(Warp/Inertia)

Consistently enigmatic and elusive since their beginnings in the early nineties as part of the then-fledgling Warp label’s roster, Sheffield, UK-based duo Autechre (aka Sean Booth and Rob Brown) have become one of the most high-profile acts currently operating in that much-mentioned tag genre ‘intelligent dance music’ (or IDM), alongside the likes of labelmates Plaid and Aphex Twin. While the term is itself a highly loaded one, perhaps intimating that some level of cognition or prior knowledge is a prerequisite for enjoying this type of electronic music (or perhaps even hinting at a level of smugness amongst ‘those who get it’), I personally prefer to trace the term a bit further back to Can bassist Holger Czukay, who said something along the lines of; “Well, dance music can mean a lot of different things. It can mean lying back on the sofa and letting your brain cells dance.” It’s certainly a metaphor I find myself returning to when listening to Autechre, who since early moments such as the gorgeous ambient ‘De-Orbit’ and politically-charged ‘Anti’ EP have been responsible for some of the most complex, unpredictable and compelling electronic soundscapes to emerge in recent years. With 1995’s classic ‘Tri Repetae’ and 1997’s ‘Chiastic Slide’ albums leaving an inescapable sonic imprint upon the productions of countless artists working in ambient / IDM electronics today, recent longplayers such as 2001’s ‘Confield’ have seen the ever-unpredictable duo drifting even further out into their intricate, highly-theorised strategies, first exploring harsh and often industrial-flavoured textures on this aforementioned album, before returning to less formidable terrain on their most recent previous offering, 2003’s ‘Draft 7.30.’ This latest eighth album from Autechre ‘Untilted’ keeps well in tradition with the duo’s established love for distorted titles, while also acting (as always), as another unpredictable step diagonally by them, rather than a simple step forward.

Opening track ‘LCC’ springs forth with a ricocheting volley of metallic skittering rhythms and punching noise bursts gradually resolving themselves down around buzzing synthetic tones into something that sits weirdly between Jimmy Edgar-esque glitch-hop and severely deconstructed downtempo lounge music, portentous chords looming behind the crisp fuzzed-out rhythms. After such a head-drilling opening, it’s certainly a lush reward after the storm of furious rhythms, and takes things in a far more accessible (but no less intriguing) trajectory, whilst also hinting that the productions of Boards Of Canada may well have left their own imprint upon the work of their Skam bosses, with an inescapable hint of ‘Music Has The Right To Children’-style melancholia in its trailing, detuned chords. ‘Ipacial Section’ gets straight back into the relentless, complex-programmed rhythms but also manages to throw in some intriguing wooden tribal-sounding textures amongst the digital noise and DSP-trickery, hints of a child-like melody slowly poking their head up from behind the constant rhythmic barrage, before the entire track shifts into stuttering broken digital hiphop funk, bizarre beatbox-style vocalisations mumbling behind the complex rhythms. ‘Pro Radii’ meanwhile almost sounds like someone bouncing two huge steel barrels in a cavernous cellar, its massive lumbering rhythms undercut with jittering digital noise, fragmented MC vocalisations and even a chaotic burst of crowd noise, before wandering off into skittering metallic rhythms that sit somewhere between gamelan and jungle.

‘Iera’ sends a buzzing synth line that almost sounds like a mosquito around some complicated skittering beats that still manage to sit snugly in a low-slung hiphop groove, brooding detuned keyboards adding an almost film-noir feel to proceedings before ‘Fermium’ comes on like a complex skittering rework of one of John Carpenter’s synthetic sci-fi scores, ominous tones riding over a fusillade of corkscrewing noises and slow clanking rhythms. ‘The Trees’ (standing out as a atypically conventional song apellation from the boys) meanwhile opens with icy electro-sounding tones and a buzzing tech-funk synthline that undulates beneath the cylindrical-sounding rhythms before all manner of crunching distorted textures lock down around its core, while epic sixteen minute long closing track ‘Sublimit’ ratchets through what sounds like a robot factory floor’s worth of relentless programmed rhythms before pushing itself through all manner of timestretching and processing, finally emerging intact on the other side as it clatters its way to a crunching, contorted fade out.

‘Untilted’ is another excellent album from the consistently intriguing Autechre that once again shows Booth and Brown tilting (no pun intended) their muse on its axis slightly, this eighth album retaining their tradition of approaching each new record as its own entity, rather than a necessary step forwards. Those with less of a tolerance for cerebrum-drilling rhythmic gynmastics may find the more furious sections of ‘Untilted’ slightly heavy going, but for the sizeable legion of Autechre fans out there, this is sweet stuff indeed, striking a poised balance between the harsher explorations of ‘Confield’ and ‘Draft 7.30’s more contemplative landscapes. Always distinctive and unpredictable in their sonic explorations, I find that I’m continually surprised by the reactions I get from people upon playing them Autechre; everything from “this is one of the best things I’ve ever heard” to “your CD player is broken.” I guess I see them as being like those stereogram images – you either see it, or you don’t. And if you see it, it sort of ruins it if you try to explain it too much. Recommended.

Check out http://www.warprecords.com.