Thursday, 6th of February, 2003

Such is Warp Records’ paranoia about pre-release copies of the new Autechre album getting to the general public before it's released that the promo copies come on cassette! So when I got mine (to review for the next issue of Cyclic Defrost), I hauled my laptop over to the only remaining cassette player in the house and immediately dubbed it onto CDR.
And the question on everyone's lips (at least on the idm-list) is, "Is it more unlistenable noise"?
I'd like to point out from the outset that I think this is unfair. To be sure, their last album (Confield) sported only one element that could be construed as a "melody", and very little in the way of comprehensible rhythm. I was not as scandalised as some though, who were clearly offended that the ae boys ever moved on from Amber's pretty melodies. But after all, Autechre's albums have been an inevitable progression from the beautiful and smooth to the ever-more distorted and deconstructed. Following Confield, last year's Gantz Graf EP was a very fine piece of work. The title track makes perfect sense as a soundtrack to an orgasming CGI spark plug, while the last track is evocative and tribal.

About half of the new album shares Confield's obtuseness, with rhythms that don't loop in the way you'd expect, and not much melodically speaking. On first listen the initial tracks give very little to hold on to, but clearly the focus here is on the sounds: how they develop and how they're treated. Track 3 ("6IE.CR") begins as abrasive distorted funk, but gradually a spectral wheezing synth fades in, and is left hanging over the last gorgeous, beatless minute. On track 4 ("TAPR"), the stuttering percussion makes no pretence whatsoever at being a rhythm track. Then track 5 ("SURRIPERE") introduces a clicking groove over which melancholy synths ride… If this is inaccessible noise, I'm Lucas Abela.
Ghostly melodies haunt a fair few of the tracks on Draft 7.30 to great effect, such as in track 7 ("VL AL"), which eventually breaks down into some sort of chewed-up orchestral sample. Whereas the excellent final track ("RENIFORM PULS") sounds like a return to LP5, with complex patterns and real (albeit fucked-up) melody, track 9 ("V-PROC")'s stuttering granular snow gives way, 1 1/2 minutes in, to an altogether righteous crunchy hip-hop beat. The only complaint (here and elsewhere) is that there's not a lot of development – everything's a bit monotone, and only holds interest as the beat gradually gets more chewed up. [This could be due to the cassette's limited dynamic range, though! - thanks Seb]
If you approach it in the right frame of mind, Draft 7.30 is the sort of album that will take you to other universes. Keep an open mind.

Follow-on note, added 01.04.03: I'm going to do a second review of the album when the CD comes out. I actually think it's a whole lot better now than I did initially, not that I gave it a bad review… and when we hear it on CD, properly mastered for that medium, I think it will show up really well.
Not that I ever did a second review. Reading over it now (17.04.05), my review's pretty fair and still hold up. The monotone aspect is something that can describe a fair bit of Autechre's work in the last few years, and although it is not as bad as the cassette version suggested, there's still a certain lack of dynamic range which can get to you if you're not in the right mind-set…

13 Responses to “Autechre – Draft 7.30 (cassette promo)”

1. acb says:
   February 7th, 2003 at 3:54 pm

   Is something devoid of melody and rhythm still "music"? A number of minimalist recording artists have been calling their output "sound art" rather than "music". Would Confield fall under this category?

2. Peter says:
   February 7th, 2003 at 3:57 pm

   Depends how minimalist, and how you define such things… For instance, Confield still has rhythm of a sort, but not rhythm that can be identifiable all the time at least as having a time-signature or regular pulse or anything.

   I don't think it's "sound art"… Music is what you make it anyway. Yar.

3. nobody_important says:
   February 11th, 2003 at 3:13 am

   it is definately sound art, but it is definately music as well.

   people just dont take well to evolution.

   autechre is more than just minimalism. they are basically challenging the listener, as well as the concept of music itself. pushing the boundries of pre-defined expectation.

   i suppose, maybe they are pushing it to the point that we will either have to re-define our ideas of what music really is, or stop calling it music and start calling it 'sound art.'

   as of right now i imagine it is open for interperitation until someone with a musical PhD steps in and lets us know what to think about it.

   btw, thanks for the review, ive been waiting for about a half a month for someone to post one. i am very hyped about hearing this new album.

