Autechre
- Issue #156 (February '97) | Interviews
- By: Rob Young | Featuring: Autechre
- Printable version
Via their releases on Sheffield's Warp label, the Autechre duo of Sean Booth and Rob Brown are searching out new dimensions in electronic sound. Meanwhile, their Disengage radio show has become a community news bulletin for fellow digital denizens.
Fade in Reindeer on the streets of Sheffield real flesh and blood reindeer branches sprouting from their heads. A trad jazz trio materializing in and out of the crowded streets tooting Christmas tunes for the throng of happy shoppers. Music pumping from shopfronts, building sites, churches. This ain't no industrial hole this is Disneyland.
Fade left This is where Autechre live: the road out of town, shops flogging dodgy electronics, Boatworld. Past nosy builders; iron steps, door double locked for protection, Sean Booth, grinning, brewing up; Rob Brown mucking around in Photoshop. Conversation evolves, slowly, sprinkled by a gurgling mixtape from Miami.
For the past year and a half, this small room in Booth's flat has been the hub of Sean and Rob's daily life: it's here they crunch sounds around; burn tracks; absorb music from all the tapes, discs and vinyl they collect or receive; banter and smoke with whichever friends and associates drop by. The tools in this genial workshop are on display: assorted keyboards old and new; a mixing desk's studded plateau; Apple Mac; devices apparently cadged from the army; a battered autochanger turntable used on a Kinesthesia, remix for Rephlex ("That Grundig's fuckin' hardcore", says Sean when I spill water on it). On this array of electronic components the pair recorded their fourth album, Chiastic Slide, the title a cryptic reference to the mercurial qualities of the crossfader. On the DJ panel or the mixing board, this little slider acts as the magician's curtain, swishing from side to side to reveal marvels previously hidden. Only now, the way Autechre have engineered things, the curtains have multiplied, there are boxes within boxes, screens hiding screens hiding screens. Chiastic Slide harbours a maelstrom of fizzing detail, smudgy beats, shredded pulses, church organ, toxic noise hurting towards the end of its half-life, pumice stones rubbed across the skull. Autechre and sound can't keep their hands off each other.
Fade right "'Disney-ality' is... crafted by hiding the mechanical, electrical, and labour-intensive production of the entertainments, rides, and restaurants. The daily grand parade seems to come from nowhere, fill the central plaza with dancing and music, and then simply disappear. The parade's apparently effortless, 'magical' appearance and disappearance is central to its overall effect" - Bruce C Caron, "Magic Kingdoms" in The Sacred Mountains Of Asia.
Fade left "Anality's pretty cool, innit?" says Sean with a smirk. "It's got it's place. We like to dissect things, definitely. I think the trick is not to let the detail become the main..."
"...Attraction," says Rob, picking up the baton. "We just enjoy doing that so much. I think we're both very easily, distracted, and we'll just keep moving from one element of the track to the next until we can't do any more. We throw things in that are like car's with square wheels."
Fade left This is where Autechre live: the road out of town, shops flogging dodgy electronics, Boatworld. Past nosy builders; iron steps, door double locked for protection, Sean Booth, grinning, brewing up; Rob Brown mucking around in Photoshop. Conversation evolves, slowly, sprinkled by a gurgling mixtape from Miami.
For the past year and a half, this small room in Booth's flat has been the hub of Sean and Rob's daily life: it's here they crunch sounds around; burn tracks; absorb music from all the tapes, discs and vinyl they collect or receive; banter and smoke with whichever friends and associates drop by. The tools in this genial workshop are on display: assorted keyboards old and new; a mixing desk's studded plateau; Apple Mac; devices apparently cadged from the army; a battered autochanger turntable used on a Kinesthesia, remix for Rephlex ("That Grundig's fuckin' hardcore", says Sean when I spill water on it). On this array of electronic components the pair recorded their fourth album, Chiastic Slide, the title a cryptic reference to the mercurial qualities of the crossfader. On the DJ panel or the mixing board, this little slider acts as the magician's curtain, swishing from side to side to reveal marvels previously hidden. Only now, the way Autechre have engineered things, the curtains have multiplied, there are boxes within boxes, screens hiding screens hiding screens. Chiastic Slide harbours a maelstrom of fizzing detail, smudgy beats, shredded pulses, church organ, toxic noise hurting towards the end of its half-life, pumice stones rubbed across the skull. Autechre and sound can't keep their hands off each other.
Fade right "'Disney-ality' is... crafted by hiding the mechanical, electrical, and labour-intensive production of the entertainments, rides, and restaurants. The daily grand parade seems to come from nowhere, fill the central plaza with dancing and music, and then simply disappear. The parade's apparently effortless, 'magical' appearance and disappearance is central to its overall effect" - Bruce C Caron, "Magic Kingdoms" in The Sacred Mountains Of Asia.
Fade left "Anality's pretty cool, innit?" says Sean with a smirk. "It's got it's place. We like to dissect things, definitely. I think the trick is not to let the detail become the main..."
"...Attraction," says Rob, picking up the baton. "We just enjoy doing that so much. I think we're both very easily, distracted, and we'll just keep moving from one element of the track to the next until we can't do any more. We throw things in that are like car's with square wheels."