Pitchfork

Tortoise: Achilles, have you seen this?

Achilles: What?

Tortoise: Do you see? Yes? I'm referring to the object, though small in size, quite interesting in stature, I am holding in front of you now.

Achilles: It's a CD.

Tortoise: Brilliant! I can see I have come to the right man.

Achilles: ...

Tortoise: Never one for suspense, I'll begin the next phase of our conversation: It is a new album from one of my country's most respected groups of musicians, Autechre.

Achilles: Okay.

Tortoise: And I am holding it in my hands.

Achilles: Okay. Yeah, I heard a new one was coming out or something.

Tortoise: Or something indeed, for I think it may be their best. Better even than the fine Confield. Do you remember the one?

Achilles: Yeah, to be honest, I kinda stopped listening to them a few years back. I liked the first one, I think I liked EP7. I don't really remember much about it.

Tortoise: I would happily grant you a very big favor in return for a moment of your time as I explain to you my thoughts on this record. Might you humor me?

Achilles: Hey, hand that to me. Over here. Thanks. Yeah, whatever.

Tortoise: Thank you. For starters, it's called Untilted. Isn't that funny? "Un-til-ted." They really do have a good sense of humor, don't you think?

Achilles: Um, not really. It's kind of stupid.

Tortoise: Well, I think it's a decent title all the same. But funnier still, I will admit, is that it's comprised of eight letters.

Achilles: Oh shit, yeah, that's hilarious.

Tortoise: Which is to say, funny when I recall that their previous album's title was also comprised of exactly eight alphanumeric characters (not counting the colon, of course). As was the full length before that-- Confield. Don't you think that's strange?

Achilles: No.

Tortoise: And even stranger still, Autechre-- A-U-T-E-C-H-R-E-- has the identical number of characters. Why, when I happened upon this, I was struck by the similarity in form.

Achilles: Okay, way to go off the deep end. Are you going to tell me now that they're geniuses and I can learn trig faster by listening to them? I mean, what's funny is I might actually study to them more if I could hear a beat somewhere.

Tortoise: As it happens, I do believe they are masters of form. But then I also believe they are as instinctively driven as any other musician, if that's not a contradiction (and I don't necessarily believe it is). Take "Pro-Radii", the third track: It begins with pounding, industrial-machinery sounds, as if stomping through a foggy alley using meter-thick blocks of iron as shoe souls. Yet, it slowly mutates into something lighter, with stuttering snare and what sounds like a digital sitar drone in the background.

Achilles: You sound like a critic.

Tortoise: And I haven't even gotten to the punchline! As it changes into something even further removed from the weighty opening, as eerie overtones ring above the pinging, metallic percussion, I realize the piece has arrived at this point in segments, lengthy and subtle, but obviously delineated to be sure. This, or course, is exactly the same scheme much of the dance music-- that with a "beat"-- follows. Measure by measure, units of 8, 16, 32, 64-- it proceeds formally, yet changes its "colors" quite unpredictably.

Achilles: Hey, hand me my bag.

Tortoise: And the first piece, "Lcc"--

Achilles: haha

Tortoise: --"Lcc", with its rapid-fire artillery precision, tight snare, and clear, metered rhythm, could easily be mistaken for dance music. In fact, I'd move some limbs for you, but would hate to influence your judgment negatively.

Achilles: Next.

Tortoise: Achilles, if you'd listen, you'd hear that the beat you are looking for is here, and an especially well-put-together one at that. Autechre are rightfully accused of being influenced by hip-hop, even as I imagine a rapper laying behind the beat might find himself on the wrong side of "1" from time to time.

Achilles: So, you're saying it's got an interesting beat as long as you don't expect any kind of groove. And you know what? It's not even like I'm turning to Autechre for "grooves." Where the fuck did all the cool IDM even go? Like three years ago, you couldn't stop finding cool shit, shit that nobody'd ever heard before.

Tortoise: I'm saying that interest is found where you are sufficiently motivated to look. "Fermium" would fit perfectly in the Berlin mix you made for your nephew. A little busier, perhaps, but...

Achilles: Oh man, I forgot I was supposed to copy that for that board chick. Fuck, hey, can I use your computer? The library's closed today.

Tortoise: The point is, despite their abstraction over the last few years, Autechre aren't an altogether different beast than when they started. In fact, they're smarter, more refined.

Achilles: Look, I'll grant you they sound more complicated, but so the fuck what? I mean, I heard Draft 7:30. I liked it at first, until I realized all this form and content or whatever you're talking about is totally transparent. Dance music? Come on man, you need a more than "beat" to make dance music. If anything, I think they're out of ideas; throwing in a bunch of random shit to hide the fact that they peaked about seven years ago.

Tortoise: My point is, I am still moved by this music. Not just the form, not just the hidden beats and seemingly chaotic shifts in meter. I believe artists are those who instinctively recognize the ways of things, and translate them in ways ultimately true to their spirit. Ours is a "seemingly chaotic" world, but underneath the maze of people and opinions, there is order, truth, and beauty. And maybe, just maybe, Autechre have the rare gift of showing us just where we stand, turbulence and all.

Achilles: And my point is, if it's driven by form, it's a pretty messy, lazy form-- certainly no more structurally sound than any other software wank music. On top of that, if I'm supposed to "feel" this, to pick up on some obscure metaphysical in-joke, I'm not-- isn't it the job of a good artist to make that shit clear? Either way, it fails for me. Autechre decided to go their own way, fine, you know, just don't expect me to call them "geniuses."

Tortoise: [Sigh] Alright, Achilles, I can see we're going to have to agree to disagree. I'm sorry to have wasted your time.

Achilles: Oh don't worry, dude, just wear headphones when you play that stuff.

(With all apologies to Douglas Hofstadter and Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, which I'd send you if I had an extra copy.)

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