POLL Radii -- Autechre :: Untilted :: LP8

Previously: Reniform POLLs -- Autechre :: Draft 7.30 :: LP7

First album I didn't buy, first one where I'll probably abstain from voting because I'm fairly certain that I don't like any of the tracks here.

gotta re-listen before voting but "sublimit" is a great one.

Pretty sure this is my favorite Autechre album! Funky and playful. I like the midway twist in Ipacial Section.. but then the faint echoes of sounds past beneath the knotty, struggling beat in Augmatic Disport also get to me. Enjoy the halting groove of Iera with its blunt thuds, and the mumbling melody. Fermium is the most straightforward catchy tune. And how about The Trees? Glorious, crunchy sounds and you feel like they're just jamming this shit out in real time, hammering the boards. What variation to this album without filling it with a hundred tracks! Eight utter jams.

Yeah, listening to this now it's a fantastic album, one of my faves of the decade. Augmatic Disport wins the vote.

This is a toughy. The album has very very few hooks, and is almost entirely rhythm/texture based. I'd still say it's an interesting album though, or at least a flawed concept. I need to relisten to get a clearer picture. What's the deal with Fermium though?

having relistened to them as the polls have been happening i found them all to be more enjoyable than i remember. except this one.

Y'all crazy... I remember putting on the headphones in-store to listen to this for the first time and finding it instantly likeable.

Iera sounds like Lil Jon.

couldn't decide a vote on the last couple but on this one I think I wd pick the track that ends in the prolonged dub bass breakdown when I can remember which track that is/go home and listen to the album again

Sublimit is such a massive rush when it starts pounding at you.

This one's on Spotify. Will give a thorough listen.

I really wish I wasn't at home and could sit down to listen to this all the way through so I could say something interesting about it.

you can't listen to music at home?

woops, i meant at work... duh.

this was the first autechre album that really disappointed me, though I feel like I've never really given it the same chance I gave to the albums preceding this one.

Gonna try and relisten to it a couple of times this week

For me it was more like, well Confield was a mindfuck and Draft7.30 left me cold, so I had middling hopes for this one. When I heard it I was just, well that's that. I didn't feel terribly let down but I did feel that Ae wouldn't ever release a good album again. I was wrong.

well I loved Draft 7.30 and I think at the time I rated it as their best album, so I really wasn't expecting something like Untilted.

Confield and Draft 7.30, while overall not initially appealing, at least had a couple of songs that hooked you in and gave you a starting point for understanding the album. Untilted didn't have that for me.

Didn't hate Untilted like Draft 7.30, and it had some high points, but I never really grew to love it. Looking forward to spinning it again.

funny, i hear Draft7.30 and Untilted as two sides of the same coin. Find it strange that someone would love one and really dislike the other.

Can someone who's listened to this and really likes it give us a bit of positive review, with reference to individual tracks (maybe like LJ et al did with Confield). I think these kinds of discussions get more interesting when discussing Ae rather than everyone moaning that they can't hear the melodies or w/e.

Listening again, yeah I can see your point, this is not a total split from Draft or even Confield - there are dense textures and enormous forces at work here. But, I think this one has something else going for it. Like abcsfk I see it as their funk album, their hip-hop jam, their dancefloor smash. Ok it ain't four-on-the-floor but it's much more about provoking a physical reaction, than the purely textural brainfood of the previous two. That regular, granite-hard beat that kicks off the first track is a statement of intent. Ipacial Section starts off opaquely but then a dub melody comes in, and a fast 16th note figure anchors it to the dancefloor.

Pro Radii, yeah we could be back underground with Confield, but then we hear the MC, the crowd noise, the beat kicks in - it's an underground club! Augmatic Disport and Iera playing in the chill-out room. (Hmm, maybe I wouldn't recommend coming down in this room.) Fermium is cuet. Then scary. Like a vampire care-bear.

And how about The Trees? Glorious, crunchy sounds and you feel like they're just jamming this shit out in real time, hammering the boards.

Yeah this really does have the feel of some of their live stuff. And Sublimit, up until its final breakdown, is just a straight-up floor-filler. Honestly most of this album would be fantastic just played as-is in a club setting.

Have NEVER heard this album! Can't wait to dig in. Draft 7.30 has been really rewarding after the initial couple of listens.

Man LCC is so gorgeous — that plastic-ripping beat decaying into that beautifully melancholic melody

I wonder if the poll for Quaristice will have more responses than this one

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I wonder if the poll for Quaristice will have more responses than this one

There's no reason it should! If people haven't listened to it yet they should do as you, spin it and realize how great it is.