4. zich says:
   February 12th, 2003 at 8:09 am

   Ugh… whilst I always thoroughly enjoyed (most of) Confield, right from my first listen, Draft bores me to tears. Yes I HAVE heard the real thing… the tape hiss is annoying. =P But anyways… I feel that they're starting to either get bored, or are becoming a parody of their former selves. Lots of good beat poetry and sound construction (as always), but the melodies really are almost always nonexistant… and even worse, they've lost the knack of twisting a track every which way they can think of, like they did on Chiastic, LP5 and EP7. These pieces just kinda start, beats slowly change around… the odd ae tempo tricks get thrown in every so often… but that's it. Far less development and change than before, and – dare I say it – less interesting material to begin with! Confield had a lot of interesting sounds and rhythms, and even though they'd started to fall foul of their inability to know when to stop a track or not, it was still full of original and interesting sounds (Lentic Catachresis, in particular, whilst very repetitive, builds into such an incredible rage…). Draft has NONE or at the very least, very little of that. In fact, I can hear a lot of things in it they've used many times before… hence the suggestion they're getting bored or are running out of ideas.

   I'll stop there… already too much of a rant…

5. _______ says:
   February 17th, 2003 at 9:50 pm

   iv listen to Draft_7.30 allready too and im enyoing it and just want to thank the leak.

6. blair says:
   February 19th, 2003 at 12:24 am

   where can I get hold of Draft7.30 – has anyone uploaded it yet?

7. mustard_monkey says:
   February 26th, 2003 at 7:55 am

   If you look up music in the dictionary, you'll find that music is not only what people usually take it to mean, but also defined as any sound that is pleasing to the ear, hence the phrase "music to my ears", so yeh, Autechre is music. Anything is music, I always thought that was the point of minimalism and experimentalism (is that a word?).

8. Nooper says:
   March 8th, 2003 at 1:35 pm

   If it wasn't a word before, it is now. Kind of like how anything is now music.

9. chris says:
   March 12th, 2003 at 11:06 pm

   "Such is Warp Records' paranoia about pre-release copies of the new Autechre album getting to the general public before it's released that the promo copies come on cassette! "

   You want to get that down to Red Eye, son – the new White Stripes was promoed worldwide on vinyl only… and they're asking $500 for their copy.

10. wesk says:
    March 17th, 2003 at 5:15 pm

    V-PROC is amazing. i'm having trouble getting other tracks but everything i've heard off the new album is way better than confield, and much more accessible too.

11. Cucular says:
    March 25th, 2003 at 1:29 pm

    It pleases me to hear of so many comments regarding interest in the more experimental ventures Autechre have been on lately – peaking on Confield maybe. I'm a devoted fan myself, and I'm really looking forward to this new album. What I've heard sounds really good:)

    I was starting to believe I was the only one who actually liked there work on Confield and ep7 – but alas, I am not alone:)

12. nick s. says:
    April 1st, 2003 at 8:04 am

    i'm sick of hearing the "is it music?" argument about stuff. it's an especially inane debate when it comes to autechre. the VAST majority of autechre is underpinned with somewhat recognizable rhythmic patterns etc. melody is not what deifnes music PEOPLE!

    think about "ionisation" by edgard varèse, which is, like "confield" about complex rhythm interaction and sounds, but is performed on "real instruments" (oh it's definitely music now, right?).

    what about "musique concrète" is that music?

    well the answer is "of course it is!!!" the reason? simply because it is called music by the person making it.

    i'm sick and tired of narrow-minded people using "this is not music" as a way in which to de-value something. if someone has presented it to you as music, then sorry… you'll have to accept the fact that it is indeed music.

    if you don't like it, then that's another issue altogether and it's your perogative as well… but you can't just say "well that's just not music!" Music has come to be defined fairly loosely esp. since John Cage.

    As for sound art… that's a similarly vague territory, and a great deal of it can be treated as music too…

13. envane says:
    April 1st, 2003 at 6:40 pm

    autechre is hardcore. "uviol" on confield is definetly one of the best electronic pieces ever. listening to it stoned opens it up in a whole new suprising way.

    Ed note: OK thanks people, but I really don't think my blog is a forum to spout shit about Autechre, whatever your opinion. Not to diss the contributors, thanks to all! But I'm closing the comments now.