squarepusher My Quaristice track by track review

[Guest godslonggone]

Alright, I guess I'll set up a few of my opinions on the band and their existing discography first. I listen to a ton of 80's electro, freestyle, hip hop, etc, so I definitely bond with the duo over that. I like them because I feel an abstract old-school hip hop vibe but never really feel like I'm listening to hip hop (except on envane, which kind of makes it feel funny sometimes). I think this is because old school and AE are sadly some of the only types of music in the last few decades that are primarily rhythmic. I really dig most of the rob brown mixtapes, except where he plays some songs that are newer than I prefer. I don't like any still-existing hip hop artists and don't want to hear any of them rapping over ae.

Got into them with incunabula and eventually came to enjoy most of the material on everything they've put out since except gantz graft. I listen to a lot of free jazz and avant garde jazz, so I have a taste for the challenging, but am still discriminating of noises that I do not find interesting, as is going to be the case for MOST free jazz and experimental electronica, which is where the masters like AE come in. I consider experimental music of the mid 60's (free jazz) to have been an important movement, then synth stuff of the 70's leading directly to electro of the 80s and the limited amount of good electronic music in the 90's and even less now. Still, AE rarely fit exactly into electronic music and just sound like modern and hence very altered continuation of what they and I both listen to from the 80's to me. I call them masters because they have so many albums that I enjoy most of, that never make me listen to classical guitar or cuss at me or drown me in reggae or baby voice samples. I can't really listen to a lot of their straightforward stuff much anymore unless I'm in a newly-retro 90's downtempo electronic music mood, just because I've heard all of it so much. Chiastic slide is a good, Cichlisuite is great, Envane is great but doesn't sound as much like them as any release this side of cavity job. LP5 and EP7 are really good but I can't do the vocal samples (a female / child gasp / moan on LP5 bums me out, and the vocals on EP7 track 2 bring unhappy images of cockney rap) so I can't say I like the albums overall as much as the good tracks. I really like most of Draft and Confield but on both there are a few tracks I just don't like enough, where they start to sound too nihilistic and post-music, not to say their sounds a

re uninteresting, just that they don't hold my attention for the long track lengths. I can get into those few tracks for a minute, then I start to feel like I would enjoy them more if I were in a worse mood. Then again, they come from the same depressing musical era that produced generally nothing but music worse than those albums, so more power to them.

Now for my most controversial ae opinion: Untilted is my favorite. They've had many prior songs that morph into something else by their end, but on this album the tracks are constantly changing. For any noisy or uncomfortable moments, no track gets lost in the noisy void, it just evolves into another section. It feels more free and alive to me, open to experiment within a track. I especially dig on Augmatic Disport, which sounds like a series of shortened difficult confield-like tracks until they drop in the miami bass which takes over in a stupid proud exclamation of the power of bass. Stupid meaning good, of course. Ipacial is also a classic in my book with that hard to grab sudden melody that pops in, and the rest of the tracks are engaging enough to make me come back to this album more than either of the other so outwardly experimental albums. The only real low point for me would be a vocal sample saying something like 'break' in track three, which might actually be funny and good but hasn't proven itself to be to me. Since nobody really likes untilted, i guess you should take my opinions with a grain of salt.

This is a long intro so I'd better get to the point. I also like Quaristice a lot. It has amazing moments. I don't find it to be quite as consistently gripping as untilted, but it's low points aren't really that low, they just kind of lag in that they start to sound more like their own and other electronic music artists' older material, which I've heard before. Really though, it's mostly awesome new autechre, now sped up and sometimes abbreviated. The main thing you notice when first hearing this album is how fast the short songs fly past you, which I personally enjoy. It's like autechre decided rather than spacing these compositions out over five minutes, let's speed up the transitions and up the BPM. It does at times give a strong feeling of the 07 live set, pausing for draft-like noises and the few longer tracks they posted on wire (which are the only ones that really sound that much like their previous albums, a trick also used by warp when they showed us the one track on squarepusher's hello everything that sounded like his established sound. The difference being here that hello everything was absolutely terrible and quaristice is actually a good album. I played the first half of it for a few friends the other night, and I'm pretty sure they think they heard the whole thing. With 20 tracks to get through, here I go.

 

1. Ambient song. Good intro, strong theme, nice tones... some you'll recognize. 2:54 to do whatever psychologically you need to do to get ready for the rest.

