Autechre ‎– Confield

In my opinion, this is Autechre's masterpiece. It seems many, or even most, of this duo's fans prefer the earlier music of Autechre, which was easier to swallow and incorporated recognizable melodies and beats. Confield is an aurally shocking piece comprising electronic sounds arranged in such a way as to be practically unrecognizable and unfamiliar when compared to music as it's widely conceived of, and understood, by humans. This makes it somewhat uncomfortable and disconcerting to listen to until one adjusts one's self to the alien sounds, absence of rhythms, and seemingly aimless progression of the album.

Putting the experience of Confield into words is very difficult beyond that. I encourage anyone with the slightest interest in experimental music, ambient and minimal music, avant-garde, and electronic music, to give this album a try with an open mind. I think it's one of the most important electronic/experimental albums of the early 21st century.

Today is March 30, 2011. Confield was released on March 30, 2001, exactly 10 years ago.

Sean and Rob have done it yet again. An absolutely stunning release. I'm amazed how they could have sounded so futuristic back in 2001 and it STILL feels futuristic 10 years later. Timelessness at its best.

VI Score Prose is an absolute classic, as is Cfern.

Pen Expers is an intricately beautiful barrage of sound and tone, tuned to perfection.

Sim Gishel is like being inside some kind of funky machine with evil intentions

Parhelic Triangle is one of the darkest tracks I've ever had the pleasure of listening to. Painfully beautiful distorted chimes in the background.

Bine is something out of a horror movie, like a thousand bugs crawling in unison.

Eidetic Casein sounds a bit out of place at first but once you've listened to the album quite a few times it fits in well and sets the mood, giving a contrast to the other darker tracks and making them seem even more sinister.

Uviol is yet another masterpiece, like being stuck inside the lungs of an asthmatic beast.

Lentic Catechresis is one of my favorites. It's like being stuck inside the engine of a finely tuned machine, smashed by pistons yet sung to by angels.

Confield is as a whole is perfect. A beautifully barren metal and ice soundscape where only few can appreciate the beauty.

Confield. 10/10.

I'm not sure I agree with people who suggest to start with earlier Autechre rather than this release. It depends what you're looking for, of course. I discovered Autechre because I was searching for boundary-pushing electronic music. This delivered in spades. It certainly took a few listens for me to be familiar enough to really feel the emotion of many tracks, but I've since had more orgasmic listening experiences with this album than most others in my collection. It's not for everyone, but if you have an interest in this sort of music, you will find little else that comes close, excepting subsequent Autechre releases such as Draft 7.30 and Untilted.

After getting into this I excitedly checked out Autechre's back catalog, and in contrast with popular opinion if find the older stuff to be much less organic, less original, less engaging, less interesting. To my ear, this is Autechre at their best. It's music that plays by its own rules, and that's just how it should be.

One of my favourite Autechre albums.
With a subtlely inauspicious first track, the music then progresses to an unflinching dedication toward alien structure, abstract rythym and incredible attention to detail. From Cfern to the amazing Pen Expers, the tone for this piece is set. The frenetic 'Bine' is suitably long enough to add an extra reward to the final three tracks: Eidetic Casein following in the overall vein of the album, Uviol, that has echos of Incunabala / Amber ambience, concluded by the stunning Lentic Catachresis.
Undoubtedly very difficult to certain ears, and perhaps the most willfully absract of Autechres material.
Confield, as it stands, remains a work that's the least favourite you'd take to a party, yet one of their most fascinating and deeply rewarding releases.

I find "Cfern" and "Pen Expers" to be among Autechre's strongest ever tracks, along with "VI Scose Poise" and "Eidetic Casein" they would have made a great EP. The other tracks on display here just doesn't do it for me though, I find them repetitive and underdeveloped (maybe one needs to listen to them on a really good sound system to be able to appreciate them?).

Under no circumstances start your adventure with Autechre with "Confield"! Being a huge fan o "Amber" and "Incunabula", I listened to "Confield" with a feeling of incredulity, which quickly became a feeling of overwhelming disappointment. This album is nothing more than random, nerve racking sounds. Taken together, they are hard to be described as "music" as we normally understand the term. Cold, inhuman and highly irritating album.

This release is one of AE's strongest I think, of course it is abstract and not easy to listening to. When it came out in 2001 I was rather confused about this new style. The first time I listened to it I was rather disappointed probably because I expected something else. But the more often you play it you will find out its beauty and brilliance. A milestone! It creates an atmosphere which neither can be reached by Draft7.30 nor Untilted.

ok so it won't be playing at the school disco, unless perhaps every child is born with a computerchip riveted onto their cerebral cortex... but this album is simply incredible, in every sense of the word. This is the sound of the dream/nightmare kraftwerk had before they woke to write their music. This is Deep-Blue humming to itself whilst thinking what move to play. and yet it is not inorganic. This is also the sound of the earths heart; seismic tremmors, pulses, shifting rhythms -subsiduary patterns envelop the first, glitches become the form and the form a glitch, a mass of fighting snakes, the dance of a beehive. - This is ice flows creeping slowly across earless wastelands. electric cables in a desert storm, wailing a lost lament... Spirits of stone and ice singing, and sometimes the rough wildness of the forest fire, and, distantly, the fierce drumming of a pagan listening, playing to the chaotic devine order.

Autechre has fallen into full noisey, hard to listen music at this point in time. Confield marks their first album that almost seemed as if the beats and patterns were created radomally. The tracks really make no progress and you're listening to the same 30 seconds of music over and over it seems. Course there is minimal changes throughout.. maybe a sound here or a clank there.. but still.. very hard listening. Not one of my favorites from them

Honestly I don't see what the big fuss is about Confield. People either complain about it or love it. I find it somewhere in between. Not my favorite Autechre release, but definitley not terrible. The beats are a little different then their usual work, but almost every track has a ambient vibe going on in the background that you can follow to the song and listen to the sounds around it. Pretty good stuff.