Autechre's fourth and final
NTS Session goes much further out of orbit than the preceding three. While beats do appear on some of the pieces, they slowly trudge beneath the all-enveloping expanses of sound which gradually build and change form. Opener "frane casual" initially has little more than fuzzy, pixelated digital brush drums holding it in place, while an ominous hiss looms larger, causing the beat to mutate and attempt to cut through the fog. Much brighter and perhaps even friendlier is the lovely "column thirteen," which begins with tones which nearly sound like banjos (!), slowly rippling and swirling through crystalline waves. Only toward the end of the track's 17 minutes do things start to get a bit antsy, as some of the beats have a slight drill to them. While "shimripl casual" features some plunging beats and bass explosions, they're far less rhythmic, and seem more like eruptions on the surface of a gaseous alien landscape. This ends up melting into "all end," an hour-long drone punctuated by faint blurring and fraying, as well as a few sudden drop-outs. The title gives the piece apocalyptic connotations, but it's hard not to think of it as the potential start of a new chapter for
Autechre. This isn't the first time they've ventured into ambient music, but they seem to have hit a new plane with this interpretation of the genre, blending tranquility and abrasion like no one else has done before. Like much of
NTS Sessions, this might seem like an endurance test to outsiders, but to the
Autechre faithful, it's a vast, immersive world of sound worth getting lost inside.