2. Alright, an atypically fast ae song. Trademark weird blip noises keep beat interesting. At 15s the first distorted warbly melody comes in, with odd bass notes and noises by 30s, an odd bassline by 1m. Harmony starts to develop when a screechy noise in the background cues the next odd beat, accompanied by underwater deep space noises for nearly a minute, when crunchy beat and familiar ae sounds form a triplet with eventual counterpoint that may be a voice. That goes away over the beat then there is definitely a slightly high pitched voice. Caught off guard upon first hearing voices, which easily ruin songs for me, and while this clip is indeed a little cheesy, I think if fits in this bizarre little run through of fast paced ae hop. Not the shortest track but feels like it since it keeps changing. Rad.

3. Hmm. Something to think about, being initially turned off by the distorted conversation sounding like BOC, whom I can't even listen to anymore. Still, the looping MELODY (this is ae? yes, yes, y'all) is quite nice, holds the fuzzy mostly unintelligibly voice and odd snare hits together. Melody falls out around 1.50m and it starts to sound sort of like an old squarepusher break (as I'd felt from the 07 live set, particularly pontin's) before nice mellow ae chords come in quietly. Over already? Oh yeah, short songs. Not quite as strong as the first one since it fits comfortably in the genre of electronic music established over the last 10 years, but the insistent melody in the beginning and cool in the end make it good in my book, though personally, if I'm going to have altered vocals in my electronica, it should sound like those of 'man made' by 'man parrish', not BOC.

4. Oh, hell yeah. What at first sounds too much like the crazy sheet metal meets hip hop sounds of V-PROC begins to show some subtle double bass. Honestly, the track does sound a lot like the mentioned track on draft in sounds, but in progression it sounds like a later version of the track should, one that could only exist after the original, an expansion by the original artist. Basically, the bass starts to really kick in near the middle and it feels like a snippet of a sped up, more driving single off draft. Single because it starts to make metallic future noises catchy in a matter of two and a half min. Awesome shit to bump in my low rider.

5. Beatless intro sounds a lot like a short track off Drukqs, but this is not a put-down. AE really seem to have absorbed everything about the electronic music scene around them quite well. 35s in it all changes and is completely rhythmic, growing, barely melodic. 1m the bass drum hits a couple times, we get dropped into outer space for one measure then come back. Hidden melody becomes more obvious in drum sounds, ten seconds later the beat changes again like a DJ's slight of hand. Pretty sweet little track, nice and obtuse, hard to grasp. I guess it might sound a little like untilted production on a less melodic track off amber.

6. Ambient noises, somewhat hub-like, echo and loop for 20s, then get stretched in weird ways apart. Doesn't do a whole lot really. Does not stand on its own, but works well as a transition and is a very good intro to the next track.

7. Whoa, really? An overstated hyper-melodic section, with at least three strong voices, one of which sounds like bells feeding back underneath heavy 'emotion' synth. Like a more intense version of the start of inhake 2. It doesn't really hit you the way this melody feels like it should, as it has no real buildup they would normally supply. It all seems very acknowledged though, and is makes more sense next when all of the sudden everything except the weird metallic bell sounds is gone, twisting away in the background over the near-consistent bell sounds, all of which ends around 2:40, a new beat and a new lower version of those bells return and brooding ae chords come in above it. Most other modern downtempo artists' entire albums would sound like the second half of this track, which would not be interesting. In this case, the five minutes fly by on the energy of the "bell-sounds" and the oddly upfront intro that makes you think it could come back at any second. I'm thinking you might hate the hyped-up chimey sounds that run through the first half of the track, but personally they were making me feel like I was playing drums on the walls in a sewer system. Cowabunga.

8. Ambient track.... not much melody, kind of like a rainstorm I guess. I'd rather listen to early abstract tangerine dream. Once again, wouldn't work on its own but works quite well in an intense album such as this.

9. Almost heartbeat-like pulsing bass competes with karate chop noises in space for a minute, then the brief nannou-like creaks and swooshes begin. Around two minutes a chunk of a melody tries to find its place in the rhythm. While you can hear draft and confield I guess, it also reminds me a bit of some of the shorter Drukqs.

10. Here you go. The track that I first heard as a horribly compressed file from WIRE. It's interesting how much more this song sounds like their older work at first (like draft sounds with an almost untilted production), but sounds like such a change of pace when it arrives on quaristice. The album really feels relentless at this point. Cool mechanical sounds keep it interesting even though it doesn't go that many places. Not the absolute best track, but a good, engaging track and perhaps one of the safest to show fans of later ae.

