Autechre
Confield

Really few albums have I had the chance to listen to that were as cryptic as this "Confield". An album unfortunately very underrated, and it's a pity, because the sensations it evokes, if you immerse yourself attentively in the listening, really leave you breathless. This is an album where the music seems to follow a path of "self-annihilation" of itself.

The sense of "loop", of sound sampling, is almost completely lost. The music, although electronic, is free to flow without obstacles. Despite these characteristics, which might make one too hastily label it as the usual industrial nonsense, this stuff, however twisted, sounds damn serious! It’s almost impressive that an album dealing with this music can sound so serious. It’s not the usual noise nonsense (pardon the term) experimented by many electronic musicians, even "cult" ones, for instance, some works by Aphex Twin or Squarepusher & co. This stuff, crikey, freezes your blood!

The sound sequence VI Scose Poise, Cfern, Pen Expers, Sim Ghisel, Parhelic Triangle, Bine gives no escape! Each track seems to anticipate the next, and with every sound segment, you sink into the abyss!

It starts with a VI Scose Poise, which might perhaps be the most accessible track of the album; a background I would say on glitch on which notes delicately lost in space rest, that sound very "gentle" (even too much, given the duo's standard). A right amount of space between one handful of notes and another, enough to provide the right "suspense", further enhanced towards the end of the track by a noise effect crescendo that seems to tell you "wait wait, I'm coming!" (the notes).

Cfern represents the most logical natural step to the first track and the prelude to the next: a heavy, artificial, compact, yet controlled rhythm, a futuristic catchy yet "poisonous" melody, not very reassuring, icy but at the same time emphatic, at least until the first two and a half minutes. Beyond this threshold, the situation deteriorates; the rhythm becomes heavier and syncopated, the melody instead of disappearing, transforms into atonal metallic clangs, the atmosphere becomes incredibly heavy, claustrophobic. The beats remain few, but more than beats at this point, they're hammers! This track might fit well in a movie like "The Cube" during moments of total despair.

Pen Espers is, I believe, the least catchy piece of the album, but it serves as a watershed for what will follow. Mad beats, one can't make heads or tails of it! But wait, wait, what's happening?? A melody?!? What is it?? A violin?? The rhythmic trash sound tries to suppress every "life form"...for a few moments, the melody seems to take over but it's an unbalanced fight, everything gets destroyed in favor of an almost total chaos.

We arrive at Sim Ghisel, an indescribable piece, there are quieter "rhythms" accompanied by a metallic distortion that constantly changes shape and volume. It might seem simple apparently, but accompanying this formula are "pops, twills, microscopic sparks, microsounds", it all almost gives the tactile perception of something bending and twisting, creating squeals, creaks, inner tension.

Parhelic Triangle assembles noises of "putrid rhythmic trash" complete with pops and syncopations, to the nebulous evolution of an alienating "sound form" inside which there seem to be samples of bells??

Many speak of "Iera" (album Untilted) as dark and sinister, crikey!! Has anyone ever stopped to listen to "Bine"???? With its nervous pulses mixed with "violins" putrid, destroyed, stinking, abyssal seem to describe a mapping for the direct descent into hell. It's a worldview that might be associated with films like Silent Hill, with decaying walls and buildings, oozing blood and abhorrent creatures wandering through nothingness. Extremely unsettling, deadly Autechre track, this, sonic terrorism!

After reaching the last circle of hell, Eidetic Casein makes you heave a sigh of relief, and it almost appears as a liberation, a true "break" inside the album. Regular rhythms return, and an almost playful melody. I believe the Autechre put this little track more out of pity for us poor listeners than anything else.

Uviol lands on ambient landscapes and starts a discourse on a faint, "tender" melody that reminds me both of the life of insects in a meadow from the film "Microcosmos" and a child in the womb waiting to see the light. The subdued and regular rhythm is contrasted by a small trill, creating a perfect symbiosis of all the elements, this up to the first 2 and a half minutes. Beyond this threshold, it becomes more restless, the rhythm becomes irregular, the melody too, giving a sensation of disturbed calmness.

Lentic Catachresis gives us the codes for sound destruction. It starts subdued and slow, with samples of voices and an atmosphere similar to Cfern. Then it undergoes an irremediable destructive process, like the blind madness that, day by day, devoured Jack Torrence’s mind in the film "Shining". It accelerates, accelerates, accelerates, until the end, where at its own hand it seems to meet death for having dared so much.

Impressive, insane album by Autechre! Definitely an album to reassess.