Autechre ‎– LP5

LP5 is still an approachable album for IDM fans, and while it doesn't sound a thing like Aphex Twin, it still falls in that category of music. There is a lot of creativity, identifiable rhythm and melodies but it also contains segments of very beat/sample laden music. The song structure is more conventional with things like climaxes and introductions.

the next step was more towards a drum 'n' bass style, consistent with the warp records march towards electronic jazz. this provided a natural outlet for autechre's journey of increasing complexity, as it forced them to focus more on the intricacies of the drum parts.

however, the compositions themselves are also more layered, more multitracked; and with this record we start to see a little more variation, a little more attention to the way the album itself flows. melve, for example, is essentially an introduction to vose in. autechre would have never done anything like that in the past. while there are admittedly long sections of the record that offer little more than a messy beat, i feel that splitting this disc up would be a travesty because it's clearly meant to be played as a whole.

the experimentation with time, both linear and circular, continues. however, the most profound new idea inserted into this record is a fascination with.....chaos.

in the latter half of their career, autechre virtually became synonymous with chaos. it is easy to lose the fact that, before this record, chaos is the last thing that autechre seemed to embody: they were intricate, mechanical, written, sequenced. chaos and autechre went together about as well as rupaul showing up as a pilgrim to mecca.

yet, the introduction of chaos does make sense when viewed through the goggles of their journey being one of increasing complexity, their journey mimicking man's own understanding of the world around it. what was once thought to be ordered became to be thought of as being unordered. perfection, fate and the god that existed by their necessity are swallowed by stochastics, randomness and the cold, barren void that follows.

it is not beneficial to anyone to speak of fractals or of repeating patterns. while there are repeating patterns throughout the music, this is not the interpretation of chaos that is embraced on this record.

.....and, so we have it: autechre's epiphany, their step from the age of enlightenment into the modern era.

This is the last good Autechre album. I bought this right when it came out when Autechre was brand new to me. At the time, LP5 was in that perfect spot of being just beyond what I liked, sort of like when you've almost acquired the taste for a new food. You don't precisely "enjoy" it yet, but you know that you eventually will.

Anyway. This album deftly straddles the line separating experimental and enjoyable. Looking back a dozen years later, you might expect to find dated sounds, but no, that is not the case. This was truly groundbreaking for Ae. I believe that the wildness and absurdity they would pursue over the next decade is foreshadowed here, but it is solidly grounded in enough accessibility and melody to make it a worthwhile listen.

Someone once said LP5 is a story concerning the fall, rise, and second fall of an alien empire. "acroyear2" is a busy, panicky track. It represents the first fall of the empire as a result of a violent invasion. "777" sees the empire assessing the damage. Next, witness the cold, stark beauty of "rae" when it switches from a driving, forceful track to the slower, grinding tempo at about 3:10. Absolutely magnificent. The alien empire has fallen into its deepest rut yet. Confusion takes hold under the brief, infant-like "melve." The reality of destruction and a long recovery are realized with the downtrodden but propulsive "vose in," a track which self-destructs.

But "fold4,wrap5" represents the fascinating signs of an off-kilter recovery. The mood lightens, but only in fits and starts. Hardware acquisition and construction continue in the oddly-named "under BOAC." Finally the empire sees a light at the end of the tunnel. (Admittedly a very long tunnel as this track is rather uninspired.)

At last we come to "corc," my favourite track here. The recovery is complete and the empire basking in the warm glow of their home star. Now, a well-deserved rest. "corc" boasts a unique, loping rhythm and bright, sunny melody. I dare say that this is possibly amongst my top ten favourite IDM tracks. I love the stereo separation in the drums around 3:30. The track beautifully winds down. The empire does a bit of mining and base fortification on "caliper remote," but something is happening. The sky is changing; I'm worried. Danger lurks on the horizon -- is all glory truly fleeting?

Oh shit, here they come again! It's all-out war as the "arch carrier" units storm the empire's base. This track is yet another gem. Similar in atmosphere to the opening track, it's a bit more laid-back in rhythm but the mood is just as foreboding and desperate. Dig the neat little turn of melody at 4:03. Superb. The assault continues for a while and ultimately we're left with the bleak "drane2," which documents in epic form the smoldering ruins of a once-great society. This time I think it's for good. The melody plays an alien version of "taps" while the skittering, twitching rhythm tells of the empire's sad end.

All in all, it's a very good album. (I don't know if it's great, because there are some lower-interest sections.) EP7 came next, which to me sort of sounded like outtakes for LP5. It also has some very good moments, although it doesn't seem to tell as much of a story. Again, this album really stands as the dividing line between inspired Autechre and the geek-off academic drivel that followed. It is a very important IDM album in that regard.

Sonic perfection, nothing less. This is most probably the best Autechre album in terms of balance - there's enough "musicality" to counteract the complexity of some of the rhythms and sounds. It's more than a decade old now but still sounds very fresh. The sound design across the album is brilliant, from the first few notes and sharp rhythms of Acroyear2 to the warm ambience of Drane2

Whack the speed up to 45 RPM and you've got another killer album as well as the original at 33.

I just got this on vinyl today. I've had the album for years before now, but only on cd. When I put it on today for the first time, I was sucked into another world altogether. The fact that the brain can make literally no visual connections to this sound just teleports the mind to a place beyond logical geometry and physics... anther dimension completely... Not even the cover of Draft7.30 can match up to the visuals in my head. The blankness of the cover is literally a canvas for your mind to paint beautiful visuals... woah!

LP5 is basically, to me, an Autechre Pop Album. Autechre display commercial sensibility on this release by their choice of song structures. I think that LP5 is home to some of the best production these guys have done, and also some finer melody work. Although i prefer Autechre in some other modes (Envane, Untilted, Amber), LP5 is definitely the one that converted me. Great starting place for beginners

I believe at this point in Autechre's career they were having trouble deciding where they wanted to go with their music. Would they continue to go on with the noisey, machine beats.. or would they go back to their roots and make more ambient driven music. Well obviously they chose the macchine beats later one, but this album strikes me as confusion with them. They seemed to work with what they did on Chiastic Slide, but at the same time, there was no advancement in the madness (which becomes more and more complex with each album after this).

This album should be known as their fork in the road with one sign saying "ambient" and the other one saying "noise"

That's my favorite album of Autechre,it has interesting melodies and the percussion sounds are amazing.It's a reference for a lot of the IDM that we can hear actually and shurely it is on the genre classics. It is the culmination of his previous works that has good melodies, but percussions wasn't sofisticated enough, however, and personally, i lost interest in them after LP5, since i feel that they give more importance to experimentation than music feeling or sensibility.
Anyways i can understand that people like his latest works (even i have some of them), is just that i'm a melody lover.

A pretty damn good CD. At this point in Autechre's career they were becoming more and more experimental and less ambient. As hard as it was to follow up an album like Chiastic Slide, Autechre did it well. Most of these songs are pretty easy to listen and get into. Not nearly as difficult as later albums. This album also contains the masterpiece track called Rae. Awesome stuff. If you dig this release, then you should check out its sister-autechre album, EP7

With "LP5" Autechre started to experiment, but they weren't very good at it back then. I've got the same problem with their "ep7". Ok, there are some nice and interesting songs, but the rest is powerless. Most of the songs on these two albums fail to create the intensively mind-altering atmosphere of their later works(exceptions e.g.: "caliper remote" on "LP5" or the hidden track on "ep7").

Fazit: Their two weakest records. But they were both very neccessary, because Ae was still practicing and training for "confield", "draft 7.30" and "untilted" at that time, hehe.