork from the Designers Republic. Entitled EPs 1991 - 2002, it is set for physical release on 11 April 2011. The boxset includes a CD copy of their first EP, Cavity Job, the first time it has been released on the format. In 2011 as part of Warp's 'Made In Japan' relief concert for the victims of the 2011 Sendai Earthquake, an 11 minute piece was released entitled '6852', possibly believed to be part of a previous live recording.
Influences
A wide variety of influences have been noted as discernible in Autechre's music. The duo's roots in taggingGraffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
, early hip-hop and electro music, and b-boy culture in general are still evident, with many reviews noting hip-hop rhythms - sometimes heavily obscured or processed, and sometimes explicit even in later work. All of Autechre's live webcasts have featured large amounts of early hip-hop and electro. In a review of Oversteps
Oversteps
Oversteps is Autechre's tenth album, released on Warp Records. The album was made available for official download on bleep.com and the Japanese iTunes store on 22 February 2010; the CD and deluxe vinyl editions were released on 22 March 2010...
, The Wire
The Wire (magazine)
The Wire is a British avant garde music magazine, founded in 1982 by jazz promoter Anthony Wood and journalist Chrissie Murray. The magazine initially concentrated on contemporary jazz and improvised music, but branched out in the early 1990s to various types of experimental music...
noted "Treale" as being "a reminder of Booth and Brown's musical apprenticeship as teenage B-boys".
As Autechre's music and studio setup progressed, reviews started to note influences from farther afield; experiments in algorithm
Algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning...
ic and generative synthesis
Generative music
Generative music is a term popularized by Brian Eno to describe music that is ever-different and changing, and that is created by a system.- Theory :There are four primary perspectives on "Generative Music" Generative music is a term popularized by Brian Eno to describe music that is ever-different...
, musique concrète
Musique concrète
Musique concrète is a form of electroacoustic music that utilises acousmatic sound as a compositional resource. The compositional material is not restricted to the inclusion of sounds derived from musical instruments or voices, nor to elements traditionally thought of as "musical"...
, and FM synthesis drew comparisons with Iannis Xenakis
Iannis Xenakis
Iannis Xenakis was a Romanian-born Greek ethnic, naturalized French composer, music theorist, and architect-engineer. He is commonly recognized as one of the most important post-war avant-garde composers...
and Bernard Parmegiani
Bernard Parmegiani
Bernard Parmegiani is a composer best known for his electronic or acousmatic music.-Biography:Between 1957 and 1961 he studied mime with Jacques Lecoq, a period he later regarded as important to his work as a composer...
from critics such as Paul Morley
Paul Morley
Paul Morley is an English journalist, who wrote for the New Musical Express from 1977 to 1983, during one of its most successful periods, and has since written for a wide range of publications...
.
Autechre also cite Coil
Coil (band)
Coil were an English cross-genre, experimental music group formed in 1982 by John Balance—later credited as "Jhonn Balance"—and his partner Peter Christopherson, aka "Sleazy". The duo worked together on a series of releases before Balance chose the name Coil, which he claimed to be...
as a major influence, with an unfinished collaboration of unknown completeness occurring around the release of LP5
LP5
On US and German pressings, the hidden track is moved to its own 12th track, while the silence after "Drane2" is shortened by three minutes. The hidden track is not found on vinyl pressings....
and EP7.
Methods
Autechre use many different digital synthsDigital synthesizer
A digital synthesizer is a synthesizer that uses digital signal processing techniques to make musical sounds.Electronic keyboards make music through sound waves.-History:...
and a few analog synths
Analog synthesizer
An analog or analogue synthesizer is a synthesizer that uses analog circuits and analog computer techniques to generate sound electronically. The earliest analog synthesizers in the 1920s and 1930s such as the Trautonium were built with a variety of vacuum-tube and electro-mechanical technologies...
in their production, as well as analog and digital drum machines, mixers
Mixing console
In professional audio, a mixing console, or audio mixer, also called a sound board, mixing desk, or mixer is an electronic device for combining , routing, and changing the level, timbre and/or dynamics of audio signals. A mixer can mix analog or digital signals, depending on the type of mixer...
