Aphex Twin’s Alberto Balsalm Covered by Steel Drum Band

Holy guacamole this is so many kinds of awesome:

Autechre Sydney Gig Review

update: My friend Jim has also written an excellent review of this gig at Feral Kid.

Having missed them when they last toured Australia in the mid-90s because they only played Melbourne, I leapt at the chance to go to Autechre’s Sydney show last night.

First it must be said the sound at The Forum was gorgeous. Siesmic sub-bass penetrated everything like a layer of warm oil. The jarring cracks and clean surfaces of white noise were rendered pristine with every colour of the spectrum. It absolutely pumped.

The crowd was laced with computer geeks and various nerds perched in the mezzanine perfectly positioned to drool on the galaxy of equipment arrayed on stage.

Rob Hall’s support set ranged wide and deep across electronic dance genres without fear of making a few sharp turns and I thought it was underappreciated by a crowd that, among other things included a guy with a Frankie Goes to Hollywood T-Shirt reading a slim volume of the writings of 19th Century German Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. I kid you not. For those who came only to hear Autechre and nothing else, the start time was after midnight.

Finally the English duo came on and remained virtually immobile on an almost dark stage for about 90 minutes. The sound, however was dynamic and bold. The emphasis was on percussive programmed breaks with signature subtlety and a hybrid vibe of mechanistic and organic structure. There wasn’t much of their ambient scapes to be heard, but there was a cavernous orchestral resonance in the sound. The groove was always there on a very laid back, downbeat substrate which they exposed at regular intervals, breaking it down perhaps to reorient those of us who had folllowed the hairy dendrites of noise far from the basic hip-hop chassis.

Here’s something I captured during the set, in brief:

Autechre
It’s like Satan got a drum machine
and broke into the cathedral.
In the blackness,
A trancendental financial transaction.
Backed up on a warped tape.
Beats so fat it makes you laugh.
Rude I heard say. Rude beats.
I can smell freshly cut timber
in my eardrums.
Fucking awesome.

It seems difficult to nail down Autechre with words or pictures and I think they like it that way.