11. Sounds very familiar, sort of like a new ae junkyard dub of a track off tri rep. An insistent reverbed out riff keeps beat less regularly as the song progresses. Everything reverbed out. Good, but no eutow. My opinion of this track is very similar to that of track 10.

12. Umm... I don't know. This track is pretty difficult and near-completely abstract. This is where I stopped playing it for my friends the other night. Like the most difficult moment of chiastic, I feel like it's just there to tell me the songs over, flip the record. I'm hoping when I get the vinyl that this isn't the first track on a side... nevermind, I don't really care about that. Harsh sounds fly past you and hints of rhythm form between them. Pretty hard to listen to, probably not quite as rewarding as some of the harsh parts of confield and draft that I avoid, though maybe to some. Regardless, this is the only 3:49 this difficult on the whole album, and if nothing else it does make a hell of an intro for track 13.

13. The first few seconds are the sounds of the last track fading (the most obvious transition on the album), into another odd fast paced ae song. Again, the album feels relentless even though it is mostly less harsh than others. This song sounds like a hip hop song from outer space, even more than most of their songs. Not super melodic and not necessarily a standout, but still solid.

14. Starts with a couple distorted tones. Wait, I'm not sure which ae song it is but i think another uses a very similar simple drum break, then it all breaks and comes back in a very hyper way, with incunabula-sounding hi-hat and understated hidden melodies and chords, at the same time the insistent rhythm sounding like a less abstract and more listenable sim gishel. It sounds like bits of several classic ae songs megamixed, succeeding in being sped up into a singular new hyper sound. It all twists around a little, but returns. I like this one a lot, it would be nice and confusing to mix this into a normal dance music set and really point out how crazy sounding it all is, even at its most danceable.

15. Crazy, which disc of druqks is this? It really reminds me of the Aphex song that says "whooooo" and "puck" meets a very scratched record of the breakdown of the telephone call by kraftwerk. I need to find the afx song I'm thinking of but really, this song does somehow seem to stand on its own. It's the schizophrenic sounding insistent sounds, rings, whoops, handclaps (?) and blips that sound something like Richard or acid, but the more hidden creaks odd futuristic not quite acid bassline are all new AE. Perhaps not the most original track, I'm not sure what I think of that yet, but nonetheless an awesome track that keeps your head dancing for almost three min.

16. A sweet, corny, tense little song. The funny chords play over subdued noises, followed by cinematic incunabula-like chords, managing to be neither too silly or too serious, but elusive. Over very fast.

17. The other track on wire. The intro is nice but sounds like the melodic layer (which persists into the main section) just kind of sits, mashed onto the song underneath, which goes back and forth abstract but not emphasized, then... well, the beat comes in suddenly, slow, kind of dubbed out feeling. Develops like a standard "classic ae" song with a nice chord development at three minutes. Very nice, yes, but the majority of this track sounds a lot like AE that was breathtaking a while ago, and now, while still decimating the opposition, in 2008 it kind of lags. On that note, it might be a lot of fans of only the older ae stuff's favorite track, but definitely not mine. Would have rather heard more of...

18. Back to the new AE sound, less retro-reminiscent of their old stuff, but it doesn't last the whole track. Fast, themes developing in ten seconds and changing, heavy beats cut just enough to keep you on your toes and not pissed off. Really feels like you're flying through the memory of an what ae sounds like over the course of a few tracks played at the wrong RPM. By 2:15 it drops off slightly and becomes more familiar, less dancey and more AE. Around 3m the slow beat comes in, with the melody seeming too fast until the skipping record noises come in to patch things up. The second half sounds like an AE that didn't change much over the years. If the whole track sounded like this it wouldn't be good, but this way it works and manages to sound both like their new and (then) old. Pretty good for this reason, and great as the last real electronic music / electro song on the album.

19. Second ambient melodic song, like track 1, more melancholy and epic, less space synthy. I don't know if I'd care much about this song on its own, but a good cap to the mostly hectic album, a little close to new agey but still not bad. Darker at the end, weird bass hits come in and melody goes away.

20. Ambient, spacey, slightly unrelated almost gamelan rhythms bounce around quietly. No real drums, but more musical life after the last, more outro-sounding track. It ain't over till it's over, and this is the longest track. Like a mix between hub from chiastic and slighlty S.a.w. v.2. I might prefer a 90's john fahey tape collage to listening to this track on its own, but it's a good enough close and it is indeed nice to wind down to spacey sounds after fast paced abstract dance hop.

