Autechre – Cichlisuite

Here's hoping if it ever gets a vinyl reprint it's the 2x12" version that the promo got rather than a normal 1xLP. Collectively it's 29 and a half minutes so 1xLP wouldn't be out of the question, but it's officially labeled an EP by the band so 2x12" more clearly telegraphs the band's intention.

I bought a copy of this literally to have Yeesland at 33rpm. It did not disappoint.

This is one of the best sounding records in my collection. Before I got me a copy, I was not a big fan of the EP, because the digital version sounds somewhat flat IMO. The record, on the other hand, has so much more volume, sounds softer and so lush!

Woah, play Krib at 33 rpm! Different experience. ten char.

Kind of confusing that there are two separate 12" versions 'wap 96' and 'wap 96r' both with the same exact title, but that each contain a different selection from the five tracks. Rather than a 2x12" EP. But then I guess AE were never opposed to being confusing.

Interestingly, stage 3 of the video game "Space Harrier II" is called Yees Land.

Pretty solid EP. 3 inner tracks are the highlight for me. Pencha rocks. Probably the funkiest and most gangster head bobbing you will have to do to any Autechre discography track. Around 3:00 this bass kicks in and well...get a subwoofer and turn it up. Some of the click sounds haven't aged as well as we would have liked them to but the overall feel has remained thanks to decent melodies and baselines. Baselines might be one of the most underrated parts of their songs. Characi explains my view there. Holding together the album in it's middle point of the way through giving the album the depth it needs. While Yeesland is pretty forgettable compared to what was released on the full lengths around the same time. Krib is up there with Dropp as far as the best short and sweet meloncholly tracks autechre have ever done. Tilapia is pretty decent and grows on you although it is fairly predictable and that isn't a good thing for Autechre I think. Pretty solid 7/10 stars

LP5's little brother, all enthusiastic jock with only a moment ("Krib") of crystalline melancholy. Geometric Nord Lead muscles over a papery, twisting beatbox skeleton.

Yeesland kicks off with crunchy, cascading digital beats carving side to side, as if through trees over banks of snowy pads. Pencha carries the aesthetic but faster, darker, angsty. Cichlisuite fragments into goofy abstraction, though is still quite listenable. Krib is icier with a melancholy, bad-news melody. Tilapia picks it up and heads home, echoing somewhat their remix of Merzbow's Ecobondage (Ending).

Old news but if you haven't heard it yet, you need to. Energetic, synthetic bliss. Nobody made EPs like Autechre. I wish they still did.

I feel the need to comment on this outstanding release by Booth/Brown. This is probably (IMO) the pinnacle of the AE sound, mutating from the mid-period(Tri Repetae/Chiastic Slide) to the later more abstract style. This gave a good idea of where they were going next, and was a perfect transition into the sound of the brilliant LP5. Really give it a listen, and you'll noice that the melodies are light but catchy, and the beats will make your mind flip . A perfectly programmed and all around beautiful mini album.

While I realize the CD version definitely has these as played at 45rpm, I think both of these tracks sound much more intense and interesting when played at 33rpm. At the faster speed, they sound too jumbled and confused (yes, I know, this /is/ Autechre), and at the slower speed they just seem to open up more.

Either way, classic melodic Autechre sound from the late-90s, before they went off into the utter chaos (but in a good way, of course).

Yeesland is a deliciously organic track which begins with tapping that morphs into a delicious synth life-cycle that falls apart and dies at just the right time. Pencha is like the journey into the creature's afterlife; a feeding frenzy of countless other creatures that ends with the epilogue of nothingness, extinction