The duo formed by Rob Brown – architect – and Sean Booth – sound engineer –, Autechre, is incomparable: they make music that feels visceral and cerebral, moving and ethereal. Fragments of the dance music heritage can be distinguished in the distance: hip hop, electro, drum and bass, industrial music or techno; and also expressionist ambient or concrete music – Edgar Varèse and Todd Dockstader are the recurring references. However, the only constant that has occurred since the beginning of his career in the early nineties is change.
“In general, the more we feel restricted, the more we try to fight against it,” they assured The New York Times just three years ago in one of their few interviews with the media, in which they expanded on their last two works: Sign and Plus, with which they certified their transition from the abrupt and icy abstraction of their beginnings, to an unpredictable music inspired by a wide range of sensations and emotions.
The first few times the listener immerses themselves in their music can be frustrating, but then, suddenly, a hermetic world opens up that becomes warm and welcoming. His ability to reshape sounds and create landscapes that are both complex and accessible testifies to his innovative approach to electronic music. With its cryptic mix of abstract rhythms and complex textures, his sound invites listeners to delve into soundscapes they have rarely traversed.
Although complex, Autechre’s music flows intuitively, with each component perpetually changing shape, making their sound alive. Somehow, against all odds, it seems they might hold the key to the music of tomorrow. They show that there are still new places to go; There is still music that has not been heard. Listening to Autechre perform live is, therefore, encountering something extraordinary and unique; perhaps contradictory and far from logic. “This thing we’re doing right now isn’t really sit-down music,” they warn, “it’s dance music, but some may have a hard time finding where the beat is.”
This is possibly the most interesting performance of contemporary experimental music and is presented on two dates in Spain. To celebrate the fifteen years of the Mutek festival, in collaboration with Primavera Sound and Sala Apolo, they return to Barcelona on the 9th, with all tickets sold; and a day later, to Madrid, where they have not played since 2007, to La Sala del Wiznik Center. Two quotes with an event label in which to approach dance music outside of any fashion or trend: “People have very limited ideas about what dance music should or could be.”
Autechre’s new concerts once again bring up the dilemma of the nature of dance music. It is not new: the issue has crossed his career from his beginnings in the so-called IDM (intelligent dance music), along with other creators such as Aphex Twin, until today, when they assure that the influence of funk is the most emerging drift. important part of his music in recent years, in which his shows have been held in totally dark rooms and without room to devise a single dance step. “In the dark, the relationship with music is different,” they often say; It’s more mental. We like it that way.”
To the artistic proposal, Autechre adds the political and protest positioning, which avoids solemnity with sarcasm and imagination. For example, with actions such as the historic protest against the laws that censored rave culture and free parties in the nineties. The Criminal Justice and Public Order of 1994, enacted by the British government of conservative John Major, which prohibited holding meetings in which “music with repetitive rhythms” were played. The duo’s response was Anti EP (Warp, 94), three songs in which they brought together the aesthetics and the outlawed sound without repeating a single rhythm: “We made as many different measures as we could on the drum machine and we put them all together.” On the back cover of the album they advised not to play their music in public or to do so, failing that, with an accredited musicologist to avoid the mandatory administrative sanction.
In this wandering through styles, sounds to explain, ideas and demands, they have developed a unique working method that they have called the system, with which they trace a particular and intense relationship between technology and creativity. And they turn their live shows into an unpredictable and improvised show in which the music played may not have been heard before.
