Autechre
Garbage

LA RECENSIONE

"Garbage" (Warp, 1995) was released just before the classic "Tri Repetae", fundamentally playing the same role that "Anvil Vapre" (released a few months later) would play for the latter, but directly adjacent to the previous "Amber", meaning it positions itself more as part of the same project, rather than a simple interlude or promotional EP. It's kind of like a little brother to the renowned mountain disc, and certainly the deepest and most enigmatic moment of that specific "post-ambient-techno/pre-abstract" era, that is, the brief but intense period of the darker Autechre.

Adjectives like "deep" or "dark" emerge, which would be perfect to describe the abyssal sound of "Amber", in fact the four long tracks that make up the EP are nothing more than recordings excluded from the tracklist of the latter, and the game on the 'garbage' nomenclature stems from here. However, "Garbage" is far from representing a mere collection of scraps... quite the opposite! 

Just like on "Anvil Vapre", you will find unusual excursions into dub-techno, noticeable in the dark riffs of "Garbagemx36", a fourteen-minute trip where rich metallic clangs, alien glitches, and mysterious processed "spasms" accompany a desolate motif slightly more terrestrial with an accompanying epic closure of synthesized, but orchestral rather than, as often happens, ambient, strings. The hypnotic "Piobmx19" partly anticipates the android-rhythmic delusions that will appear in the late Nineties production, while atmospherically speaking, one finds the same dense sound that characterized "Amber"; the same happens on "Bronchusevenmx24", a sonic abyss with heavy reverb that now harks back to the hallucinatory creatures of "Foil" (the great opening of "Amber"), but with slight, melodic brushstrokes that are again humanoid, peaceful and delicate, as in the most classic ambient music. And ambient is indeed what one must speak of concerning the wonderful "Vletrmx21". distant and rarefied, a surrender to pure melody without any rhythmic intervention, which will rarely be found in future Ae releases, releases which we will see gradually erasing the human touch. 

If the Autechre you prefer are those with the human touch from the early Nineties, but you've worn out the first two albums... try rummaging through the garbage.