Autechre may be perceived as being wilfully difficult. Maybe they are. Almost without fail, the first time you listen to new Autechre material it is impossible to get your head around. It sounds like a mess.

But the music always reveals its majesty after repeat listens. It is the aural equivalent of a magic eye puzzle, only less naff and much more stylish.

‘Intelligent dance music’, the genre of music most often associated with Autechre, has fallen off a cliff for me in recent years. It just isn’t exciting to me in the way it was five or ten years ago.

Sure, there are a few big names that you can depend upon. Those are the Aphex Twins and Boards of Canadas of this world — although releases from these artists become less and less frequent. Once you start searching for new acts beyond them, the quality drops steeply. Most ‘IDM’ these days is disappointingly derivative.

But Autechre still always push the boundaries far beyond what anyone else can even think of. It says a lot when even Autechre’s off albums are still more fascinating than the music of their peers.

Listening to Autechre’s back catalogue is like hearing a pair of audio explorers in search of the pinnacle of electronic music. 2001′s Confield was the culmination of the search. My jaw still drops when I listen to it, and it disappoints me that no-one — not even Autechre — have come remotely close to creating another album as good as this.

2003′s Draft 7.30 was a fine follow-up. But since then new Autechre material has felt like a step below what is possible — even though it was still miles ahead of the rest.

Oversteps

Following the slightly clunky and plodding Untilted, and the sketchy and uncohesive Quaristice, their new album Oversteps marks a return to form for Autechre in my book. In both previous albums, it seemed like Autechre were operating within their comfort zone. Quaristice especially sounded like it was churned out without much thought, turning to styles they had explored in previous albums.

In a reversal of the trend, Oversteps brings us an Autechre we haven’t heard before. Their ability to push things forward like this is what I always admired most about Autechre, which is why for my money their new album is their best since Draft 7.30. (I gather the reaction of many Autechre fans has been more negative, which I think is a shame.)

Autechre have probably not been this melody-focussed since 1994′s Amber. But this does not mean that they have sacrificed any of their uncompromising approach — quite the opposite in fact.

As you would expect, this is music unlike anything you have heard before. It is dense and viscous-sounding, yet also shimmering and liquid. Somehow it all feels right, as though this was the way music was always meant to be.

After just a few weeks of listening to Oversteps, it feels like I have been listening to music like this for years, even though it is totally unique. Much of the album has a pleasingly organic vibe to it, ‘krYlon’ perhaps being the best example.

For me, ‘ilanders’ is as catchy as music gets, even though the beats are particularly unconventional. Another highlight is ‘known(1)’, which is deceptively — perhaps irritatingly — simple at first, before transforming into one of the most mind-bending pieces of the album. In that sense, this is the ‘Surripere’ or ‘Fermium’ of the album.

It’s not all about the melodies though. My favourite part of the album is probably the rip-roaring ‘d-sho qub‘, reminding us that Autechre are making (what might be loosely described as) dance music.

Move of Ten

The accompanying EP, Move of Ten is released today. Although it was common in the 1990s for Autechre to release an EP related to each of their albums, that trend had stopped. With Quaristice, they released new ‘versions’ of the album’s tracks. It was a nice idea, almost like a “making of” the album, although by the time the last ones came out it was starting to sound quite repetitive.

Move of Ten sees a refinement of the concept. It reminds me of the 1990s approach where Autechre would remix their own tracks, but with originals being almost unrecognisable. But the relationship with the original tracks is much clearer in many of these tracks — closer to the Quaristice Versions / Quaristice.Quadrange.ep.ae model.

As you might expect, Move of Ten shows us Autechre with their hair down a bit, relative to the ‘serious’ work of an album. Some of the tracks here are very immediate. Autechre have brought the funk, and you can clearly hear the duo’s roots as hip-hop aficionados.

The best example of this is ‘rew(1)’. This track teases you, hinting at an immensely funky basis. But like many of Autechre’s best music, it never fully reveals its full powers, leaving the listeners to fill in the gaps to their own delight.