, effects unit
Effects unit
Effects units are electronic devices that alter how a musical instrument or other audio source sounds. Some effects subtly "color" a sound, while others transform it dramatically. Effects are used during live performances or in the studio, typically with electric guitar, keyboard and bass...
s and samplers
Sampler (musical instrument)
A sampler is an electronic musical instrument similar in some respects to a synthesizer but, instead of generating sounds, it uses recordings of sounds that are loaded or recorded into it by the user and then played back by means of a keyboard, sequencer or other triggering device to perform or...
. They have also made extensive use of a variety of computer based sequencers
Music sequencer
The music sequencer is a device or computer software to record, edit, play back the music, by handling note and performance information in several forms, typically :...
, softsynths, and other applications as a means of controlling those synths and processing the synthesized sounds. Much of the hardware and software they use has been customized by the band themselves. Autechre have also experimented in depth with development environments such as Max/MSP
Max (software)
Max is a visual programming language for music and multimedia developed and maintained by San Francisco-based software company Cycling '74. During its 20-year history, it has been widely used by composers, performers, software designers, researchers, and artists for creating innovative recordings,...
(invented by software pioneer Miller Puckette
Miller Puckette
Miller Smith Puckette is the associate director of the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts as well as a professor of music at the University of California, San Diego, where he has been since 1994....
), and Kyma
Kyma (sound design language)
Kyma is a visual programming language for sound design used by musicians, researchers, and sound designers. In Kyma, a user programs a multiprocessor DSP by graphically connecting modules on the screen of a Macintosh or Windows computer.-Background:...
– amongst others – from 1997 onwards, though it is unclear which are still in use. From 2005 until 2009, they have used the Elektron
Elektron (company)
Elektron is an electronic musical instrument company, based in Gothenburg, Sweden, founded in 1998.Its products include the SID-based SidStation, the Machinedrum percussion synthesizer, the Monomachine synthesizer, and the Octatrack performance sampler....
Machinedrum and Monomachine
Elektron Monomachine
The Elektron Monomachine is a synthesizer and music sequencer by Elektron. The Monomachine is available as SFX-60 model, which is a desktop sound module, and was available as the SFX-6 model, which has a keyboard and a joystick controller...
, alongside Akai MPC and Nord Modular in their live performances, although the group appear to have reverted to a software setup for the tour related to Oversteps. It has also been rumoured that Autechre have used military equipment in their work. In 2008, Sean Booth reported that if he were locked in a cell for a year with only one piece of software and one piece of hardware, he'd "probably take a copy of Digital Performer
Digital Performer
Digital Performer is a full-featured Digital Audio Workstation/Sequencer software package published by Mark of the Unicorn of Cambridge, Massachusetts for the Apple Macintosh platform.-Ancestry:...
and an AKG
AKG Acoustics
AKG Acoustics is an Austrian manufacturer of microphones, headphones, wireless audio systems and related accessories for professional and consumer markets...
C 1000 microphone
C1000 (microphone)
The C1000 is a cardioid/hypercardioid condenser microphone produced by AKG Acoustics.It uses either phantom power or an internal 9-volt battery for when phantom power is inconvenient or unavailable. This flexibility is also useful when using consumer recording gear that frequently lacks phantom...
. "
Other machines that Autechre have repeatedly mentioned in interviews are appreciated for their interface
User interface
The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...
and aesthetics as much as their sound, including the Roland
Roland Corporation
is a Japanese manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, electronic equipment and software. It was founded by Ikutaro Kakehashi in Osaka on April 18, 1972, with ¥33 million in capital. In 2005 Roland's headquarters relocated to Hamamatsu in Shizuoka Prefecture. Today it has factories in Japan,...