 

So there you go. I love this album, but it is kind of an up and down experience; whereas in Untilted I may go up or down within a track but I like every track on the whole, in Quaristice there are several tracks I'm not too into on their own that only work in the context of this album. The album feels like snippets, almost like moondog mini-suites that come and go before you can really pin them down, sort of I guess like the little letters all over the cover art that you have to piece together before you can pretend you understand, and even then how can you really. No track is too testing aside from track 12, but a few sound like their main goal might be to appease the tri rep / incunabula fans. Still, this is hardly an album of nothing but appeasement. I'm sure many will complain of its druqks-like feeling of being completely mixed and juxtaposed, of the unwillingness to let devote to a theme other than the theme of being relentlessly brief and changing. This, like the rare true interesting electronic experimentation, is in its own way much more organic than most things currently being producing by acoustic means. I like untilted because they weren't caught just getting noiser and more droning with each album, they managed to find balance in stretching out in more directions, and on quaristice they are reaching with 12 more arms, several more likely to grab a person or two who wants something else from their robot. I like it just a little less than untilted in terms of consistency, whatever that means to you, but find it to have some of their best moments and was easily better than any music that has come out since 2005.

 

Some of you will like. Some will hate. Some will say something really smartass.

No, I'm not going to leak because I need a job.

[Guest Rook]

no thank you

[qnio]

tl;dr

[Guest ~ism]

my short summary after maybe 10 listens or so:

 

plyPhon

Simmm

Tankakern

Rale

90101-51-1

 

are what this album is all about. 4 or 5 of the others are notable and good bedding material for those aforementioned.

 

the rest are sort of meh or disposable depending on taste or mood, but will maybe make more sense to me a year from now.

 

more instant than Untilted and Draft... not as significant sounding as Confield. Going back any further is pointless.

 

Overall, it's mixed and pacey enough to capture an ae fan's attention and concentration for long enough to start engaging with it.

 

 

Beyond that, far too fucking early to tell.

 

 

The end.

[brian trageskin]

Alright, I guess I'll set up a few of my opinions on the band and their existing discography first. I listen to a ton of 80's electro, freestyle, hip hop, etc, so I definitely bond with the duo over that. I like them because I feel an abstract old-school hip hop vibe but never really feel like I'm listening to hip hop (except on envane, which kind of makes it feel funny sometimes). I think this is because old school and AE are sadly some of the only types of music in the last few decades that are primarily rhythmic. I really dig most of the rob brown mixtapes, except where he plays some songs that are newer than I prefer. I don't like any still-existing hip hop artists and don't want to hear any of them rapping over ae.

Got into them with incunabula and eventually came to enjoy most of the material on everything they've put out since except gantz graft. I listen to a lot of free jazz and avant garde jazz, so I have a taste for the challenging, but am still discriminating of noises that I do not find interesting, as is going to be the case for MOST free jazz and experimental electronica, which is where the masters like AE come in. I consider experimental music of the mid 60's (free jazz) to have been an important movement, then synth stuff of the 70's leading directly to electro of the 80s and the limited amount of good electronic music in the 90's and even less now. Still, AE rarely fit exactly into electronic music and just sound like modern and hence very altered continuation of what they and I both listen to from the 80's to me. I call them masters because they have so many albums that I enjoy most of, that never make me listen to classical guitar or cuss at me or drown me in reggae or baby voice samples. I can't really listen to a lot of their straightforward stuff much anymore unless I'm in a newly-retro 90's downtempo electronic music mood, just because I've heard all of it so much. Chiastic slide is a good, Cichlisuite is great, Envane is great but doesn't sound as much like them as any release this side of cavity job. LP5 and EP7 are really good but I can't do the vocal samples (a female / child gasp / moan on LP5 bums me out, and the vocals on EP7 track 2 bring unhappy images of cockney rap) so I can't say I like the albums overall as much as the good tracks. I really like most of Draft and Confield but on both there are a few tracks I just don't like enough, where they start to sound too nihilistic and post-music, not to say their sounds a

re uninteresting, just that they don't hold my attention for the long track lengths. I can get into those few tracks for a minute, then I start to feel like I would enjoy them more if I were in a worse mood. Then again, they come from the same depressing musical era that produced generally nothing but music worse than those albums, so more power to them.

