Autechre ‎– Untilted

I'm smiling inside my mind thinking HOW MANY people around the world have GET THE FULL TRICKERY wich is sealed and stuck inside every track of this album !
A headphone will help but only at max volume level some hidden treasure comes out!
TOTAL KILLER PERCUSSIVE ALBUM, here our duo took it with fun to re-invent the electronic percussion-felling, away from disco and IDM whateveryoumaycallit, totally groundbreaking and astoundingly NEW.
On the very Top Level with some ultra "away from that usual 4 parallel layers" to be listened to, sometimes even 5 or 6 interfilling secretative sounds.
Just try the vinyl version at maximum volume but equally the cd has its point.

aa ahh...(listening to this music)..what?...a voice ...do you hear that? ...?!

I hated this album when it came out. Absolutely hated it. 6 years later it's one of my favorite ae albums. I don't know what happened.

this is perhaps the only autechre record that actually sounds the way that so many people have criticized them for sounding; i'm convinced that the difference in aesthetic is due solely to the mix.

something happened to electronic music in the early 2000s. i'm not sure what brought it on as i'm not completely immersed in the genre, i just follow a few acts i really like. the move towards a more stripped down, minimalist approach may have begun as a reaction to the "indulgent" nature of late 90s electronic music and manifested itself as some kind of electronic punk rock reaction. it may have been a response to the commercialization of the genre as it is much cheaper and faster to produce and market minimal techno than it is to market elaborate idm records. whatever it was, autechre must have been listening because there is a distinct move away from conventional melody on this disc.

that's not to say that the record is full of simple beats because it's not. there is more repetition than usual, but the repeated patterns are actually fairly complex; this is unquestionably "intelligent dance music". yet, the bass drums have that deep bass-merged-with-drum sound to them that dub music has, the melodies are rather robotic and the harmonies are just bluntly nearly gone. for the first few listens, that will probably be massively disappointing but after you've heard it a few times everything starts to fall into place. there's a lot of detail in the mix in regards to stereo positioning that only comes out when listened to through headphones. i should explain a little...

pretty much all of the major sound recording software packages nowadays have surround sound plugins that allow the artist to actually program depth into the aural field. what that means is that it's not only possible but rather elementary to mix a record so that when the record is being played back through headphones the vocals sound as though they are being recited very close to you and the rest of the band sounds as though it is playing far away in the distance. this record sounds as though autechre have gone to town with this new toy, moving instruments around through a projected three dimensional aural soundscape at will and at times even randomly.

the result of these sound design decisions is initially very disorienting because the sound is so saturated with movement in this regard that it is not even initially obvious that what is "wrong" with the cd is that it exists three-dimensionally; initially, it just sounds like a confusing mess. when i first realized what was happening, it hit me like an epiphany. yes, aha! i gots it! you may not realize it at first because you're not wired to but what they do on several tracks is mix the repeating drum sequences to periodically bounce not between the left and right channels but forwards and backwards through the mix, i.e. in front of you and behind you and close to you and away from you. as your brain is unable to really understand such movement coming out of a set of headphones, it just goes "wha...?" and is unable to piece the sound together properly, hence the total aesthetic of an aimless mess. you have to somehow tell your brain to listen in 3d.

is that enjoyable to listen to? i would claim that it is, but it's very difficult to focus on. you have to constantly fight with your brain to pay attention because your brain is constantly responding with "ERROR 31337 - TOO MUCH INFORMATION. PLEASE TRY A DIFFERENT PIECE OF MUSIC.". this reaction must be biological; i pride myself on my attention span, which is unending and unwavering. if i can't focus and am constantly daydreaming when this is playing, i can only conclude that you will find yourself loosing focus and beginning to daydream as well. the biological reaction of a brain shutdown in response to sound that is too complicated to properly compute is a very interesting but rather bizarre point to "hit on". the contradictions in rhythm that autechre tend to explore rather routinely compound the issue.

as is usually the case with autechre, the mini-epic at the end of the record is the high point. with untilted, they have actually just presented the mini-epic as one 16:00 track; they usually split it up into several. the sampling in this track is very creative and really quite brilliant. there are actually some points in this last track where it sounds like they are programming percussive orchestrations of hip hop rhythms into microtonal melodies. if you don't understand what that means, don't worry about it; just recognize that it's a weird but wonderful synthesis of existing ideas and enjoy the end result: it comes out sounding like a group of robots playing basketball in an imaginary court in outer space.

in total, i would give this a higher grade if i was more interested in minimalist techno; the thing is that i'm really not. anybody who is huge into the plastikman sound must listen to this as, at the very least, it's certainly an example of pushing minimalism into very abstract territory. yet, the decision to move in this direction stylistically leaves something to be desired from my viewpoint because it renders large amounts of the record as too repetitive to really get me excited. yes, the repetition is abstract but it's not always interesting enough to grab me. in their decision to sculpt a three-dimensional soundscape that is almost totally void of anything resembling melody and harmony, autechre have created a unique and brilliant record that i enjoy immensely on an intellectual level but yet find almost impossible to actually listen to.

When i first got this i thought of it as fairly demanding but unrewarding...

.. but yesterday I finally got it! 4 years on, finally, i can listen to it and love it.

I put the CD on, as i do every now and then with any Autechre i'm still not sure of... I played it quiet and the music all faded into the background, same as many other failed attempts at listening to this... but then some where in the middle of Pro Radii I noticed the music again... but it was different, something just clicked and drew me in. The music had my full attention. And it was beautiful. All of it.

