No Autechre record can
fully prepare for what Sean Booth and Rob Brown have
to offer live. Far from churning favourite tracks in
pre-sequenced portions, Autechre have always favoured
a harder route for their live performances. With their
records focussing on the cerebral aspect of their music,
the live shows openly take care of the physically dimension,
inflicting rather than affecting. Yet, the live tracks
are based on an identical set up of broken beats and
melodies but applied to a completely different context.
Coinciding with the release of their eighth album,
Sean Booth and Rob Brown have embarked on a tour that
will take their uncompromising show pretty much around
the world. Kicking off in London with an evening also
featuring veteran DJs Rob Hall and Baby Ford, sent to
warm up the crowd at EC1, situated under the arches
of London Bridge station, with Mark Broom in charge
of the post-show set, Autechre have undoubtedly set
the focus of their 2005 tour on the dance floor. Sean
Booth recently declared in an interview with Kultureflash
that he was very much into repetition, and this characteristic
is often present in more substantial and obvious ways
in their live shows.
Not derogating from previous live sets, Booth and Brown
played once again in total darkness. The way the pair
conceive their live performance doesn’t allow
from any distraction. The music is the only thing that
matters.
And play they did. Starting bang on time after a two-hour
DJ set from Baby Ford, the pair opened with a series
of positively contained percussion-led tracks, each
built around a particular looped pattern and evolving
from one set to the next almost seamlessly. Although
these first few tracks already showed a certain level
of aggression, they appeared slightly gentler than those
experienced during previous tours.
Just past the fifteen-minute mark, the set appeared
to suddenly take a sharp turn into darker, more upfront
and incisive beat constructions and ferocious sequences.
Appearing perfectly linear and straightforward, Autechre’s
sonic assemblages were from then on showing more angular
and complex settings, with often multiple layers evolving
at different speed and at multi-dimensional levels,
sending part of the crowd into trance while other remained
firmly still, left absorbing the repeated sonic assaults.
If the majority of tracks played during the set had
very little to do with any of the pair’s recorded
material, at least in obvious way, the distinctive machine-gun
snare of LCC signalled the approach of the
half-way mark and offered a discreet point of reference
to an audience by then totally won over, while later
on, Booth and Brown appeared to inject flavours of Ipacial
Section into the last section of this concert.
Yet, these recognisable elements might have been very
much fortuitous, sonic buoys in an ocean of unfamiliar
noises.
During the last twenty minutes of the performance,
Booth and Brown appeared to temporarily slow down their
infernal machines, even going to the length of dropping
off the drums altogether for a short moment to leave
a slightly metallic-tainted sound wave cross the spectrum.
If this providing the audience with an unexpected break,
it was also providing the launch pad for some of the
hardest moments of the evening, leading to a impressive
home stretch.
If Untilted hints at wider sonic terrains and more
contrasted tones than its recent predecessors, the accompanying
live performances showcase an equally vast and challenging
scope and define boundaries until now left untouched,
at least on records.
Thanks to Steve
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