Now for my most controversial ae opinion: Untilted is my favorite. They've had many prior songs that morph into something else by their end, but on this album the tracks are constantly changing. For any noisy or uncomfortable moments, no track gets lost in the noisy void, it just evolves into another section. It feels more free and alive to me, open to experiment within a track. I especially dig on Augmatic Disport, which sounds like a series of shortened difficult confield-like tracks until they drop in the miami bass which takes over in a stupid proud exclamation of the power of bass. Stupid meaning good, of course. Ipacial is also a classic in my book with that hard to grab sudden melody that pops in, and the rest of the tracks are engaging enough to make me come back to this album more than either of the other so outwardly experimental albums. The only real low point for me would be a vocal sample saying something like 'break' in track three, which might actually be funny and good but hasn't proven itself to be to me. Since nobody really likes untilted, i guess you should take my opinions with a grain of salt.

This is a long intro so I'd better get to the point. I also like Quaristice a lot. It has amazing moments. I don't find it to be quite as consistently gripping as untilted, but it's low points aren't really that low, they just kind of lag in that they start to sound more like their own and other electronic music artists' older material, which I've heard before. Really though, it's mostly awesome new autechre, now sped up and sometimes abbreviated. The main thing you notice when first hearing this album is how fast the short songs fly past you, which I personally enjoy. It's like autechre decided rather than spacing these compositions out over five minutes, let's speed up the transitions and up the BPM. It does at times give a strong feeling of the 07 live set, pausing for draft-like noises and the few longer tracks they posted on wire (which are the only ones that really sound that much like their previous albums, a trick also used by warp when they showed us the one track on squarepusher's hello everything that sounded like his established sound. The difference being here that hello everything was absolutely terrible and quaristice is actually a good album. I played the first half of it for a few friends the other night, and I'm pretty sure they think they heard the whole thing. With 20 tracks to get through, here I go.

 

1. Ambient song. Good intro, strong theme, nice tones... some you'll recognize. 2:54 to do whatever psychologically you need to do to get ready for the rest.

2. Alright, an atypically fast ae song. Trademark weird blip noises keep beat interesting. At 15s the first distorted warbly melody comes in, with odd bass notes and noises by 30s, an odd bassline by 1m. Harmony starts to develop when a screechy noise in the background cues the next odd beat, accompanied by underwater deep space noises for nearly a minute, when crunchy beat and familiar ae sounds form a triplet with eventual counterpoint that may be a voice. That goes away over the beat then there is definitely a slightly high pitched voice. Caught off guard upon first hearing voices, which easily ruin songs for me, and while this clip is indeed a little cheesy, I think if fits in this bizarre little run through of fast paced ae hop. Not the shortest track but feels like it since it keeps changing. Rad.

3. Hmm. Something to think about, being initially turned off by the distorted conversation sounding like BOC, whom I can't even listen to anymore. Still, the looping MELODY (this is ae? yes, yes, y'all) is quite nice, holds the fuzzy mostly unintelligibly voice and odd snare hits together. Melody falls out around 1.50m and it starts to sound sort of like an old squarepusher break (as I'd felt from the 07 live set, particularly pontin's) before nice mellow ae chords come in quietly. Over already? Oh yeah, short songs. Not quite as strong as the first one since it fits comfortably in the genre of electronic music established over the last 10 years, but the insistent melody in the beginning and cool in the end make it good in my book, though personally, if I'm going to have altered vocals in my electronica, it should sound like those of 'man made' by 'man parrish', not BOC.

4. Oh, hell yeah. What at first sounds too much like the crazy sheet metal meets hip hop sounds of V-PROC begins to show some subtle double bass. Honestly, the track does sound a lot like the mentioned track on draft in sounds, but in progression it sounds like a later version of the track should, one that could only exist after the original, an expansion by the original artist. Basically, the bass starts to really kick in near the middle and it feels like a snippet of a sped up, more driving single off draft. Single because it starts to make metallic future noises catchy in a matter of two and a half min. Awesome shit to bump in my low rider.

5. Beatless intro sounds a lot like a short track off Drukqs, but this is not a put-down. AE really seem to have absorbed everything about the electronic music scene around them quite well. 35s in it all changes and is completely rhythmic, growing, barely melodic. 1m the bass drum hits a couple times, we get dropped into outer space for one measure then come back. Hidden melody becomes more obvious in drum sounds, ten seconds later the beat changes again like a DJ's slight of hand. Pretty sweet little track, nice and obtuse, hard to grasp. I guess it might sound a little like untilted production on a less melodic track off amber.

