AUTECHRE - Untilted

Autechre, chapter eight. Where did we leave them? Ah yes, their path towards noise, towards sonorities that were at times decidedly industrial yet still of recognisably electronic stock, seemed to have already led them into a cul de sac. If what we heard on "Confield" and the following EP "Gantz Graf" seemed to be steering Booth and Brown towards an intriguing second phase, "Draft 7.30" had already shown that there was less oxygen than we thought, even though a few interesting episodes saw the pair edging as close as the glitch aesthetic ("Xylin Room"). With "Untilted" the air is already stale, and the journey grinds to a halt. Every opening towards the new vanishes, or rather sinks into sterile repetition, while the tracks reach truly excessive lengths (there are only eight of them, but the total running time comes close to seventy minutes).

And yet "LCC" didn't start out badly: a cascade of beats, a paranoid obsession stripped down almost to the bone, hard and shadowy right up to its final landing on nocturnal, almost reassuring shores. Maybe it's just a touch frayed, but "Ipacial Section" already reprises the same sounds, seasoning them with listless, inconclusive autechrerie that drags on for over ten minutes.

In short, it's the fatigue of an already well-worn formula that wins out. Taken individually, the tracks aren't actually all that bad. It's the whole that exposes the weaknesses of an excessively repetitive soundtrack, all the more so when set alongside seven other LPs and a slew of extended plays. It's the kind of question that stings, especially for those who once loved Autechre deeply: is a record like this still necessary? And for whom? Booth and Brown remain sublime sound-makers, but what's the point if they only measure themselves against themselves, against their own rhythmic explorations, which by now they follow rather than steer? At times you'd think they could strike out down other paths, try something new to keep delivering the thrills they gave us back in the '90s. Then again, only Coca-Cola and Nutella have lasted this long without ever changing their formula.

So the vocal samples aren't enough to fully redeem "Pro Radii", nor is the thin melody enough to keep "Augmatic Disport" from growing tedious. The closing "Sublimit" amounts to 15 minutes of bluster and exhaustion, a pointless tour de force through the duo's most well-worn clichés.

Only once do the sounds, melody, "mechanical" beats and kinetic suggestions blend effectively, reminding us that Booth and Brown, even if they're no longer innovators, still possess immense class. The track is "Fermium", the one true high point of "Untilted". It opens with the jerky bursts of a typically lopsided Autechre-style melody and closes with stark, bare beats, leaving you thinking it would still be interesting to see them collaborate with some of the new names in electronic music, or open themselves up to work closer to production and beat-making, as Boards Of Canada have recently done on their latest remixes (cLOUDDEAD and Beck, two gems).

The score you're about to read is the average between what they'd deserve if you factor in that this is Autechre's eighth album (4/10) and the score you might give to a brand-new act showing up in 2005 with a record like this (5/10).

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30/04/2026