Move of Ten mixes the best of Autechre’s always-forward-looking approach with nostalgic reminisces of vintage Autechre. ‘nth Dafuseder.b’ in particular sends a chill up my spine as it begins sounding like a lost Autechre recording of 15 years ago. But it brings with it also a jazz vibe with a cold wind blowing through it like the best work of Brothomstates.

I gather that Move of Ten has gone down better than Oversteps among fans in general. For me, it feels more like an EP than an album. It just lacks that extra bit of cohesion that an album should have. But with both releases, Autechre have demonstrated that they are still at the height of their powers, and at the absolute pinnacle of path-finding electronic music.

I just wish that others could step up to the plate and make music as good as this. If not, I hope Autechre are documenting their approaches so that this wonderful approach is never lost.

The Designers Republic back from the dead

The excellent artwork for Oversteps and Move of Ten was designed by The Designers Republic. This marks the rebirth of the firm, which closed down in early 2009. Just another reason why Autechre’s material this year has been great!

Warp20

A series of posts

1. 20 years of Warp Records
2. 20 Warp albums — part 1
3. 20 Warp albums — part 2
4. 20 Warp albums — part 3
5. 20 Warp albums — part 4
6. 20 Warp albums — part 5
7. Warp20 (Box Set)

This is the first part of a series in which I will take a brief look at 20 albums from the first 20 years of Warp Records. These are not my 20 favourite Warp albums, or the 20 best Warp albums. But they are 20 of the most interesting — a showcase of the breadth and depth of Warp’s output. They are presented in a randomised order.

Red Snapper — Making Bones

Red Snapper stuck out like a sore thumb on Warp’s roster in the 1990s. While the label was still most famous for its studio-based techno output, Red Snapper are are live-oriented band with a more organic sound. But conventional they are not. Their sound is a heady mix of smoky jazz, funky dance and edgy hip-hop. Although they could be associated with the 1990s trip-hop trend, their music does not sound as dated as some of their contemporaries’.

Making Bones is a thrilling album. From the very first notes — the beefy and wobbly output of Ali Friend’s double bass — you are sucked in. There are high octane tracks like ‘Crease’ and ‘The Tunnel’, the cheeky and playful ‘Bogeyman’, and the more emotional ’4 Dead Monks’.

Red Snapper produced another strong album, Our Aim is to Satisfy Red Snapper, before splitting up in 2002. Happily, last year they re-formed and have already released an EP. They still sound as exciting as they used to.

This video is for one of the singles from Making Bones, ‘Image of You’.

Brothomstates — Claro

Claro was one of the very first IDM albums I bought, and to this day it remains one of my very favourites. He recognises that interesting techno music is not just about making it a bit glitchy-sounding or giving it a funny time signature. There are interesting and unusual sounds and complex drumbeats. But it is still very firmly a dance album, very much in the groove.

Although the experimental rhythms and sounds are very exciting, it is the melodic basis of the music that makes Claro so special. The floaty, ambient, slow-moving melodies sound as though they are being carried by an icy wind. Coupled with what some might consider to be the clinical rhythms, this gives the album quite a wintry feel. This wintry vibe is reflected on the album’s cover, which depicts a rather cold-looking beach. It could as well be my local beach in Kirkcaldy for all I know.

But I call this album wintry, not cold. It is certainly not cold in the sense of emotionless. In fact, the album is packed full of emotion. An album true to the promise of Warp’s Artificial Intelligence project, which posited that electronic by no means lacks feeling.

It is cheesy and clichéd to compare other IDM artists to Autechre. But I will do it. I think Claro, and its accompanying EP Qtio, is the closest anyone has come to matching the sheer awesomeness of Autechre’s best output. For me, the greatest shame is that Brothomstates, real name Lassi Nikko, does not appear to be interested in extending his legacy. Claro was released in 2001, but he has not released another album since, only popping up with the one-off ‘Rktic’ single and a solitary split EP with Blamstrain.