TR-606 and MC-202, and the Nord Lead.
Autechre sometimes use generative
Generative music
Generative music is a term popularized by Brian Eno to describe music that is ever-different and changing, and that is created by a system.- Theory :There are four primary perspectives on "Generative Music" Generative music is a term popularized by Brian Eno to describe music that is ever-different...
techniques, most notably on Confield and EP7.
Collaborations, remixes and covers
Both Booth and Brown are known to have been heavily involved with the majority of releases by the mysterious GescomGescom
Gescom is an electronic music project based in England with close ties to the band Autechre. The name is believed to have been derived from Gestalt Communication...
collective, although Booth admitted in an interview that around 20-30 musicians overall are connected with what he describes as an "umbrella project". Three elaborately packaged albums (Ƴo & h³æ
Ƴo & h³æ
-References:*Discogs...
, Æo³ & ³hæ
Æo³ & ³hæ
-References:*Discogs...
, and ha³oe & ah³eo) have been made by Autechre in collaboration with Andrew M. McKenzie's ongoing Hafler Trio
Hafler Trio
The Hafler Trio is a conceptual and sound art collaborative between Andrew M. McKenzie, the only permanent member, and guest musicians. The project has seen the release of numerous albums and CDs in experimental musical styles ranging from electronica, cut-up, ambient, environmental soundscape,...
project. These albums are significantly more minimal than any other Autechre release, featuring dense, claustrophobic and noisy drones
Drone music
Drone music is a minimalist musical style that emphasizes the use of sustained or repeated sounds, notes, or tone-clusters – called drones. It is typically characterized by lengthy audio programs with relatively slight harmonic variations throughout each piece compared to other musics...
. A track called "Elephant Gear", credited to both Autechre and Canadian breakcore
Breakcore
Breakcore is a style of electronic music largely influenced by hardcore techno, drum and bass and Intelligent dance music. Its sound is largely characterized by a high-tempo, well-timed mingling of distorted kick drums , break beats arranged from samples of the Amen break, and audio samples from a...
musician Venetian Snares
Venetian Snares
Venetian Snares is the main performing alias of Canadian electronic musician Aaron Funk .From Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, Funk is known for making electronic music often in odd numbered time signatures...
under the alias AEVSVS, was released on a compilation in tribute to Elektron
Elektron (company)
Elektron is an electronic musical instrument company, based in Gothenburg, Sweden, founded in 1998.Its products include the SID-based SidStation, the Machinedrum percussion synthesizer, the Monomachine synthesizer, and the Octatrack performance sampler....
co-founder Daniel Hansson, who died in a car accident. Autechre have collaborated with several artists for live performances, including Zoviet France
Zoviet France
Zoviet France is a prolific music group from Newcastle upon Tyne in north east England. While often dissonant and made of industrial textures, their music also falls into the ambient music category...
, Fennesz and Roedelius 3. Telepathics Meh In-Sect Connection, an album by Sean Booth in collaboration with Mika Vainio of Pan Sonic
Pan sonic
Pan Sonic was a Finnish experimental electronic music duo consisting of Mika Vainio and Ilpo Väisänen.-Music:...
and Kouhei Matsunaga
Kouhei Matsunaga
Kouhei Matsunaga, is an electronic musician also drawing artist from Osaka, Japan.-History:Kouhei Matsunaga grew up in osaka, japan. He studied architectue and was listening to hardcore techno and rap music.He started to make music back in 1992 focusing on rather experimental music...
, was released in early 2010.
In 2009 they contributed a cover of an LFO song to the Warp20 (Recreated)
Warp20 (Recreated)
Warp20 is a compilation album released by Warp Records in 2009. It contains covers of Warp artists, such as Aphex Twin, LFO, Boards of Canada and Grizzly Bear by other Warp artists, such as Plaid, Autechre and Mira Calix.-Track listing:...
compilation, as well as having their song "Tilapia" covered by John Callaghan
John Callaghan
John Carter Callaghan, was a Canadian cardiac surgeon who "pioneered open-heart surgery in Alberta" Born in Hamilton, Ontario on October 1, 1923, he received his medical degree from the University of Toronto in 1946...
