Search - Autechre :: Tri Repetae

In Space, Tri Repetae outsold Thriller.

Derivative Contrivance | Outer, Space | 02/10/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Tri Repetae is absolutely regal, electronic royalty. It is eloquent and eccentric. Although its mechanical demeanor is initially curt, once you become acquainted beyond first impressions, it's actually quite charming. It may not be effusive, but it certainly isn't stodgy. It's stark like a steel skyscraper, but that just means that it's monumentally marvelous. But casual listeners may find it too austere, as if it's target audience is automatons instead of biological organisms. The beats ratchet like engines driven forth by plodding pistons & clanking carbines, all run like clockwork by battered cogs & gnarled worm-gears. The basslines buzz & whir like obsolete computers booting up or rusty generators purring. The synth pads hum like radiators & steam-pipes, or calmly honk sustained ambience like a heavenly choir of atypically lush car horns. The leads chirrup like gameboys, howl like sirens, chatter like appliances, and phonate like phonographs. Yet somehow, the mood is always distinctly human & stirringly soulful. Each track is an individual bionic entity with its own heartbreakingly plangent song to sing. This is not music for machinery; the machinery would find it too schmaltzy.

Some people assert that Tri Repetae is the soundtrack to alien abduction. The music certainly conjures those images, but that doesn't mean it's anything extraterrestrial. See, it's the sound track to alien abduction from the perspective of the abducted human. Now, you may think that abduction from a human's point of view would be traumatizing, so music depicting the event could only appeal to depraved crackpots. But that's just not so. This music doesn't depict a violent abduction, it depicts the human being befriended by aliens, then invited aboard their spaceship so they could show him the world as he'd love to see it. Of all the negative adverbs (such as stark, mechanical, disconcerting, metallic, bizarre, etc.) that someone could pin on this album, to write it off as "menacing" would be a horrible misunderstanding. As foreign as they sounds are, they are benevolent at their core. If this really was the musical equivalent of horrific human dissection, the comforting melodies would be the novocain. So at the very least, the aliens are kind enough to provide us with anesthetic.

I could blather for eons like this and never convince the skeptics to give this a chance, but I will spare my dysgraphic hands and conclude with an exhortation: give this album an open-minded chance devoid of conditional demands or time limits. If you still despise the album, you can always sell it on EBay and basically get a full refund from one of the depraved crackpots who would pay out the nose for a copy."