Is this still their best album or has it been outdone since?

My reply pasted from the Aphex Twin thread:

>>68387887 (OP)
I'm gonna say DrukQs. It's somehow the most consistent despite being the second longest.

All of his other LPs seem to have gaping weak spots.

>>68390281
>>68390157
>>68390374
Confield is my personal favorite album ever. For me it's the pure brilliance of sound design and attention to detail, not to mention consistency, variation and emotion. IMO it competes with LP5 for most emotional work.

So, I think it's still their best, although Elseq gave it a run for its money.

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O V E R S T E P S
Exai and Confield are full of filler, while Oversteps is godtier

>>68390284
It's still their best, but I haven't kept up with their releases at all since ~2014. I don't see them getting much better in my absence though.

>>68390594
Well you're missing out dude. They elseq is better than Exai, not as good as their 2000s output imo but it comes close

>>68390590
There's no filler in Confield wtf

>>68390594
>>68390860
Elseq is basically Exai Unchained.

Wish they had released Confield Unchained back in the days tbfh.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/w7oddl2tn1y6lpi

>>68390958
I agree, but Confield is pretty much perfect as it is. Exai is kind of ridiculous in its bulkiness so it makes sense some how to follow it up with elseq.

untilted is best girl

>>68391023
It's strange how much more Exai seems like a grind than Elseq even though Elseq is twice as long.

I felt exhausted listening to Exai but Elseq kept me entertained and interested.

>>68391048
Remove Fermium and The Trees and yes

what do you all think is the best song off of confield

>>68391085
Parhelic Triangle, followed closely by Lentic Catachresis

>>68391048
Untilted is really underrated on this board, everyone loves Confield and Draft (and there's a resurgence of love for Oversteps) but Untilted is a close second best for me.

>>68391085
Lentic Catachresis, followed by VI Scose Poise/Eidetic Casein/Parhelic Triangle/Uviol

>>68391085
every song is noice, but pen expers is so over-the-top and great

>>68391085
Pen Expers followed by Uviol and VI Scose Poise.

>>68391085
Eidetic Casein

>>68391077
elseq 2 and 3 are slogs.

>>68391177
2 I could see your reasoning, but 3 is amazing. Mesh CinereaL is easily track of the year.

>>68391085
I actually really like Bine. I never see it mentioned but when the beat suddenly gets turned on its head and sounds like it gets reversed and then just starts building up it's unbelievable.

>>68390565
>IMO it competes with LP5 for most emotional work
Damn, seriously? What parts of Confield do you think are emotional? I never thought about it that way

I really need to give LP5 some more time too as much as I love Confield I've only listened to it once and never really revisited. Drane2 is SAWII-tier brilliance though

>>68391213
The nostalgia in VI Scose Poise (for me at least)
The hope in Pen Expers
The monster in Sim Gishel
The hopelessness of Bine
The people who go into a dark cave and mysteriously go missing in Uviol
And Lentic Catchresis always sounded like loss to me

They're all shit but I once listened to Confield while peaking on 50g of fresh shrooms (as a skinny manlet) and experienced the legendary "ego death" so I am biased in favor of that album.

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Psychogeography; mapping of EPs to Albums (where possible).

Things get a bit muddled in the period from 1997-2001. Envane clearly maps to Chaistic Slide, and Cichlisuite clearly maps to LP5 in terms of sound, and even EP7 does the same to a certain extent, both in terms of sound and versions of album art (EP7's full version and LP5 have in common that they include meme-tier :^) hidden tracks, something that they didn't really dink around with afterwards IIRC). Peel Session 1 is slower, and a piece of bridgework betwen TriRepetae++ and Envane IMO, while Peel Session 2 is generally regarded as one of the weakest items in the Autechre catalogue, and (appropriately) belongs to the uglier LP5 period.

All of this has been building up to Confield, in a way. They just had to faff about in different directions before trying THAT direction. Once they had it, they knew it and promptly followed up with Draft 7.30, which IS one of their better albums (I started rediscovering it about five years ago). Draft, Gantz and Untilted are all a cluster in two senses: the sound is about the same, trying some more excitable variations on Confield's theme, but they also all share cover artwork (and a representative music video capturing the feel of the period) by Alex Rutterford.

>>68391350

Autechre have a long history of having the closing track slowly fade out in some romantic, mournful way. Robots stop working. Often this accompanied by a literal, slow decline in volume, but Catachresis accomplishes the same trope by becoming one note shy of pure white noise.

>>68390590
There no filler in any of those albums

>>68391969

VI lad

I feel like Autechre albums are very much up to personal taste. They each have a very distinct personality so it really depends on your overall taste which is your favorite.

Personally Tri Repetae is the one I come back to the most.

which album is that below Exai ?

>>68392380
Ah I see. You're from RYM.

>>68392518
I've literally never visited RYM

>>68390284
almost everything they've done in the 2010s surpasses confield. It's just that people can't wrap their head around the idea that musicians might get consistently better over 20+ years and have to find some kind of arbitrary "peak"

>>68392431

I will flatter myself that you may be referring to my post >>68391666 . Wew I got Satan-trips.

The item at far bottom right in the above post is "L-Event", the eleventh EP by Autechre. The last time I heard them perform live (Chicago, just over a year ago), their sound was closest to this item.

>>68391085

Pen Expers is the standout, the album's best track (that track placement of "03" is so good from pop-album sensibilities), and in Autechre's Top Ten All-Time tracks, along with pieces like Clipper and Vletrmx21.

>>68394195

Variations on the theme are rarely remembered so fondly as the breakthrough. this is the very reason why a younger band's first few albums are so often so fondly remembered, while if that band sticks together, somehow, someway, they do play the same old song.

Quaristice was a quieter record, but also pre-2010s. Move of 10 is a meh EP with one really great track (track 3) which gives me fantasies of being whipped by a dominatrix to its tune. Oversteps is also a relative tedium, but since it's Autechre, it's like pizza: even when it's bad, it's still kinda good. I'm not crazy about L-Event relative to the rest either but on a personal note my second lifetime concert was closest to that sound and I treasure that type of thing.

Lately I realize what a poor fan I am: I have not heard the quadrange EP, this mythic elseq, nor the live stuff. I must pilgrim again I guess.

>>68395395
You're definitely right that variations aren't as valued as the original, but I do think it's kind of reductive to think of confield and the rest of their albums that way when autechre themselves don't see it as a breakthrough, and there's a lot of things you'll find in their newer music that wasn't really present or developed on confield

>>68395924
Like, it's kind of telling that tri repetae was considered their definitive "breakthrough" for years, but just recently that has shifted more to confield

I want a LCC gf

>>68391177
3 is my favorite elseq atm tb h

2 is an interesting experiment, but for the most part it doesn't work imo (though i do really love the first half of elyc6 0nset). however, i do still appreciate it.

>>68391085
I fell in love with Pen Expers.
The harsh, mechanical, cold percussion that just relentlessly assaults your ears; and slowly that warm pad starts to bleed through until it all overwhelmingly blends together. Then the pad cuts out and you're left with the harsh percussion until it kind of dies out.

Also Lentic Catachresis is just fucking insane.

>>68390284
Stop listening to Autismo music.

Even though, yeah, Confield is their best, Exai is mediocre.

>>68391085
Pen Expers

Goz Quarter
The Plc
see on see
krib
slip

>>68395295
Clipper and Vletrmx21 are good tracks but there are so many incredible post LP5 tracks I wouldn't put them in the top 20 for Autechre tracks