Autechre Draft 7.30
The new Autechre album, curiously titled Untilted, is set to be released on the 18th of April, and guess what?
I'm REALLY excited about it!
Thanks to all the brain-dancing folks at the Warp Records label, the timing could not be better, for you see, 4.18.05 is my 43rd birthday. If there's one thing that makes me feel like I'm not as old as my driver's license says I am, it's the fact that I really dig something as "hip" and "underground" as Autechre.
And I honestly DO love Autechre's electronic noodling---I don't have to work at it as if I were some 45 year-old grandfather of two who claims he can really relate to Trent Reznor's self-loathing angst or that Marilyn Manson reminds him so much of Alice Cooper's glory days that he might even consider buying a ticket and showing up the next time that gravy train pulls into town. Yeah, right...Better take the advice of the skinny kid with the 74 strategically placed body piercings who warns, "You'd better steer clear of the mosh pit, Daddy-O, or you'll get your dentures knocked out".
Then again, the artistry of Autechre has about as much in common with the nihilistic racket of NIN & Manson as John Denver's Rocky Mountain High has with the kind of high that keeps getting Scott Weiland in trouble.
Autechre's noise is a clatter unlike any other, as any true glitch connisseur will attest to. Pay no attention to the legions who would have you believe that they are merely a slightly less tuneful version of Aphex Twin (should that even be taken seriously as an insult, I ask? After all, I've heard AFX tracks that are about as tuneful as the sound of a lumberjack chopping down a cedar tree...).
Don't get me wrong, I LIKE Aphex Twin. A lot. But I LOVE Autechre. I don't even know if I could reasonably explain the preference, but it is there.
Perhaps you've noticed that not once in this post so far have I referred to Autechre's compositions as "music".
Therein lies a question for the contemplation of minds more enlightened than the one in my noggin.
IS IT MUSIC?
I suppose that all depends upon your understanding and definition of what constitutes music. I hate to get all postmodern on ya, but oh well...it's art, not ethics. And so "postmodern" is as good a tag as any to label it with. You take from it exactly what you expect to take from it. If you choose to hear it as disorganized, chaotic blips and blaps of unrecognizable sounds, that's your prerogative. Fact is, that's basically exactly what it is...the next step you are required to take is making the decision as to whether or not the seemingly random splotches of noise sound PLEASING to you, or do they foster annoyance and manifest collectively as a pain much like a migraine headache?
I can't say that I don't empathize with the latter camp, seeing as how your typical bottom-end booming loop-repetitive trance/acid house/techno produces a similar effect on me. But for some reason I happen to fall into the group that enjoys the noise. Perhaps it was my being exposed to Kraftwerk's Autobahn at a tender, impressionable age. Or more likely it stems from the occassion when, at the age of 15, I listened to Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music in it's screeching entirety through headphones (and from an 8-Track tape, no less).
For whatever reason, I find that the programmed sequences of Draft 7.30, Autechre's last album, are definately what I would consider MUSIC...to my ears, at least.No offense to those IDM/Glitch fans out there who have always been open-minded (or maybe it's tin-eared) enough to consider tracks like "Surripere", "V Al 5", "Tapr" and "Xylin Room" to be as musical as the catchiest Paul McCartney tune on the radio. But face it, guys, and I will face it right along with you---Autechre is a "love it or hate it" proposition and you can bet your prized laptop that the haters are gonna throw out that tired line once applied even to the craft of the Beatles by a generation convinced of Sinatra & Crosby's superiority, ie. "It's NOT music!"
Why bother arguing with them when odds are they're actually RIGHT this time? For instance, take "V-Proc" as an example. Yeah, there's a monsterous percussive beat that pulsates, but it jitters and sputters like a drum machine riding in the bed of an old Chevy truck speeding down a bumpy dirt road. Even if the sounds shooting from the center of those thumps were as releatively musical as the ones heard in the following track, "Reniform Puls", it wouldn't matter because yer brain has got to stay busy trying to decode some semblance of rythmic structure and it likely would never notice them.
With that in mind, I offer the secret to appreciating Autechre. You need only follow John Lennon's "Tomorrow Never Knows" advice to "Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream". If you can manage that (hopefully without chemical assistance) you may discover that Draft 7.30 is the perfect soundtrack for downstream floating.
It is a sonic Zen-world that is completely frustrating when you try to make sense of it. But if you can find a "Be Here Now" moment, all of a sudden you will notice that there are things occurring on so many different levels that one cannot help but be somewhat amused and perhaps not a little bit entertained by what's happening to your eardrums. It eventually seeps into your skull like a surgeon's scalpel, prodding and arranging all that useless brain matter, firing off electrical charges directly into the cerebral cortex with the uncanny effect of actually RELAXING the mind, despite the anarchic nature of the sounds bombarding it.
When "Reniform Puls" winds down you open your eyes and turn your mind back on, and what do you know? It's as if your brain has just enjoyed a nice Swedish massage.
So who cares if it's music or not, right? The hard part about Autechre is not how "challenging" it is (and, yes, I have used that word to describe much of their work). The "challenge" is to completely be able to shut down your thought process long enough to mine the treasures that are buried in those shiny 5" discs. Lennon knew the key to that as well (although it is true that LSD played a role in his figuring it out)...no need to worry, like the man said, "It is not dying".
Perhaps, at 42-soon-to-be-43 I've switched my brain off and then back on again enough times to know how it's done, and to be fearless about doing it.
I suppose that's why I've been listening to Draft 7.30 so much the last few days...When Untilted finds it's way into my headphones on my birthday, I want to make good and sure that my "on/off" switch is primed and in working order.
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