Untilted, that is.

my favorite moment on the album has to be the bit in "augmatic disport" when the original beat collapses on itself and shortens to bursts of machine-gun fire, and then the old school deep bass groove and hi-hat come in underneath

it's weird how I can't get into this album (listened to it twice this week, just to remind myself how it sounded) but thought their live show supporting this album, which was very much in the same style, was incredible. Maybe I just need to listen to this very loudly or something.

anyway, I voted sublimit

I didn't really like it until the third listen, and a fourth listen just confirmed it.

The first vocal sample section of Pro Radii is awesome, wish they do an all hip hop based album one day.

Can't stand the rest

listened again but on headphones while at work. really have to give this one a proper (LOUD) listen, it's been years. "sublimit" still the standout track.

anyway, this one clicked right away with me and I always thought it was an underrated lp. I think the folks saying that this is a very rhythmic record are otm. if you feel like listening to some autechre but still want some head-nodding shit, this ain't a bad choice.

do you work at the hadron collider?

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I feel bad for Fermium. Was hard to pick a standout though, I went for sublimit as it's the most dancefloor-friendly.

9POLL1POLL1--5l-l -- Autechre :: Quaristice :: LP9

the entire aesthetic from the cover on down is just right

this is up there all right. could end up my favourite one

just a perfect, distinct soundworld, as argument and as an integration this works as well as any of their lps, it doesn't have standout tracks as alluring as others because it invalidates the notion of having standout tracks

i listened to this tonight, was digging it, but i was kind of wistful because i wished i could actually hear it. i've been frequenting a really corporate coffeeshop that pipes in terrible overbearing insistent autotuned 'eclectic' (lil rootsy, lil rocky, lil urbane, something for every customer) decorous-but-brash semi-pop, and i would so like to hear something like this album there, not in a like 'the masses must be civilized by traumatic encounters with the avant-garde/underground' way, but just because i honestly have less of a sense of what the music ~sounds~ like when there's no chance ever of being aware of how it shapes a public space and how people react to it. it doesn't bounce off anything the way it would when the unpredictable public is there to receive it.

lil rootsy, lil rocky, lil urbane

don't make fun of my favorite rappers pls

oh, except, obviously, there is no way they can play rap in there, their line in the sand in the year 2-0-1-5

i think you could perhaps play lp5, so long as it was loud enough, to a group of teenagers and at least some of them would like it

'this is, like, "old school"'

"There are still melodies, like."

lol that should have read untilted

Just figured this out....

nodezsh vs No Type

lj as this thread's frayed link to the world of teenagers, please surreptitiously hand over small folded bits of paper with written tinyurls to a flac of untilted so we can find out

the link above is a download (sorry, shouldve said)

this album really breathes on the stereo/room.. one of the coolest sounding cds i own.

Pretty sure this is my favorite Autechre album! Funky and playful. I like the midway twist in Ipacial Section.. but then the faint echoes of sounds past beneath the knotty, struggling beat in Augmatic Disport also get to me. Enjoy the halting groove of Iera with its blunt thuds, and the mumbling melody. Fermium is the most straightforward catchy tune. And how about The Trees? Glorious, crunchy sounds and you feel like they're just jamming this shit out in real time, hammering the boards. What variation to this album without filling it with a hundred tracks! Eight utter jams.

Yeah, listening to this now it's a fantastic album, one of my faves of the decade. Augmatic Disport wins the vote.

― abcfsk, Monday, December 6, 2010 2:48 AM (eight years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Listening again, yeah I can see your point, this is not a total split from Draft or even Confield - there are dense textures and enormous forces at work here. But, I think this one has something else going for it. Like abcsfk I see it as their funk album, their hip-hop jam, their dancefloor smash. Ok it ain't four-on-the-floor but it's much more about provoking a physical reaction, than the purely textural brainfood of the previous two. That regular, granite-hard beat that kicks off the first track is a statement of intent. Ipacial Section starts off opaquely but then a dub melody comes in, and a fast 16th note figure anchors it to the dancefloor.

Pro Radii, yeah we could be back underground with Confield, but then we hear the MC, the crowd noise, the beat kicks in - it's an underground club! Augmatic Disport and Iera playing in the chill-out room. (Hmm, maybe I wouldn't recommend coming down in this room.) Fermium is cuet. Then scary. Like a vampire care-bear.

