it was like 1998-99 and i was big into sonic youth, jim o'rourke (his interviews, name drops), free jazz / noise & various "indie" rocks. i was looking (at random) through the CDs at a local record store and spotted ep7. i purchased the album because it looked cool. around the same time, i met a girl named amber. she gave me a tape copy of Amber (the album), and i listened to it whilst walking around downtown, late one summer night, in salt lake city. that experience hooked me on it, but i didn't really tune back in to Ae until '04, when Draft came out. seeing sean booth's expression on the cover of WIRE in 2004, along with Xylin Room, 6IE.CR, Surripere and Reniform Puls transformed me from casual listener / dabbler into a moderate "head" ... IV VV IV VV VIII took me forever to like. Now, i think it's beautiful.