Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Try repeating., 7 Oct 2003
Oooh, a pun title. It's me that's repeating, though, because, as other reviewers have said, the album is a wonderful contrast between beautiful ambience and metallic, mechanical beats. Whether this album is as cold or atmospheric as Amber is a fine line. Whilst the previous album relied on sweeping synths, the effect is produced here by its metallic feel. It's not all robots and big machines, but it does give the impression of a distinct lack of human contact. Most of the drum sounds throughout the album sound as if they're recorded from people hitting and scraping pieces of metal. The beats are far slower than on any other AE release, I believe, and this gives it the chugging, machine-like nature. The synths and melodies are far more abstract that anything the boys had done previously. It's harder to hum along with anything here. This gives it a kind of lonely feeling, which is something I actually really like in it. This album was the interim. It mixed the accessability and obvious rhythms of the earlier albums with the less melodic more mechanical nature of the later ones. Were I to recommend any album to introduce someone to AE, this would be the one I'd choose. From here on you can pick which direction you'd like to go in. Standout tracks: Dael, the opener. Constantly moving, subtley changing throughout. Stud, a very dark, mysterious epic, with hi frequency clicking beats. Eutow, a cascade of square synths and the only track I liked on first listen. Overand. Long, very subtle ambient. Reminds my of Aphex's Selected Ambient Works II. One of my favourite Autechre albums, second only to Amber.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Genius., 20 Nov 1999
By A Customer
A truly outstanding album and one of Warp Records' finest moments. A perfect blend of the textured ambience of Autechre's previous release, Amber, with driving metallic beats. The second track, Clipper is surely one of the greatest electronic songs ever. Inspired.
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Clunky whirr whirr!, 15 Sep 2003
Don't be put off by the stigma. Mention Autechre and people run screaming in fear from freaked out 3D animated shapes generally vibrating in an alarming way to a wave of white noise. Its not all like that. Earlier Autechre, like Tri Repetae, has the trademark mechanical aspect of later works (the 'fax machine gone mental' Gantz Graf lets say) but a certain melodic, more musical quality as offered up by other Warp artists like Plaid. Tracks like Dael have a precise, clunking nature, conjuring up a vision of an assembly line working away, but don't stop there ... there is a soul in the Autechre machine. Over the clicky beats of Clipper and Rotar , lovely wide synths float in and out. Eutow is particularly special, one of my favourite Autechre tracks. Mainly based around a wide wide brassy synth sound that builds and builds before bending all over the shop and having a nice tight break introduced. Just love the hypnotic 'tick-tick-tick-tick' sound that happens here. C/Pach is trippy and echoey, a smoked out track. Shuffling beats. Gnit has this wonderful phased, almost reversed synth noise that is the basis of the track. Subtle as opposed to the brass of Eutow. Low key and excellent, gentle. Overand reminds me of the interlude tracks that you might find on something like Music Has The Right To Children. Tri Repetae finishes off on the constantly filtering Rsdio. Hypnotically looping over and over.I like alot of this album, I find that the excellence happens midway through, standout tracks being the section with Eutow, C/Pach and Gnit. Autechre have their own sound, if you buy this, you won't own anything else like it ever. In my own opinion, I wish that the best tracks from the early albums (Amber, Tri Repetae and Chiastic Slide) could be merged into an Autechre superalbum. Foil sitting alongside Eutow and Tewe. Make sure you check the full wares of Autechre, you never know what you're going to get. Tri Repetae is one of the easier albums to get into, but I'd definately recommend having a look at something like Chiastic Slide if this is your first foray into Autechre. And just so you know, I tend to go for the more musical side of electronica, so if you're more into the abstract electronic harshness side of things, don't listen to me!
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