Autechre "Lp5" Warp Records WARPCD66 1998 (64:08)
acroyear2
(8:39)
777 (5:50)
rae
(7:13)
melve (1:15)
vose
in (5:21)
fold4,wrap5 (4:03)
underBOAC (6:18)
corc
(5:51)
caliper remote (1:40)
arch carrier (6:49)
drane2
(9:38)
(?) (1:37)
Autechre is Sean Booth and Rob Brown.
Overall impression: excellent! Ahh ... falling in love with a new Ae album, such a wonderful thing! Does anybody do it quite like Booth/Brown? Not that I've heard. "Lp5" (as it's commonly called, the album actually has no title) comes in a nice grey jewel case with "autechre" imprinted at the top and "ae" imprinted in the upper left corner of the back side. The front has only a white sticker with the UPC and legal info, the cd insert has only the tracklisting and the cd itself has no identifying marks at all. All well and good, how's the music? Well, it's pretty much the same but somehow unexplicably different. "Lp5" does not feature any major stylistic change, but rather a step forward or possibly sideways. Most of the tracks are fairly mellow (not as harsh or chaotic as, say, most of "Cichlisuite") and slow in the bpm department. As usual per Ae, there's plenty of tempo changes, interesting effects/stereo tricks and beautiful melodies beneath the bed of superb sounds being tossed about your ears (you must occasionally listen to this one on headphones!) Some notes of interest on a few tracks: "acroyear2" would fit right in on "Cichlisuite", "melve" is a short beatless track comprised of bell like tones, "fold4,wrap5" seems to speed up and slow down at the same time, "corc" is slow with a bit of a hip-hop feel, and "drane2" is simply one of the most beautiful "IDM" tracks I've ever heard, especially near the end when the track dissolves into washes of watery sound (there's only a couple of tracks that "dissolve" near the end stripping the beat and leaving the pads/sounds to finish). The last track is "hidden" after about 14 minutes of silence after "drane 2". Overall, another great album from Ae, I'd say it's my favorite ... but I say that everytime I buy a new Ae album. Unfortunately, this album is not available domestically (U.S.) yet and is under an "import ban" ... but that shouldn't stop you from picking it up at your more knowledgeable shop/online source (my copy came from Modern Music) ...