Autechre
EP7

1997: Autechre releases their masterpiece, it's called "Chiastic Slide" and little to nothing remains of the ambient-techno that introduced them to the world. Booth & Brown launch an abstract and cerebral style unlike anything in the then-busy English electronic scene. "EP7" (Warp, 1999), which, considering its substantial duration (sixty minutes of only unreleased tracks), can well be considered an album, follows that same path, but highlights even more its glitch features, plastic-like polyrhythms, and complex digital experimentation. "EP7" is in fact an anthem to digital equipment, as well as the ultimate artistic manifesto of this new Autechre, where the preceding "Chiastic Slide" and "LP5" still appeared melodically connected to their earlier works.

The way is traced by "Rpeg", pure artificial sound, where through innovative techniques in manipulating rhythmic objects, the use - henceforth a standard - of Max/Msp, as well as an increasingly complex use of echo, the two produce new, intricate, and absolutely unpredictable sounds, seeking, and achieving, experimentation that aims not to repeat what already exists. At a time when the IDM scene was still dominated by analog - albeit alongside glitch and digital rhythm - (see Squarepusher, Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin, etc.), here, perfectly exemplified by the neurosis of "Ccec" or the sick swing of "Squeller", there is heavy use of sinusoidal microtones, in line with what was being done in that paradise of digital-laptop-music that is the Raster-Noton house (Alva Noto, Komet, Ikeda, CoH, Senking, Byetone, etc.), but they serve as synths, rather than "signal" as was the case on the legendary German label. 

This celebration of tones (because that's what it is about - the melody is stripped to the bone or to a simple chord -) and the subsonic frequencies of the bass, which find their maximum expressive moment in the delirious break of "Liccflii" (in continuous progression/distortion until it spills into pure noise) and the unbalanced rhythmic quagmires of "Netlon Sentinel", generate a sort of looming sense of 'apocalypse', an apocalypse that will lead to a new digital and technological era, of which the music branded Booth & Brown represents the ceremonial background. 

Speaking of 'new technological eras', one obviously cannot help but think of the entire imaginary of Detroit's futuristic electro, or the concepts undertaken by Kraftwerk: and it's about electro, and its most futuristic aspects, in the schizophrenic claustrophobia of "Outpt" and "Left Blank", where for the first time appears the combination of 'edgy glitchy rhythm + alien soundscape' which will be largely central to that masterpiece of paranoia called "Confield", and which will recur several times in the latest Autechre.

"Dropp" and "Maphive 6.1" present the most avant-garde beats (an almost minimal-techno kick and debris of sound errors, industrial clamor, white noise in the first, martial toms à-la Test Dept. in the second) as well as the only remnants of the melody from "Chiastic Slide" and "LP5", with soft and quiet phrasing. The forty-second introduction of "Zeiss Contarex" (pure and disconnected noisy canvas) and the strange use of dissonant microtones like a taking-off airplane are the sickest things Autechre have done before the advent of the freaked-out "Gantz Graf" (and there, it would be history!); the piece then settles on territories close to what's called abstract-hip-hop (as they usually do especially in remixes), with a very slow and monotonous beat leading to mental obscuration, which starts to show clearly all the acquired obstinacy and deliberate coldness of the new Autechre.

The period of abstraction and amorphous experimentation will fully take off in what I personally consider the second* absolute masterpiece of the two-decade Autechre creation, as well as the final track that effectively closes an era; it's "Pir". In the interaction between the epic melody (never so velvety, never so touching) and the frantic rhythmic scores (assembled, disassembled, fragmented, defragmented, and continuously reassembled), they intend to completely bid farewell to the humanoid semblances still seen in this second half of the '90s, but which will disappear entirely with the following three releases (Confield - Draft 7:30 - Untilted), only to return - albeit with dubious results - from "Quaristice" onwards. 

It's practically the same thing that "444" did on "Incunabula" (which revolved around the same chords and a very similar riff) that with a monumental melodic canvas effectively closed the 100 % human Ae of the debut, embarking on that evolution that was already clear at the onset of the timeless and placeless pulsation of "Foil" *(there's the absolute masterpiece - the first track of "Amber" -) a piece that seemed conceived by some unknown alien entity.

Incredible, really.