This is the first in a series of visits back to some of our favourite reviews / releases from the Tesselate Review Archive.

New reviews coming very soon!

Autechre - Draft 7.30 : Warp111

10 years or so since I first listened to Autechre, seems weird, not like 5 minutes since I was discovering Incunabula…, despite all the recent hyperbole used to describe them/their sound, and despite whether you love them or hate them, theres no doubting their ability to be innovative, fresh and push things in very much their own direction. Keeping that up for 10-odd years is no mean feat, especially in this ‘genre’.

A very good point made on Boomkat is that its very hard to review Autechre (though its no doubt a point that can be applied to others), as no matter how instantly likeable, or not, the release in question is, the more listening it gets, the more there is to discover. Despite loving the recent Gantz Graf ep, I was anxious about Draft 7.30, and whether I would like it, as Confield, which was so highly anticipated, was disappointing for me. There were moments, but generally it lacked the soulfulness and emotion that, despite all the math-tronics does permeate Autechre’s music (for me anyway).

‘Xylin Room’ makes a great intro to what turns out to be a blinding album, setting out that this isn’t going to be in any way linear, beats tripping over themselves, industrial ambience threatening in the background, before halfway through all this falls over and gets up to set itself off again, glitchy chatter over more gentle minimal synth and string (acoustic guitar!?) stuttering to an end, wavering into a menacing start to ‘IV VV IV VV VIII’ straining to let loose it does so breaking into an awesome harsh beat, sputtering and not quite maintaining a rhythm, while robots drone and malfunction along, finding entertainment by fucking up any hope of repetition, before it all breaks down in replay with Rob and Sean trying their best to pull off a violin ending. Amazing.

Just as you think ‘6IE.CR’s harsh glitchyness is going the full length of the track it sweeps into a space melody, docking shuttles off Neptune, the glitch not totally gone of course, still clicking in and out before winding down leaving just the quirky synth in a ‘to be continued’ effect…
‘Surripere’ starts tapping along with a smooth warming intro, ticking beat as if counting to some event, very soundtrackian. Leading into alien scratching beats, the background ambient synth keeping the tone intensely sombre, before vocal (almost?) samples, the aliens setting out their intent, interrupting the beat and chucking the programmed pattern all over the shop, infecting it with their own speeded up remix until the annihilation is complete and this track stops dead. Incredible.

The ‘beat’ on ‘VL AL 5′ reminded me of that on the ‘All Tomorrows Linoleum’ track produced for ATP, this however more stark and again given a cinematic feel, a radio being seemingly tuned at hyperspeed in the background, no suitable station available. Classy.
‘V-Proc’ has all the intense build up that made ‘Second Peng’ on Anvil Vapre so instantly likeable, dropping into a reflection of the chaps love of the hip-hop beatification, or as close as you’re likely to get here, stuttering industrial percussion here and there, before an EP7-esque scratchy chatter entry to ‘Reniform Puls’, another seemingly film score moment before someone trips the intense robot malfunction and the track snowballs into ultra-percussion, tripping hissy static playing out the remaining 3 minutes or so of the track.

Buy this.

Marc