Here is a fan-made video for ‘Kava’:

Boom Bip — Seed to Sun

Technically, this isn’t a Warp album. It was released on Warp’s spin-off hip-hop label, Lex Records (which is now independent of Warp). Seed to Sun was one of the label’s first releases, and arguably remains one of its best.

It presented a fresh, experimental perspective on hip-hop. Boom Bip emerged at the same sort of time as cLOUDDEAD and the Anticon phenomenon, and with a similar outlook. The music is a thrilling fusion of hip-hop, electronic music and alternative rock.

The artwork is fantastic. Like Warp, Lex has a very distinctive visual identity. But while Warp’s was largely shaped by The Designers Republic, Lex opted for the distinctive style of EH Question Mark. All I can say is, this album has the best barcode ever.

This is a collaboration with Dose One, ‘Mannequin Hand Trapdoor I Reminder’:

Squarepusher — Ultravisitor

I was always a little bit iffy about Squarepusher. I wasn’t sure whether I liked him or not. But then Ultravisitor came out, and there was simply no getting away from the fact that Tom Jenkinson is the real deal; a true genius.

Squarepusher’s multi-talent genre-spanning skills were already well known. He has produced excellent albums covering a wide territory. Madcap drum and bass heavily influenced by jazz. Virtuoso bass guitar playing and drumming in addition to his electronic production skills. Then, with Go Plastic, a brief flash of an incredible vision of the a darkly experimental garage music of the future (a precursor to dubstep?).

With Ultravisitor, he moved up a notch by combining all of his skills in all of these genres in one massive album. What Ultravisitor exhibits which his previous albums did not is a heavy prog influence, something which has remained in all of Squarepusher’s subsequent albums.

Something else which makes this album special is the fact that is merges live performances (you can clearly hear the crowd in some tracks) with his studio-based work. This brings the listener into a strange dimension, combining the rawness and intensity of the live performance with the depth and intricacy of the studio output. It is an unusual technique, but strangely it is not unsettling and somehow makes perfect sense. It certainly gives Ultravisitor a unique ambience.

You can hear all of these elements on this incredible track, ‘Tetra-Sync’, probably the best track Squarepusher has made to date.

Warp20

A series of posts

1. 20 years of Warp Records
2. 20 Warp albums — part 1
3. 20 Warp albums — part 2
4. 20 Warp albums — part 3
5. 20 Warp albums — part 4
6. 20 Warp albums — part 5
7. Warp20 (Box Set)

This month the seminal Warp Records label is celebrating its 20th anniversary. There is a heap of festivities planned, and I am expectantly waiting for the very awesome looking Warp20 box set to arrive in the next week or so.

They have a lot to celebrate. The label has personified the cutting-edge of electronic music for most of its existence. Few labels can claim to have been so seminal, and remain so strong for so long.

I discovered Warp at the beginning of this decade. I had already been developing a taste for experimental and electronic music, but before getting internet access I had no way to explore it. I had heard bits and bobs about Warp, but my first real exposure was when I saw the band Broadcast on one of those late-night music programmes on Channel 4. I remember very little about it, but I think the song that mesmerised me so much must have been ‘Illumination’. Here is a video of the band performing it live in 2005.

Once we got the internet, I was able to explore further. When I visited the Warp Records website, ‘Eros’ by Tortoise was playing on its front page. It was one of the most amazing and unique things I had ever heard.

The mixture of soaring sci-fi electronic sounds, intricate multi-layered drumming and funky guitar playing transformed my expectations of what music could achieve. Compared to the standardised indie-rock I had previously been listening to, hearing something as distinctive as this was an utter revelation.

I knew I had to continue on the path of discovery. Given that Tortoise shared the same label as Broadcast, there could be no starting point other than Warp. I was also quickly. attracted by Warp’s striking visual identity, which was largely shaped by The Designers Republic.

