AUTECHRE

Review: A lot of good shit happened in 1998. Musically, it was the year of Air's Moon Safari, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, and the beginning of Mos Def and Talib Kweli's Black Star project. Among other things. Meanwhile, in a parallel sonic dimension, Warp Records was backing the logically-titled fifth full length album from Autechre. A landmark moment in British electronic music some have come to call Autechre, others simply Album. For the purposes of clarity, though, we're sticking with the original title.

This marked a departure from the Autechre we had been used to, with the old warm, full, almost-orchestral sound of earlier work cast aside, or perhaps just put to rest, in favour of something more technical, machine made, and pin-point precise. Good enough to rank in Pitchfork's top 10 IDM albums of all time, what else do you need to know?

Review: The fourth full-length from Autechre came at a point in time when the Greater Manchester IDM duo had really carved out their own place in music. Not only did they release this album, 1997 also saw the two EPs, Envane and Cichlisuite land, the latter made entirely from remixes of Chiastic Slide track 'Cichli'. And they still found time to drop the now-super rare Radio Mix, in which, alongside their takes on tunes by other artists, also contained a short interview with the producers that in moments was pretty much beyond comprehension.

People don't do things like that unless they have found a rhythm, identified a direction, and garnered an audience they know will get onboard with the combination of madness and genius. In terms of Chiastic, in many ways you can see this as a signpost for where things were going next, straddling inviting harmonies of the past with harsher, less human, razor sharp elements nodding to a new sonic future.

Review: We won't make the obvious joke about buses - you know, the one about waiting ages for an Autechre album and then two turn up pretty much at the same time. But we will say this. If Plus, the second of Sean Booth and Rob Brown's two albums to drop within a fortnight of each other after a lengthy absence, were a bus, it wouldn't be headed out on any recognisable route that we know about. You might find the odd bit of scenery that feels vaguely familiar - the tension-laden strings of 'ii pre esc' or the scrambled drum & bass machinations of 'X4', but in the pair's hands they are splintered and re-assembled very much in their own image, one foot in the frenetic exhortations of electro and the other deeply planted in the land of industrial experimentation. Closing track 'TM1 might bear a slight resemblance to the squelchy acid of Drexciya, for instance, but its occasionally four-to-the-floor beats stop and start with a wonderfully disorientating playfulness. Brave and original, as ever, this is not for the faint hearted but at the same time takes you places you never thought you'd encounter.

Review: So, how long have you been waiting for this one to drop? The answer really depends on two things - whether you've just been waiting for new long form material from the UK IDM legends Autechre, or whether you've been waiting for Autechre to put a proper album together that stays true to the principles and format of a 'proper album', as this does.

Either way let's just say Sign has been some time in the making, and it's definitely a case of payoff for patience. For the most part it's the waves of space age melody that really stand out, tracks like 'Esc Desc' seem to fill the room with bands of sci-fi harmony. Of course there's plenty of glitch and bleep here, too - the stepping 'Au14' is a case in point - alongside rumbling, bass-heavy business like 'Si100', where playful drips of percussion create a juxtaposition of innocence and menace.

Review: So, how long have you been waiting for this one to drop? The answer really depends on two things - whether you've just been waiting for new long form material from the UK IDM legends Autechre, or whether you've been waiting for Autechre to put a proper album together that stays true to the principles and format of a 'proper album', as this does.

Either way let's just say Sign has been some time in the making, and it's definitely a case of payoff for patience. For the most part it's the waves of space age melody that really stand out, tracks like 'Esc Desc' seem to fill the room with bands of sci-fi harmony. Of course there's plenty of glitch and bleep here, too - the stepping 'Au14' is a case in point - alongside rumbling, bass-heavy business like 'Si100', where playful drips of percussion create a juxtaposition of innocence and menace.

Review: 21 years since its release and a good 15 years after its last vinyl repress, Tri Repetae's new vinyl revitalization is incredibly welcome news to fans old and new. Without wanting to preach to the choir but everything about this body of work remains ahead of its time and on its own. From those opening robotic purrs and mechanical breaks to those final tubular space echoes on "Rsdio", the whole album still sucks you in with such alien, otherworldly allure. How they made those sounds and arranged them in such a way with the technology at the time blew minds back then and blows even more in hindsight. A serious document.