Yeah, this is definitely my favourite Autechre album.. and has been for a long time. It started in the spring of 97; I had just turned 19 and this album had just arrived at my local "techno" record store, so I bought it as a birthday present for myself. The other present for myself was a 10-strip of some rather potent blotter (it had musical notes and skulls on it, in case anyone's interested). My brother and I ingested said hallucinogens, and left the CD on repeat alllll night. I was completely engrossed in the imagery... basically everything Asymptote said was 100% spot-on; couldn't have written it better. My brother has basically no interest in electronic music (especially since that word didn't exist then) but was still quite into the album. For years I could play him the shortest fraction of a song from Chiastic and he would be instantly transported back to that night. My love for this album has grown even greater over the years (I can't believe it's been almost a decade!). No matter how many hundreds of times I hear it it will never get old for me. The high points for me are Cipater (duh), Cichli and Recury. Some years after I bought the cd in 97 I picked up the vinyl as well, even though I didn't have a record player at the time. What a great investment that was though.. I'm constantly using it in my mixes. I like to mix with Cichli, although the wandering melody makes it a bitch to mix properly. A much easier song to mix with is Cipater. Now I know what you're thinking.. the time shift has gotta play hell with me. Actually, the shift is very mathematical: the BPMs drop by 1/3. So, if you have the song slowed down to 111 (the song is "supposed" to be at 113) then after the shift the BPM becomes 74 (2/3 of 111). This is a good way to switch up the BPM of a mix, which I like to do :)
One more thing I'm surprised that no-one else has mentioned: the vinyl sleeve has artwork on the inside! This is the only record I've ever seen that does this (besides a number of records I have that just have some colour printed on the inside). If you have access to the vinyl of chiastic you should check this out.. I used to bulge open the sleeve and stare into it all the time :) The pattern is pretty much a continuation of the outside theme. Haven't looked at it for some time however, since the 3 sleeves are currently adorning my wall as the main part of an autechre frieze: containing chiastic, envane (both), both ep7 sleeves, the green cichlisuite sleeve, and my signed confield poster <3
Just in case you're wondering.. all those records aren't naked! I bought a ton of blank cardboard sleeves to house my autechre vinyl :)