Yeah this really does have the feel of some of their live stuff. And Sublimit, up until its final breakdown, is just a straight-up floor-filler. Honestly most of this album would be fantastic just played as-is in a club setting.

― e.g. delete via naivete (ledge), Monday, December 6, 2010 3:15 PM (eight years ago) bookmarkflaglink

two great, otm posts. the closest one gets to dancefloor autechre after incunabula, from a completely different angle, answering questions no one thought to ask such as: can something be both brittle and funky? can you dance to something that is constantly shattering like a looped clip of an overheated lightbulb? a vision of d&b where the drum loops don't leave behind whorled nebulae of compression but knock against each other dryly like a bundle of logs, which permits so much space for the melody, which doesn't really use the space at all and is always just some kind of weather floating above the percussion like cracks branching through a frozen lake that never ends!!! my favorite. should've voted for it in the decade poll

god this is the best album ever made

only during Augmatic Disport

BREAK

I like it when LCC goes dancehall riddim about two thirds through

Ipacial Section was everything I needed today while driving. I swear I have all the little beat collisions and stuttering clusters memorised.

They solved music with Augmatic Disport. Like that's it people, you can all go home now

I haven’t heard this one in a while!

Does anyone have this on vinyl? I've read that at least some of the tracks are mixed differently than on the CD, and I've been so enamored of this album recently that I'm considering pulling the too-expensive trigger on a vinyl copy.

I've always been wary of getting Ae releases on vinyl because of the ultra-digital nature of the music, but I think that prejudice might be changing. I'm also eyeing Cichlisuite similarly...

the band has confirmed that more vinyl reissues are coming, guessing Untilted won't be in the next round but I would guess it'll be out eventually

LP5 plsplsplsplsplsplspslsplsplsplspslspl

xxp I looked at the track times on the LP and it looks like about half the tracks have 8-12 seconds shaved off, so the different mixes might just be fades to permit better sounding sides.

If they're going by groups of three (since the last reissue was their first three LPs), then would seem Chiastic/LP5/Confield are next. Would love to see the EPs also get repressed, I'd snatch up Envane and Chichlisuite in a heartbeat.

I have half of Cichlisuite on vinyl. Not sure if the whole thing is out there

Wasn’t it 3x12”? I have Yeesland b/w Pencha somewhere

i just got it out and it's a promo. Characi on one side, Krib and Tilapia on the other

Also, CD reissues would be dope.

WAP88 in digital pls. Also a remixes comp would be nice.

is wap88 different from the cd version?

Of Keynell? Yes, two completely different versions. Really good ones!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8bxSiq2QnU

This one's good too, from the Skam This 12".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTc9zYFi4Kw

What

https://i.imgur.com/28ramQr.jpeg

Hang on, all the tracks on Untilted have bizarro Spotify lyrics

https://www.google.com/search?q=fermium+lyrics

I love our talk, over these threads lately, about the band and it’s catalogue. After I’ve crushed the deadline that’s staring me in the face right now it may be time for a two week run through everything.

tough one to call given it's hands down one of my favourite albums alongside confield - what if Kurtis Mantronik locked himself in a bunker for 10 years and come out with this. Ipacial Section though is otherworldly, proper cyborg gamelan.

Theses lyrics are good, really changes how I think about the tracks

There We Were
Alone Naked Rusty IERA Tonight...
Tonight... (x4)
Alone Naked Rusty IERA
There We Stood
Alone Naked Rusty IERA Tonight...
Tonight... (x8)
IERA Again Tonight My Love

I'm loving the fact these (by now) classic albums are being re-released. I'm a little disappointed EP7 didn't come out alongside Chiastic and LP5; also that this one didn't get reissued at the same time as Confield and Draft7.30.

My headcanon thinks of Confield, Draft and Untilted as a trilogy and a very specific era of Autechre. Draft and Untilted, especially work as two sides of a coin: up until then the most percussion-driven stuff they'd done with subtle layers of melody and harmony just bubbling under, barely noticeable on the first few listens.

They're also both extremely funky albums. It's interesting to go back to these and listen to them in the context of all that's happened in club music since, and to hear significant parts of these tracks as genuine dancefloor bops

where are you seeing this got reissued

My CD copy skips on some players (a couple minutes into "Sublimit," little spurts of start to play repeatedly and indefinitely). So I am probably in the audience for the vinyl reissue when it eventually comes out... though it's such a clean sounding album that I'm not sure CD isn't the better format for it.