I haven't felt quite like this about Autechre since the first time i watched the Gantz Graf video.

Give this album time, give it some attention, then give yourself a break, repeat.

Now love this album and spread the word.

Autechre's latest could definitely be the soundtrack to a robot versus alien action flick. The best thing about this album is that you can listen to it quietly and still get the full effect (IMO for the first time with them). Maybe it's because each drum hit sounds like 10 drum hits on top of each other. And of course, if you want it loud, it goes there too, with plenty of little creaks and moans hidden in the sped-up percussion hits. It continues the line from Drafts because of the reduced reliance on conventional tonal structure. This is for people who love percussion.
If you really want to know what I think:
Untilted shows progress in compositional techniques, freeing individual sounds from their role or function in the song and allowing them to retain their autonomy as discreet phenomena. Where previous albums have been sonic "landscapes," I hear the movement toward "still life" from Drafts much further developed here. In other words, if you want to think of previous albums as showing what another planet might look on the surface (or even what the architecture might look like), Untilted perhaps details the specificity of objects in alien life. What do alien plates, fruit, umbrellas, piggy-banks, and toys look like? Listen to this album and you will see it in your mind. And yes, there is a track called 'the trees' on there, but I still see it as a departure from soundscapes and an arrival at integrated beats.

Autechre's latest could definitely be the soundtrack to a robot versus alien action flick. The best thing about this album is that you can listen to it quietly and still get the full effect (IMO for the first time with them). Maybe it's because each drum hit sounds like 10 drum hits on top of each other. And of course, if you want it loud, it goes there too, with plenty of little creaks and moans hidden in the sped-up percussion hits. It continues the line from Drafts because of the reduced reliance on conventional tonal structure. This is for people who love percussion.
If you really want to know what I think:
Untilted shows progress in compositional techniques, freeing individual sounds from their role or function in the song and allowing them to retain their autonomy as discreet phenomena. Where previous albums have been sonic "landscapes," I hear the movement toward "still life" from Drafts much further developed here. In other words, if you want to think of previous albums as showing what another planet might look on the surface (or even what the architecture might look like), Untilted perhaps details the specificity of objects in alien life. What do alien plates, fruit, umbrellas, piggy-banks, and toys look like? Listen to this album and you will see it in your mind. And yes, there is a track called 'the trees' on there, but I still see it as a departure from soundscapes and an arrival at integrated beats.

I totally disagree with the comment above - this album is packed with deeply embedded melodies, at first listen you'll be punched in the groin by the funk and not hear much else, but if you have the patience to pursue this masterpiece further, you'll discover a wealth of intricacies; attention to detail is quite astounding. Some would render this album as the audio equivalent to sitting in a tin bus shelter whilst a mate outside throws his coinage shrapnel at the roof of said construction...

But maybe that's a good thing, yes?

"Untilted" is entirely excellent. This accomplished album has substance that will outlive the innumerable electronica fashion-formulas to come. The album occupies a different space - perhaps pre-Autechre, in a sense.

I thought for the longest time that this record was called 'Untitled'. Then I thought it would be a good idea to go in and closely listen to the details of this record. A gripe I have is that it's mastered in a symphonic way. The quieter parts are just way too quiet. It's only a great listen if you play it really loud or on headphones, then it blows you away. Occasionally there is an abstract repetitiveness that expires it's interest prematurely. Other than that if you are a fan you should go grab a copy. New listeners would do best with LP5/EP7. My favorite is still Confield.

Despite many bad reviews of Untilted, I love this album. It's really opened the door to Autechre for me. I loved their first two albums, but I was trying to find one of their later albums that would get me into their cold IDM style. I think Untilted did it for me.

LCC is a gem, must be in Autechre's best of somewhere. The only slight con about the track is the almost silent start, but perhaps this just builds up tension for the actual track or gets the listener to turn the stereo up and get blasted by a huge brick of AE beats.
Ipacial Section shows that the duo can push the beats even further. This track is a beast.
Pro Radii is another great track that starts with short bursts of an audience cheering over one of the most pounding, bassy and mysterious beats I've ever heard. This then merges itself into Augmatic Disport. Typical AE, stuttering mechanical beats with quiet drony pads underneath.
Iera features the typical clicky AE drums with a squelching beat-repeat like sound in the back. This is then introduced to droning melodies.
Fermium sounds like metal. A lot of sharp drums stuttering over string-like pads that sounds quite different to the other tracks. If the others are monsters, this is the little slimy thin creature in the corner having a fit.
The Trees returns to the glitchy drums and squelchy basses. In parts it sounds like AE are returning to the old material before the track transforms into a mass of morphing drums.
Sublimit must be one of the longest IDM tracks I know, but it deserves 16 minutes. It starts with normal drums (normal compared to some of the other tracks) which some glitched out bell-like sounds are layered on top of. At about 3 and a half minutes through, the track transforms into a type of glitch AE haven't really gone into much, at least to my knowledge. This part of the track reminds me of parts of Venetian Snares' Super Glue Funk Hits album. The track then transforms again with dark churning basses over glitching Linn-like drums. The structure then breaks down into some synthesized drums over quiet pads which keep running until the end of the track.

As I said before, this album opened up Autechre to me, and I can't stop playing it now!