6. Ambient noises, somewhat hub-like, echo and loop for 20s, then get stretched in weird ways apart. Doesn't do a whole lot really. Does not stand on its own, but works well as a transition and is a very good intro to the next track.

7. Whoa, really? An overstated hyper-melodic section, with at least three strong voices, one of which sounds like bells feeding back underneath heavy 'emotion' synth. Like a more intense version of the start of inhake 2. It doesn't really hit you the way this melody feels like it should, as it has no real buildup they would normally supply. It all seems very acknowledged though, and is makes more sense next when all of the sudden everything except the weird metallic bell sounds is gone, twisting away in the background over the near-consistent bell sounds, all of which ends around 2:40, a new beat and a new lower version of those bells return and brooding ae chords come in above it. Most other modern downtempo artists' entire albums would sound like the second half of this track, which would not be interesting. In this case, the five minutes fly by on the energy of the "bell-sounds" and the oddly upfront intro that makes you think it could come back at any second. I'm thinking you might hate the hyped-up chimey sounds that run through the first half of the track, but personally they were making me feel like I was playing drums on the walls in a sewer system. Cowabunga.

8. Ambient track.... not much melody, kind of like a rainstorm I guess. I'd rather listen to early abstract tangerine dream. Once again, wouldn't work on its own but works quite well in an intense album such as this.

9. Almost heartbeat-like pulsing bass competes with karate chop noises in space for a minute, then the brief nannou-like creaks and swooshes begin. Around two minutes a chunk of a melody tries to find its place in the rhythm. While you can hear draft and confield I guess, it also reminds me a bit of some of the shorter Drukqs.

10. Here you go. The track that I first heard as a horribly compressed file from WIRE. It's interesting how much more this song sounds like their older work at first (like draft sounds with an almost untilted production), but sounds like such a change of pace when it arrives on quaristice. The album really feels relentless at this point. Cool mechanical sounds keep it interesting even though it doesn't go that many places. Not the absolute best track, but a good, engaging track and perhaps one of the safest to show fans of later ae.

11. Sounds very familiar, sort of like a new ae junkyard dub of a track off tri rep. An insistent reverbed out riff keeps beat less regularly as the song progresses. Everything reverbed out. Good, but no eutow. My opinion of this track is very similar to that of track 10.

12. Umm... I don't know. This track is pretty difficult and near-completely abstract. This is where I stopped playing it for my friends the other night. Like the most difficult moment of chiastic, I feel like it's just there to tell me the songs over, flip the record. I'm hoping when I get the vinyl that this isn't the first track on a side... nevermind, I don't really care about that. Harsh sounds fly past you and hints of rhythm form between them. Pretty hard to listen to, probably not quite as rewarding as some of the harsh parts of confield and draft that I avoid, though maybe to some. Regardless, this is the only 3:49 this difficult on the whole album, and if nothing else it does make a hell of an intro for track 13.

13. The first few seconds are the sounds of the last track fading (the most obvious transition on the album), into another odd fast paced ae song. Again, the album feels relentless even though it is mostly less harsh than others. This song sounds like a hip hop song from outer space, even more than most of their songs. Not super melodic and not necessarily a standout, but still solid.

14. Starts with a couple distorted tones. Wait, I'm not sure which ae song it is but i think another uses a very similar simple drum break, then it all breaks and comes back in a very hyper way, with incunabula-sounding hi-hat and understated hidden melodies and chords, at the same time the insistent rhythm sounding like a less abstract and more listenable sim gishel. It sounds like bits of several classic ae songs megamixed, succeeding in being sped up into a singular new hyper sound. It all twists around a little, but returns. I like this one a lot, it would be nice and confusing to mix this into a normal dance music set and really point out how crazy sounding it all is, even at its most danceable.

15. Crazy, which disc of druqks is this? It really reminds me of the Aphex song that says "whooooo" and "puck" meets a very scratched record of the breakdown of the telephone call by kraftwerk. I need to find the afx song I'm thinking of but really, this song does somehow seem to stand on its own. It's the schizophrenic sounding insistent sounds, rings, whoops, handclaps (?) and blips that sound something like Richard or acid, but the more hidden creaks odd futuristic not quite acid bassline are all new AE. Perhaps not the most original track, I'm not sure what I think of that yet, but nonetheless an awesome track that keeps your head dancing for almost three min.