Xp it wasn't reissued but Confield and Draft were, so I'm slightly sad Untilted wasn't at the same time as I tend to think of Draft and Untilted as sibling albums

Vinyl might not be the best way to listen to these, but getting them is a nice way for me to rediscover then. And if there's one thing I know about Autechre's music, it is always rewarded with a revisit and a bit of hindsight

My headcanon thinks of Confield, Draft and Untilted as a trilogy and a very specific era of Autechre

Yeah I've mentioned about that here before, I've heard it called the "Mechanized Trilogy" which totally works for me as a label for it. When they came out they split the fanbase, and I was, for many years, disappointed and skeptical, but I probably have listened to these three the most until Exai, which I feel is their definitive career statement (despite how much NTS feels to be it - there's something so iconic about nearly every tune on Exai)

Untilted very much my favorite of the three. Confield is incredible but it also feels like it's putting my brain in a vice - Draft is too abstract even for an Autechre freak like myself. Untilted on the other hand is like sticking your head into a pinball machine. It's like the 3-D version of Chiastic Slide.

Agree with you on Exai by the way, NTS is definitely their grandest by some measure but it is also uh....really fucking long. Exai is so killer start to finish, I really hope they don't chicken out reissuing it cuz it's a 4xLP

I'm rereading my post from 13 years ago upthread where I mention that I don't really like this album and I guess it just took me a really long time (over 10 years) to finally "get" this album.

I've now totally come around on Untilted, I think I would now place it in top tier autechre (along with NTS, Exai, Confield and Chiastic Slide).

xp thankfully I grabbed Exai and the lovely L-event EP on wax when they dropped

Draft is my fav of this trilogy fwiw. Untilted definitely took the longest for me to get into of any of their records, but I love it so much now, it's got an upbeat energy and ... "sense of humor"? that is more subdued or lacking in their prior albums to that point outside of Envane maybe

Yeah I've mentioned about that here before, I've heard it called the "Mechanized Trilogy" which totally works for me as a label for it. When they came out they split the fanbase, and I was, for many years, disappointed and skeptical, but I probably have listened to these three the most until Exai, which I feel is their definitive career statement (despite how much NTS feels to be it - there's something so iconic about nearly every tune on Exai)

― octobeard, Friday, March 17, 2023 8:08 AM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah I was thrown by all three and I still have difficulty with Confield despite going back to it quite a lot - it's a very "settle down Beavis" album to me - like, if they'd just changed the velocity of some of the sounds on Cfern and Pen Expers and allowed the undercurrents to breathe a little more they'd potentially be my faves, but the timbre of some of those percussion sounds hurt my head. They're overtly heavy and claustrophobic and I just have a hard time enjoying them.

Exai is one I really need to go back to. Elseq too. I'm not sure how or where they sit in my mind, if only because each release from Exai onwards felt like a LOT of material to sift through and subsequently eclipsed the last one in terms of scale. It can take years, even decades, for me to fully grasp what an Autechre album is doing, so when a long album is succeeded by an even longer one it can be pretty exhausting trying to keep up.

My headcanon thinks of Confield, Draft and Untilted as a trilogy and a very specific era of Autechre. Draft and Untilted, especially work as two sides of a coin: up until then the most percussion-driven stuff they'd done with subtle layers of melody and harmony just bubbling under, barely noticeable on the first few listens.

This is exactly why I struggled with Draft and Untilted when they came out despite loving Confield right away. Confield is definitely challenging; each track is like a puzzle to be solved, but it has more overt harmonically beautiful content (e.g. the synths in the second half of "Pen Expers" and all over "Uviol"). That kind of stuff is present on Draft and Untilted but it's harder to dig out. I love them all equally now though.

Untilted definitely took the longest for me to get into of any of their records, but I love it so much now, it's got an upbeat energy and ... "sense of humor"? that is more subdued or lacking in their prior albums to that point outside of Envane maybe

OTM, though I get some perverse humor from Draft as well; "Theme of Sudden Roundabout" is basically built out of fart sounds.

They solved music with "Surripere" and "Augmatic Disport"

LOL, never heard that in Theme Of Sudden Roundabout. Those 'farty' sounds remind me a bit of the VERY HEAVY kick-type drums on Cfern (which I feel are too loud and intrusive)

TIL this album used no generative music in it, and was mostly recorded using analogue tech

anyway, just received the vinyl along with Quaristice/Versions, so I'm looking forward to revisiting these