As I investigated the artists of Warp on the label’s website, I was surprised and delighted to discover a huge variety of new (to me) and exciting music. It is no surprise that today many of my favourite albums are ones released by Warp in 2001, when I was 14 and discovering all this amazing, diverse music.

But the Warp I discovered was already very different to the Warp that began in 1989. Back then, the promise of label founders Steve Beckett and Rob Mitchell was for the Sheffield-based Warp to be a “recognised, credible, uncompromising dance label”. Inevitably though, a label cannot survive 20 years without evolving.

Between 1992 and 1994 the label released the seminal series of albums including the eponymous compilation Artificial Intelligence. The idea behind the series was to showcase “electronic listening music” which designed more for home listening than the dancefloor, or more for your head than your body. This series contained music by musicians that were later to become huge: Richard D James (best known as Aphex Twin), Autechre, Black Dog Productions (containing the members of Plaid), Alex Paterson (from The Orb), Richie Hawtin among others.

The cover of Artificial Intelligence depicts a robot reclining in an armchair with copies of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and Kraftwerk’s Autobahn lying on the floor — an indication of Warp’s ambitions. The label became the most famous outlet of what is known as Intelligent Dance Music or IDM.

The IDM moniker makes everyone cringe. Few of the best IDM artists think of themselves as IDM, and the artists that describe themselves as IDM are usually not worth listening to. Musically, it might be fair to describe it as dance music’s equivalent of progressive rock. It was the necessary next step, but is denigrated by those who think it is too pretentious and impossible to enjoy.

Like prog rock, IDM had a limited shelf-life and it peaked around the turn of the decade. Electronic music as a whole is not the money-maker it once was. So Warp have further diversified. In the words of Steve Beckett, “probably the first sacrilegious move” was to sign Seefeel in the mid-1990s. They are a more conventional band with guitars and drums, associated with shoegaze as much as techno.

More non-techno artists followed, including the jazzy trip-hop act Red Snapper, 1960s-influenced Broadcast and, er, the downright odd Jimi Tenor (I never really got that one). There was also an increased focus on hip-hop with the likes of Prefuse 73 and the Antipop Consortium. Later, there was a distinctive move towards more conventional rock. This was most notable, controversial and successful with the chart-friendly indie-rock band Maxïmo Park.

Today Warp has artists as diverse as its history suggests. It probably remains best-known for electronic music leaders such as Aphex Twin, Autechre, Boards of Canada and Squarepusher. But on the same roster you can find electro-rock shape-shifters Battles, folk-rock bands like Grizzly Bear, the increasingly soul-oriented Jamie Liddell, hip-hopper Prefuse 73, indie band Maxïmo Park and even the satirist Chris Morris. Oh, and in addition to music they also now make films.

This diversity has been good and bad. Undoubtedly Warp lost its way a bit a few years ago as it struggled to find its feet after electronic music waned in popularity. But even after twenty years, Warp remains a path-finding label that anyone interested in experimental pop music should keep an eye on.

When I discovered Warp in 2001, the range of styles on offer was already massive. But each artist was notable for being interesting and innovative. It was easy to view the Warp label as a mark of quality, no matter what the genre was.

Long may it continue. There is absolutely no question that Warp Records transformed my outlook on music more than anything else. I am looking forward to the next 20 years of innovative music.

Over the next week or so I will write about 20 of the most interesting Warp albums from its 20 year history.

My interest in graphic design is not particularly heavy. But the interest I do have in it has all stemmed from my exposure to the work of The Designers Republic. Their work was usually bold and eye-catching; unconventional and experimental. It is exactly the sort of thing I appreciate in all forms of art. They were sometimes uncompromisingly experimental, yet they made it make sense. Their designs were often beautiful and pleasing.

My first exposure to the work of The Designers Republic was probably the elements of Pulp’s visual identity, which tDR produced when the band was at the height of its powers. Like Pulp, The Designers Republic was proud of its Sheffield roots and would often reference the area in its work.