16. A sweet, corny, tense little song. The funny chords play over subdued noises, followed by cinematic incunabula-like chords, managing to be neither too silly or too serious, but elusive. Over very fast.

17. The other track on wire. The intro is nice but sounds like the melodic layer (which persists into the main section) just kind of sits, mashed onto the song underneath, which goes back and forth abstract but not emphasized, then... well, the beat comes in suddenly, slow, kind of dubbed out feeling. Develops like a standard "classic ae" song with a nice chord development at three minutes. Very nice, yes, but the majority of this track sounds a lot like AE that was breathtaking a while ago, and now, while still decimating the opposition, in 2008 it kind of lags. On that note, it might be a lot of fans of only the older ae stuff's favorite track, but definitely not mine. Would have rather heard more of...

18. Back to the new AE sound, less retro-reminiscent of their old stuff, but it doesn't last the whole track. Fast, themes developing in ten seconds and changing, heavy beats cut just enough to keep you on your toes and not pissed off. Really feels like you're flying through the memory of an what ae sounds like over the course of a few tracks played at the wrong RPM. By 2:15 it drops off slightly and becomes more familiar, less dancey and more AE. Around 3m the slow beat comes in, with the melody seeming too fast until the skipping record noises come in to patch things up. The second half sounds like an AE that didn't change much over the years. If the whole track sounded like this it wouldn't be good, but this way it works and manages to sound both like their new and (then) old. Pretty good for this reason, and great as the last real electronic music / electro song on the album.

19. Second ambient melodic song, like track 1, more melancholy and epic, less space synthy. I don't know if I'd care much about this song on its own, but a good cap to the mostly hectic album, a little close to new agey but still not bad. Darker at the end, weird bass hits come in and melody goes away.

20. Ambient, spacey, slightly unrelated almost gamelan rhythms bounce around quietly. No real drums, but more musical life after the last, more outro-sounding track. It ain't over till it's over, and this is the longest track. Like a mix between hub from chiastic and slighlty S.a.w. v.2. I might prefer a 90's john fahey tape collage to listening to this track on its own, but it's a good enough close and it is indeed nice to wind down to spacey sounds after fast paced abstract dance hop.

 

So there you go. I love this album, but it is kind of an up and down experience; whereas in Untilted I may go up or down within a track but I like every track on the whole, in Quaristice there are several tracks I'm not too into on their own that only work in the context of this album. The album feels like snippets, almost like moondog mini-suites that come and go before you can really pin them down, sort of I guess like the little letters all over the cover art that you have to piece together before you can pretend you understand, and even then how can you really. No track is too testing aside from track 12, but a few sound like their main goal might be to appease the tri rep / incunabula fans. Still, this is hardly an album of nothing but appeasement. I'm sure many will complain of its druqks-like feeling of being completely mixed and juxtaposed, of the unwillingness to let devote to a theme other than the theme of being relentlessly brief and changing. This, like the rare true interesting electronic experimentation, is in its own way much more organic than most things currently being producing by acoustic means. I like untilted because they weren't caught just getting noiser and more droning with each album, they managed to find balance in stretching out in more directions, and on quaristice they are reaching with 12 more arms, several more likely to grab a person or two who wants something else from their robot. I like it just a little less than untilted in terms of consistency, whatever that means to you, but find it to have some of their best moments and was easily better than any music that has come out since 2005.

 

Some of you will like. Some will hate. Some will say something really smartass.

No, I'm not going to leak because I need a job.

 

leak or stfu

[beNito]

Thanks for the review, nice one... I read it, but I regret it now..

[gl0tch]

Yeah, I feel the same way now too. Like I regret reading that because I am simultaneously really exicted for a few tracks and anxiously scared / pissed off for a the rest. The comments about appeasing to the Incunabula fans has me apprehensive.

 

Granted, I dont mind melody... but if the beats go and get all basic on us, I'm not so sure it is a good thing.

[beNito]

I'm not pissed by the same reasons, it's just that after reading that I "pictured" some songs in my mind, and now I migh tbe disapointed... It's just that I'd just like to listen to the whole album right now, with my great headphones, full blast, and get to work on my art projects.... It's been like a wekk I've just been waiting for it to leak, and this doesn't really help me...

 

 

I have to stop coming here until 3/3/08....