.
The compilation CD The Only Blip Hop Record You Will Ever Need, Vol.1, issued in 2002 by David Byrne's Luaka Bop Records, contains a cover version of "gnit" performed by Marie + Scratch. It is performed using only human voice samples.
Autechre helped initiate the All Tomorrow's Parties
All Tomorrow's Parties (music festival)
All Tomorrow's Parties is a music festival which takes place at Camber Sands holiday camp in East Sussex and Butlin's holiday camp in Minehead, Somerset, England....
music festival
Music festival
A music festival is a festival oriented towards music that is sometimes presented with a theme such as musical genre, nationality or locality of musicians, or holiday. They are commonly held outdoors, and are often inclusive of other attractions such as food and merchandise vending machines,...
in 2000, and curated the 2003 festival.
Radio
Autechre have been involved with radio since their early days, originally spinning for IBC Radio, a ManchesterManchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
pirate radio
Pirate radio
Pirate radio is illegal or unregulated radio transmission. The term is most commonly used to describe illegal broadcasting for entertainment or political purposes, but is also sometimes used for illegal two-way radio operation...
station in 1991, where they had their own show playing Belgian techno alongside their own demos. Later they would appear as part of Gescom
Gescom
Gescom is an electronic music project based in England with close ties to the band Autechre. The name is believed to have been derived from Gestalt Communication...
for their weekly "Disengage" show on Manchester's Kiss FM.
Webcasts
Autechre have streamed exceptionally long live DJ mixes as webcastWebcast
A webcast is a media presentation distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology to distribute a single content source to many simultaneous listeners/viewers. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand...
s to coincide with the release of three albums so far:
- A nearly nine-hour live mix on 10–11 April 2005 (GMT) to coincide with the release of UntiltedUntilted-External links:* at the official Warp discography .*...
. - A twelve-hour live stream on 23–24 February 2008 to coincide with the release of QuaristiceQuaristice-Quaristice :A second disc, entitled Quaristice , was included in the limited edition.-Release history:-External links:* *...
. - A twelve-and-a-half-hour live stream spanning 6pm-6.30am (GMT) on 2–3 March 2010 to coincide with the release of OverstepsOverstepsOversteps is Autechre's tenth album, released on Warp Records. The album was made available for official download on bleep.com and the Japanese iTunes store on 22 February 2010; the CD and deluxe vinyl editions were released on 22 March 2010...
.
Titles and artwork
Autechre album and track titles often follow a similar pattern, combining obscure references, acronymsAcronym and initialism
Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations formed from the initial components in a phrase or a word. These components may be individual letters or parts of words . There is no universal agreement on the precise definition of the various terms , nor on written usage...
, portmanteau words, unpredictable grammar
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
, and deliberate misspellings. Although their first two albums consisted mainly of track titles with easily recognisable words, such as "Bike" from Incunabula and "Glitch" from Amber, this style morphed gradually, resulting in titles like Quaristices "90101-5l-l" and "fwzE". However, certain track names, such as "Theme of Sudden Roundabout" from Draft 7.30 (which references a landmark in their hometown of Rochdale
Rochdale
Rochdale is a large market town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amongst the foothills of the Pennines on the River Roch, north-northwest of Oldham, and north-northeast of the city of Manchester. Rochdale is surrounded by several smaller settlements which together form the Metropolitan...
), offer listeners some degree of clarity. Their release titles, whether intentionally or not, seem to sometimes reference its placement in the Autechre discography: Incunabula
Incunabula (album)
Incunabula is the debut album by electronic music group Autechre. It was released in 1993 and is the seventh album in the Artificial Intelligence series. The album's title has also been typeset as , as all Artificial Intelligence releases were...
