Review by Isoproponal
4 stars out of 4
Autechre are probably the vanguard of contemporary electronica today, and
as long as they keep releasing records as simultaneously inventive and
funky, dirty and febrile as the12-track "EP7" release, it
doesn't look like they're set to be overtaken. They really get inside
their machines, which nowadays are mostly self-built simulated synthesisers
running on hi-power computers, and wire up the strangest and most
inhuman sounds - clunks, clicks, bursts of static, etc - yet harness them
to melodies so seductive, and beats so devastating, that the listener
becomes wholly one with their music. "EP7" has a spiralling
crystalline graphic motif on the cover art, and this suits the music
just fine. Most of the titles are invented nouns or abstract phrases -
the implication being thatthe music should not be bound by such restraints.
From the enormous beats of "Dropp", which is similarly pumping
to Aphex Twin's "Windowlicker", to the glistening electronics
and piano of "Pir", which sounds like a soundtrack to the kind
of dream you get asleep on board the Millenium Falcon as it goes into
hyperdrive, to the truly bizarre "Coec", this album is a
striking and extraordinary experience. Completely unlike anything you'll
have ever heard before, yet very accessible and instantly comfortable,
"EP7" is a thrilling and vibrant record.
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