AUTECHRE

The Ghost of a Machine

By David Day

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The myth of Autechre is one that starts and ends inside of a machine. Autechre, aka Rob Brown and Sean Booth, have been on the cusp of electronic music-making for over 20 years, and as they have progressed, they have gotten darker and more obtuse. Their latest album, called Quaristice, is their bleakest to date: a 20-track monster that never seems to make sense, beginning and ending with a kind of pastoral ambience that they've been known for, but in between come moments of sonic terror. It's not the ghost in the machine, it's the ghost of a machine. "Difficulty isn't our thing," says Autechre, in a press release (the duo notoriously eschews interviews). "We make it because we like it. We just go for satisfaction each time. There's no express purpose or aim other than making stuff we like ... that's not very interesting, is it?" The motivation may not be interesting, but the end result certainly is. Thom Yorke of Radiohead is probably their most well-known fan, but there can be little doubt any producer would stand in awe of their music-making prowess.

From the dark streets of Manchester, the two have formed a partnership under the technologies of things named SuperCollider and Kyma, Elektron Machinedrum and Monomachine. "We like to dissect things," they say. "I think the trick is to not let the detail become the main attraction." The details on their latest are Marianas Trench deep. Tracks like "BNC Castl" jam the brain with calculator stabs and flittering tweets. "Simmm" sounds like a techno sunset party if the techno was the sound of a transistor radio and the sunset was on Pluto. "Notwo" might as well be HAL 9000 taking a catnap. This is primarily the method of Autechre: squeezing the human soul into ancient electronics. "You can have your entire track changing piece by piece and that's what we're into," they say. "We like things like a puzzle where it's revealing itself and changing. And you can almost follow it because it works at the same pace as your own brain works." It's also worth noting that Autechre came from hip-hop. Their first love was of the graffiti in NYC and beyond, the brightly colored art made on the cold, dirty avenues of a calloused city.

The last time the two played the Middle East, it was a spooky, bold performance. Perched behind their machines like two gargoyles, the whole venue was cloaked in darkness. The rock & roll soundsystem had surely never been put through such a rigorous obstacle course of blurps, sinewaves and sawtooths. For this trip, they've brought along Rob Hall, the official DJ for Skam Records, another Manchester enterprise that can be as intelligent as it is goofy (it was the home of Boards of Canada in their very genesis). And fellow Skam-ian goofball Massonix is along for the ride. It's long been said that Autechre makes IDM, or Intelligent Dance Music, which is music you really can't dance to. Let's call it VIDM: Very Intelligent Dance Music.

AUTECHRE

W/ MASSONIX AND DJ ROB HALL

MON. 4.14

MIDDLE EAST DOWNSTAIRS

480 MASS AVE.CENTRAL SQ.

CAMBRIDGE8PM/18+/$18 MIDEASTCLUB.COM