Later, I would come across The Designers Republic again when it created the visual atmosphere for the wipEout series of futuristic racing games. wip3out in particular was exquisitely presented. Even though “futuristic” design typically dates horrendously, ten years on I think wip3out stands the test of time fairly well. To this day it remains my favourite video game ever.

This video below contains the intro sequence to wip3out, introducing the player to the industrial urban world of 2116 and the (anti-gravity) F7200 Race League. There are also striking corporate identities for each of the fictitious teams. There follows a spot of gameplay — a short eliminator round at the Mega Mall circuit — which shows just how important The Designers Republic’s influence was to the game.

An archived version of the wip3out website, also designed by tDR, is still available to browse.

The earlier wipEout games do not stand the test of time quite so well. Perhaps because it used very similar designs throughout the early-to-mid 1990s, most notably for the band Pop Will Eat Itself, the style seems firmly rooted in the 1990s.

My exposure to tDR’s work increased when became interested in electronic music, particularly the output of Warp Records. Warp’s striking visual identity was one of the things that attracted me to the label, and it was a perfect fit for the experimental, forward-looking techno music that Warp used to specialise in.

Like tDR, Warp has its roots in Sheffield, so the original relationship was one of expediency. But the fit was so good that in a lot of ways Warp and tDR are inseparably intertwined in the eyes of some. But in later years, tDR designed very few record sleeves for Warp at all.

In fact, the only one from recent years that I can think of is the artwork for Autechre’s Quaristice, which was recently featured in the excellent music artwork blog Sleevage. The extravagant brushed steel limited edition of Quaristice was probably the last tDR-designed product that I bought. It is a truly exquisite piece of work. I have my own photos of it, but the photographs on Sleevage give a much better idea of the stunning quality of it.

But it was difficult to escape the fact that tDR was producing less and less for one of its most iconic clients. In fact, I had knowingly seen hardly any tDR work at all over the past few years, and a lot of people came to see tDR as lazy. Sometimes their work was a bit too minimalist, to a cheeky extent (see, for instance, the track-by-track artwork for Quaristice).

But a number of their designs were very striking, and I own a lot of t-shirts that were designed by tDR. Since being exposed to their work I have made a conscious effort to make anything I design (like this blog) look good. For a brief period of my life, I even seriously considered going into graphic design as a career (before concluding that I probably wouldn’t be any good at it).

Even though The Designers Republic closed down this month, its influence will always be felt. tDR spawned a million copycats, and the course of artwork related to electronic music in particular has been changed forever by tDR.

Anyway, many of tDR’s best designers over the years have moved on (see, for instance, Universal Everything or Build). And tDR’s founder, Ian Anderson, has pledged that it will return in some form or another. The Designers Republic is dead, long live The Designers Republic indeed.

• The Designers Republic website
• Pho-Ku (archived tDR work)

Over the years, tDR has produced some of my favourite album artwork. I’ve gathered some of them below the fold.

Autechre — Envane (can you spot which famous piece of architecture this is based on?)

Autechre — EP7

Brothomstates — Claro

LFO — Sheath (which appropriately came packaged in a sheath)

Various artists — Warp 10+1: Influences

Jarvis — The Jarvis Cocker Record

Aphex Twin — Windowlicker

Supergrass — Life on Other Planets

Plaid — Spokes

Luke Vibert — YosepH

Quaristice

A series of posts

1. How to quadruple the price of an album and get away with it
2. How not to review music
3. Autechre — Quaristice

If there is a musical act I like more than Radiohead, it is Autechre. The release of Autechre’s new album, Quaristice, bears some resemblance to Radiohead’s attention-grabbing In Rainbows release. It also bears a lot of the hallmarks of my predictions / observations about the apparent future of the music industry which I wrote about earlier this month.