, their full-length debut, takes its title from a Latin word (the plural of incunabulum) which can refer to "the earliest stages or first traces in the development of anything"; Amber, their second album, relates to the second light sequenced in traffic light
Traffic light
Traffic lights, which may also be known as stoplights, traffic lamps, traffic signals, signal lights, robots or semaphore, are signalling devices positioned at road intersections, pedestrian crossings and other locations to control competing flows of traffic...
s; the prefix "tri
Tri
Tri may refer to:* An intern specializing in Float and Share research.* tri-, a numerical prefix meaning three* El Tri or El Tricolor, are the nickname of the Mexico national football team.* El Tri, Mexican rock group...
", meaning third, is present on Tri Repetae
Tri Repetae
-++ :The bonus disc is made up of the EPs Anvil Vapre and Garbage .-External links:* at the official Warp discography.* at Bleep ....
, their third album; a simple chiastic
Chiasmus
In rhetoric, chiasmus is the figure of speech in which two or more clauses are related to each other through a reversal of structures in order to make a larger point; that is, the clauses display inverted parallelism...
phrase has four parts (their fourth album is titled Chiastic Slide
Chiastic Slide
-External links:* at the official Warp website....
); both LP5 and EP7 are self-explanatory; Draft 7.30 apparently refers to the thirtieth edited version of their seventh album; Untilted
Untilted
-External links:* at the official Warp discography .*...
has eight characters in its title, as well as eight tracks; and Quaristice, their ninth release, features the unusual catalogue number 333, which adds up to nine, a digit which appears frequently in the album's track titles.
Autechre, as with a significant number of Warp Records artists, have long maintained a strong link with Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
-based graphic design company The Designers Republic
The Designers Republic
The Designers Republic was a graphic design studio, founded on 14 July 1986 by Ian Anderson, and based in Sheffield, England. It was known for its anti-establishment aesthetics, while simultaneously embracing brash consumerism and the uniform style of corporate brands, such as Orange and Coca-Cola...
. As a result, Autechre's artwork often echoes the distinctly modern, sharp, occasionally minimal style the studio is renowned for. While often digital and abstract in nature, certain covers feature recognisable themes and imagery, such as the rock formations on Amber, the circle of black paint on Oversteps, and the edited photograph of a Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
building on Envane. With the rise of digital downloads as a popular format, Autechre have grasped the chance to produce subtly different artwork for each track on their two most recent albums: all tracks on Quaristice have their own minimal blue, black and white composition of squares; and Oversteps features fourteen black painted circles, one for each of its tracks.
Critical reception
Autechre's music has attracted diverse reactions. Though generally hailed, praise is not universal even within the coterie of artists normally labelled IDM: Aphex TwinAphex Twin
Richard David James , best known under the pseudonym Aphex Twin, is an Irish-born electronic musician and composer described as "the most inventive and influential figure in contemporary electronic music"...
, for example, claims that Squarepusher
Squarepusher
Squarepusher is the performing pseudonym of Tom Jenkinson, an English electronic music artist signed to Warp Records. He specialises in the electronic music genres of drum and bass and acid, with a significant jazz and musique concrète influence....
"doesn't like Autechre". However, Squarepusher has indicated he respects Autechre, and calls their music "smart". Opinion has also been divided on the specific qualities of the duo's music. Of LP5, for example, reviewers said both that "all the songs are cut from the same sonic cloth" and that it was "one of their most diverse ... works to date".
Autechre are well aware of the incongruous reactions their work elicits, saying that descriptions of their music "usually run contrary to each other" and that "every time we have an album out, we get conflicting reports". As with many artists, they have themselves raised questions about their earlier work; Rob Brown mentioned that Incunabula and Amber retrospectively sounded "cheesy" in a 2008 interview with Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...
prior to the release of Quaristice.