[encey]

thanks for the review

 

it's hard for what you wrote about the tracks to really mean anything to me, though, considering how many words it would take to really describe what the songs sound like. you can say 'metallic noises' or 'hip-hop beats,' but there are so many possible ways for a noise to sound metallic or a beat hip-hop, that, like beNito said, it's much more likely to come out sounding different than you imagine from the verbal description.

 

but i am def. excited for this release!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Guest ehdyn]

This review has inspired me to embark on a crusade.

 

The plan is to cruise through the worlds most vaunted museums riding a unicycle whilst looking through a periscope at all of the paintings, tapestries, and sculptures of the worlds finest artists. After sequestering myself in a remote location, rigorously adhering to ascetic austerities, and masturbating very infrequently - I plan to return triumphantly to this forum with an opus consisting of malformed opinions, and hastily drawn conclusions of what I've laid my divine eyes upon.

It's hoped that by this time next year you should all know what opinions to have, and thoughts to think!

 

No need to worship me, or erect statues of erections in my honor. Your unwashed ignorance, and outsider status are all the thanks I need.

 

Asymptotically,

ehdyn

 

[brian trageskin]

[Salvatorin]

wow every little mention of it makes me more ready for NEW AUTECHRE YAAAAAA!!!

[Guest beavis14996]

thanks for the review, i know i'm gonna love this release

+ several ambient tracks ahh

 

 

 

This review has inspired me to embark on a crusade.

 

The plan is to cruise through the worlds most vaunted museums riding a unicycle whilst looking through a periscope at all of the paintings, tapestries, and sculptures of the worlds finest artists. After sequestering myself in a remote location, rigorously adhering to ascetic austerities, and masturbating very infrequently - I plan to return triumphantly to this forum with an opus consisting of malformed opinions, and hastily drawn conclusions of what I've laid my divine eyes upon.

It's hoped that by this time next year you should all know what opinions to have, and thoughts to think!

 

No need to worship me, or erect statues of erections in my honor. Your unwashed ignorance, and outsider status are all the thanks I need.

 

Asymptotically,

ehdyn

 

 

 

lol

[theocide]

that's my African American

[awepittance]

that's my N1GGA

[lumpenprol]

my short summary after maybe 10 listens or so:

 

plyPhon

Simmm

Tankakern

Rale

90101-51-1

 

are what this album is all about.

 

Great, that leaves 2 more songs to hold out hope for. Simmm, Tankakern and Rale are aight, but not all that.

[gl0tch]

Lumpenprol, realize you are probably basing this on crap podcasts...

[kaen]

zzz

[playbynumbers]

sweet review dood

[Guest ~ism]

This review has inspired me to embark on a crusade.

 

The plan is to cruise through the worlds most vaunted museums riding a unicycle whilst looking through a periscope at all of the paintings, tapestries, and sculptures of the worlds finest artists. After sequestering myself in a remote location, rigorously adhering to ascetic austerities, and masturbating very infrequently - I plan to return triumphantly to this forum with an opus consisting of malformed opinions, and hastily drawn conclusions of what I've laid my divine eyes upon.

It's hoped that by this time next year you should all know what opinions to have, and thoughts to think!

 

No need to worship me, or erect statues of erections in my honor. Your unwashed ignorance, and outsider status are all the thanks I need.

 

Asymptotically,

ehdyn

 

 

behave... play the game!

 

[gl0tch]

Its funny how the ideas for some of these songs are probably over 5 years old

 

er, maybe 4 years.

[Guest Rogueofmv]

Aphex song that says "whooooo" and "puck"

 

54 Cymru Beats.

[kaini]

This review has inspired me to embark on a crusade.

 

The plan is to cruise through the worlds most vaunted museums riding a unicycle whilst looking through a periscope at all of the paintings, tapestries, and sculptures of the worlds finest artists. After sequestering myself in a remote location, rigorously adhering to ascetic austerities, and masturbating very infrequently - I plan to return triumphantly to this forum with an opus consisting of malformed opinions, and hastily drawn conclusions of what I've laid my divine eyes upon.

It's hoped that by this time next year you should all know what opinions to have, and thoughts to think!

 

No need to worship me, or erect statues of erections in my honor. Your unwashed ignorance, and outsider status are all the thanks I need.

 

Asymptotically,

ehdyn

 

 

hi sean

[amnesia]

I have listenend to Quari now 20 times and its amazing I swear the tracks are changing every time i listen to them.

[brian trageskin]

I have listenend to Quari now 20 times and its amazing I swear the tracks are changing every time i listen to them.

 

i get the same feeling. i get lost each time.