I has already been known for a while that a new Autechre album was due out on 3 March. But on Tuesday it was announced via an email to subscribers to the Warp Records newsletter that Quaristice was available to buy as a digital download immediately.

This is the second time in as many months that Warp has sprung a surprise. They did it last month by releasing Clark’s Throttle Promoter EP with no prior warning, along with the announcement of a new album, Turning Dragon, just a month away. It is a pleasant change given that Warp seem to like announcing an album several months in advance and switch the publicity machine into overdrive (and the recorded music industry wonders why people just illegally download albums instead of waiting).

Of course, I had to buy it straight away. Unfortunately, Bleep was struggling to cope with demand. After spending far too long trying to get the zipped download to work, I eventually resorted to laboriously downloading the album track by track. The whole process took over three hours. Ironically, it would have been a lot quicker and easier — not to mention cheaper — to just illegally download it.

On top of the immediate digital release, a limited edition version of Quaristice was announced. This is interesting because Autechre have never had a ‘limited edition’ version of one of their albums released alongside a standard edition. I don’t know if that was because Autechre didn’t like the idea or if Warp thought it wouldn’t be worth it. But whatever, this move seems to back up the observations I made a few weeks ago — the limited edition is becoming much more important for the recorded music industry.

The limited edition Quaristice sounds swish. It comes with a second CD of alternative versions of tracks from the album housed in a rather luxurious-sounding package:

The double CD set comes in a Designers Republic styled, photo-etched, 0.4mm steel slipcase with foil blocked inner gatefold wallet.

It comes at an equally luxurious price — £24.99. And postage is £5! Limited to 1,000 copies, it sold out really quickly, so I feel lucky that I didn’t hang around like I often do. I speculate that they could have easily sold 5,000.

The MP3s cost £6.99 (if I had opted to go for the lossless Flac files (which I didn’t because they are not iPod-compatible), it would have cost £8.99). As such, I have spent £36.98 on Quaristice — almost as much as the £40 Radiohead ‘discbox’.

Before In Rainbows I had never spent anything like £40 on an album. Now I have done it twice in the space of a few months. What a sucker. Who said it was impossible to make money from recorded music any more?

All-in-all, it is a very clever move by Warp. I have bought every Autechre album that’s ever been released for around a tenner. With a couple of sly moves they have managed to just about quadruple that. And judging from the trouble I had downloading it and the fact that the limited edition sold out so quickly, it has happened at least a thousand times over. The accountants at Warp must be happy today.

(Needless to say, I will be reviewing Quaristice when I get the chance.)

Am I the only one who thinks the new London 2012 logo isn’t THAT bad?

And pretty much instantly two people, Will Howells and Chris Applegate, told me that, yes, yes I am. (Update: And Sarah…)

I mean, I don’t think it’s a great logo or anything. For a start, it took me bloody ages to work out where “2012″ was written (everywhere, illegibly, apparently).

But I like it for being bold and different. I like it for not being yet another one of those bland, anonymous, forgettable logos that usually accompany such massive events.

Imagine if we had got one of these, which is really the most likely other alternative.

Usually these logos are shocking for just how similar they are to all the others. Love hearts, scrawly handwriting, use of national symbols. I can easily imagine a London 2012 logo where, for instance the London Eye made the ’0′ and Big Ben made the ’1′. Thank goodness they avoided that sort of thing.

So congratulations to the London 2012 people for not just making do with some bland squiggly emblem with “London 2012″ faux-handwritten under it.

…Having said that, the “Lisa Simpson giving a blowjob” thing is… er, unfortunate.

MatGB has collected some of the reactions to the logo. At first I couldn’t see the thing about it being a Designers Republic rip-off. (It’s not as if TDR are the only people who have ever used that kind of vibrant Japanese-influenced style.)

Then I watched the video. It has to be said that one particular part of the video reminded me very strongly of an iconic TDR-designed album cover.

Update: Forgot to include this rather funny suggested logo that ended up on the BBC’s website!