Albums
- 1993: IncunabulaIncunabula (album)Incunabula is the debut album by electronic music group Autechre. It was released in 1993 and is the seventh album in the Artificial Intelligence series. The album's title has also been typeset as , as all Artificial Intelligence releases were...
- 1994: Amber UK #81
- 1995: Tri RepetaeTri Repetae-++ :The bonus disc is made up of the EPs Anvil Vapre and Garbage .-External links:* at the official Warp discography.* at Bleep ....
UK #86 - 1997: Chiastic SlideChiastic Slide-External links:* at the official Warp website....
UK #130 - 1998: LP5LP5On US and German pressings, the hidden track is moved to its own 12th track, while the silence after "Drane2" is shortened by three minutes. The hidden track is not found on vinyl pressings....
UK #135 - 2001: ConfieldConfieldConfield immediately divided fans upon its release. Pitchfork Media gave the album an 8.8/10, the highest they have ever rated an Autechre album, claiming that, "For those willing to take these times in stride, Confield promises elegant production, accessibility in moderation, and one of the most...
UK #153 - 2003: Draft 7.30Draft 7.30Draft 7.30 is the seventh album by the electronic music group Autechre. It was released by Warp Records in 2003.The name Draft 7.30 supposedly derives from the album being the 30th edited version of the album. The artwork for this album was created by Alex Rutterford. "Theme of Sudden Roundabout"...
UK #149 - 2005: UntiltedUntilted-External links:* at the official Warp discography .*...
UK #199 - 2008: QuaristiceQuaristice-Quaristice :A second disc, entitled Quaristice , was included in the limited edition.-Release history:-External links:* *...
UK #148 - 2010: OverstepsOverstepsOversteps is Autechre's tenth album, released on Warp Records. The album was made available for official download on bleep.com and the Japanese iTunes store on 22 February 2010; the CD and deluxe vinyl editions were released on 22 March 2010...
UK #124
EPs
- 1991: Lego Feet
- 1994: Anti EPAnti EP- External links :* at the official Warp discography * *...
- 1995: Garbage (combined with Anvil Vapre for Tri RepetaeTri Repetae-++ :The bonus disc is made up of the EPs Anvil Vapre and Garbage .-External links:* at the official Warp discography.* at Bleep ....
++) UKUK Singles ChartThe UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
#138 - 1995: Anvil Vapre (combined with Garbage for Tri Repetae++) UKUK Singles ChartThe UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
#102 - 1997: EnvaneEnvane-External links:* at the Warp Records discography....
UKUK Singles ChartThe UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
#94 - 1997: Cichlisuite (also known as Cichli Suite) UKUK Singles ChartThe UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
#127 - 1999: Peel SessionPeel Session (Autechre)Peel Session is an album by electronic duo Autechre, released on vinyl and CD by Warp Records in January 1999. It consists of material recorded for John Peel's Radio 1 sessions in late 1995...
UK Budget Albums ChartUK Albums ChartThe UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...
#2 - 1999: EP7 (CD combining vinyl EPs EP 7.1 and EP 7.2)
- 2001: Peel Session 2
- 2002: Gantz GrafGantz GrafDVD-External links:* at the official Warp discography .* in making the "Gantz Graf" video.*...
(also released as a DVDDVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
) UKUK Singles ChartThe UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
#108 - 2003: æ³o & h³æƳo & h³æ-References:*Discogs...
(2xCD Minimax, collaboration with Hafler TrioHafler TrioThe Hafler Trio is a conceptual and sound art collaborative between Andrew M. McKenzie, the only permanent member, and guest musicians. The project has seen the release of numerous albums and CDs in experimental musical styles ranging from electronica, cut-up, ambient, environmental soundscape,...
) - 2005: æo³ & ³hæÆo³ & ³hæ-References:*Discogs...
(2xCD, collaboration with Hafler TrioHafler TrioThe Hafler Trio is a conceptual and sound art collaborative between Andrew M. McKenzie, the only permanent member, and guest musicians. The project has seen the release of numerous albums and CDs in experimental musical styles ranging from electronica, cut-up, ambient, environmental soundscape,...
