Album Review: Autechre - Exai

High priests at the temple of bleep, Sean Booth and Rob Brown (aka Autechre) are back again with their distinctive brand of abstract electronica. Their 11th album Exai is an intense double disc of forward-thinking, laser-guided melodies that exist at the intersection of the advanced mathematical equations of their recent work and the more accessibly melodic ambient techno produced on early albums such as Incunabula and Amber. To the initiated, much of this album will sound like R2D2 vomiting nuts and bolts after a night on the town with Bender. It will take time to attune your ears to Exai and understand the alien language it speaks. Listening to it on expensive headphones or a big sound system reveals the exquisite sound design and attention to the fine details of the mix. 

The album's opener Fleure is a dense fug of electronic noise that cryptically hangs in the air. irlite (get 0) leads us into an inaccessible soundscape of digital noise that pleasingly melts into luscious ambient tech. The epic dubsteppin' Bladelores set in deep outerspace is easily the best track while much of the rest of this album puts a bomb under hip hop and electro such that it feels we are listening to atomised versions of these rhythm templates. Autechre subsequently push the envelope and blast the results with extraordinary amounts of radiation to create a monstrously mutant sound that acquires a life of its own. The second disc is perhaps more accessible and spl9 and runrepik are classic examples of machined music that allows playful bleeps to run amok. This album hangs like modern art in a gallery; sometimes you may not comprehend the intent but it's worthwhile to stand back and ponder.