In wondering how to get my head around Autechre's new CD, it never occurred to me that this music might not lend itself very well to aggressive analysis. Not every piece of music begs for intellectual immersion, and of course, not every listener is ready to conduct such an extensive investigation. In fact, most people probably don't waste much time with these things at all, so why should I? I remember how looking for patterns in Confield basically got me nowhere, except to notice that chaos isn't as perfect, crystalline as its made out to be by misunderstood mathematicians and restless musicians. Confield's chaos was digital, but it was also a great mess in places, merely strangely beautiful in others. Yet, despite my considerable missing of the point (and for all I know, I still am), its spark was clear. Sean Booth and Rob Brown constructed a fiber-thin moonscraper of a system: I'm not sure any of it would stand up in the face of analysis, but most of it tears down my attempts without much effort.
I've never heard Autechre's music, especially their more recent stuff, described as "inspirational" or "brilliant", just "complex" and "mathematical" (and "cold" and "distant" and a catalog of other words that aren't technically bad, but are never written to mean anything good in music). Somehow, their chaos is "complicated," while real-life chaos is a crisis, capable of changing lives. As I see it, LP5, EP7 and Confield are near-miraculously compact capsules of a state that would, in nature, engulf everything in its paths, and maybe as a consequence, something few people would want to approach.
Well, it just so happens Draft 7.30 is a return to form for folks who thought all that gibberish I spouted over Confield was, well, gibberish. If you're old enough to remember beats, none of the ones on this record will escape your ear. Also caught are bits of melody that, rather than obscured behind nine layers of software, are often heard in broad daylight. And another thing: even with an hour of pristine, possibly perfect edifices of light and head-bobbing structures, it's possible you don't notice the music is playing.
At this point, Draft 7.30 makes its most powerful impressions via the noise it fends off rather than the tunes it emits. "Theme of Sudden Roundabout" (in a rare populist move with coherent titling) lays its squelching beat down for all to see, and its melody, efficient in the extreme, is faintly reminiscent of the minimal watercolor of their more tuneful labelmates. Dispensing with the systematic analysis, I'd say it's pleasant, but not essentially interesting, a bit like the ultimate IDM museum piece, Clicks & Cuts-- although, Autechre are hardly producing "micro" music of any kind here. This is Macro is the truest sense, and yet, despite its intricate thousands of details, few combinations produce that old kinetic spark.
The opener "Xylin Room" hits an uptempo, polyrhythmic stutter beat to the tune of Autechre's patented thud-bass and various cut-up synth noises, all in and out, over and tumble, as if the arrangement could never be made busy enough. But a fucked-up beat is a beat nonetheless, and when the actual "xylin"phones hit, it's clear that this tune might well be the duo's take on bossa nova. It's a hard way to wrench a groove out of static air, but to me it sounds pretty convincing, so even if it fails to fill a dancefloor, it holds the ear at home. "IV VV IV VV VIII" is back to Confield school, albeit slightly stripped down. Somehow, the duo manages to obscure the beat without ever covering it up entirely, off-center snare slaps and cavernous echo notwithstanding.
It's not all beat-fuckery, for once, as the brief "Tapr" proves. It begins with the drop of a plexus on glitched-up vinyl, more reverb, seemingly random synth tones and a whirlwind of low thuds and piano altered to an almost unrecognizable degree. Without pause, this ornery vignette segues into the epic, relentlessly varied "Surripere". Over its ten-plus minute course, a fairly simple electro-funk backbeat is transformed into chattering, squishing metallic flutter, the end result of which doesn't so much resolve to the duo's usual silver-blue noise as bump up against a brick wall, as if they just ran out of ways to mess with the same group of semiquavers. Fittingly, at best, it's a move towards the brink despite frustratingly stationary stretches; at worst, it might not be worth the time.
Of course, as with most Autechre releases, there will probably be considerable differences in reception for Draft 7.30. Since it doesn't break much new ground, there will be many who dismiss it quickly (perhaps without giving it a fair shake); others will be only too glad to see Booth and Brown return to more straightforward grounds, even if they don't quite reach their mid-90s peak as melodic technicians; still others may hear a logical progression from Confield, pointing to the group's use of a similar sound palette to make a very different journey. My guess is that there's some truth in all of those viewpoints, though in the end, I'm left with the sinking feeling that, as criticism goes, an unfortunate combination of familiar methods, beats and timbres won't overshadow the ultimately uninspiring music.