) - 2008: Quaristice.Quadrange.ep.aeQuaristice.Quadrange.ep.aeQuaristice.Quadrange.ep.ae is a 2008 download-only EP by the electronic music duo Autechre, released by Warp Records. It consists of alternative versions of tracks from the Quaristice album and is classified as an EP by the duo despite being more than two hours in length...
(digital exclusive 13-track EP bundle) - 2010: Move of TenMove of TenMove of Ten is a 2010 EP by the electronic music group Autechre, released by Warp Records. Like Oversteps, Move of Ten has packaging and artwork by The Designers Republic, and was released in mp3 as well as 16 and 24-bit WAV formats on 14 June 2010 via the bleep.com online music store...
- 2011: EPs 1991 - 2002 (set of 5 CDs; includes Cavity Job, which is released on CD for the first time)
Singles, promos, and remixes
- 1991: "Cavity JobCavity Job- External links :***...
" (12" vinyl single limited to 1,000 copies) - 1994: BasscadetBasscadet"Basscadet" is a song released by Autechre as a single under the title of Basscad,EP . The accompanying EP consists entirely of remixes of the namesake track which originally appeared on Incunabula, Autechre's 1993 debut album with Warp Records...
(five remixes – six on vinyl – of "Basscadet" from Incunabula; also known as Basscad) UKUK Singles ChartThe UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
#56 - 1996: "We R Are WhyWe R Are WhyWe R Are Why is an Autechre promo released by mail-order and available at some concerts, by Warp Records in 1996.-External links:** ....
" (12" vinyl promo.) - 1997: Radio MixRadio MixRadio Mix is a CD-only promotional recording by Autechre. It is mostly made up of continuous, DJ-style remixes of other artists' tracks, and is considered extremely difficult to get hold of...
(hour-long DJ remix of own and other artists' tracks) - 1999: "Splitrmx12Splitrmx12Splitrmx12 is a vinyl-only promotional recording by Autechre. The release by Warp Records was limited to just 3000 copies.The A side is a version of the tracks "Weissensee" and "Im Glück" by Neu!, from the 1972 self titled album Neu!.-Track listing:...
" (12" vinyl promo limited to 3,000 copies) - 2008: "Quaristice (Versions)" (Limited to 1,000 copies, contains remixes of 11 Quaristice tracks)
- 2008: Digital Exclusive (3-track EP available only in the Japanese iTunes Store)
Interviews & other
- Autechre interview with Sound on SoundSound on SoundSound on Sound is an independently-owned monthly music technology magazine published by SOS Publications Group, based in Cambridge, UK. The magazine includes product tests of electronic musical performance and recording devices, and interviews with industry professionals...
(April 2004) - Rob Brown interview with BBC CollectiveCollective (BBC)Collective was an "interactive culture magazine" hosted by the BBC's website, bbc.co.uk. Collective was launched in May 2002, becoming interactive in September of the same year. Collective editors included Rowan Kerek, Jonathan Carter, Alastair Lee, James Cowdery and Matt Walton who had the...
(April 2005) - Sean Booth interview with KultureFlash (April 2005)
- Sean Booth interview with Cyclic DefrostCyclic DefrostCyclic Defrost is Australia's only specialist electronic music magazine. It is edited by Sebastian Chan, Shaun Prescott and Alexandra Savvides, and covers independent electronic music, avant-rock, experimental sound art and left field hip hop....
(May 2005) - Rob Brown Interview about Quaristice with Barcode MagazineBarcodeA barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of data, which shows data about the object to which it attaches. Originally barcodes represented data by varying the widths and spacings of parallel lines, and may be referred to as linear or 1 dimensional . Later they evolved into rectangles,...
(January 2008) - Interview with Sean Booth in The List
- Autechre, "Oversteps" by BillboardBillboard (magazine)Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...