Autechre - Confield album

Can anyone confirm they have a 'White tray jewel case' as described in the notes above? My copy has a clear, transparent jewel case tray, not white, allowing the artwork underneath to be visible. I suspect they're all like that and the notes are just poorly written.

tailings Can anyone confirm they have a 'White tray jewel case' as described in the notes above? My copy has a clear, transparent jewel case tray, not white, allowing the artwork underneath to be visible. I suspect they're all like that and the notes are just poorly written. My Japanese copy has a transparent jewel case tray. I had just assumed that either the jap release had a different tray or that the seller had replaced the jewel case. But perhaps all copies have had transparent trays all along...

Play it at 45 RPM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!:D:D !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:) !!!

Un excelente álbum y uno de los mas interesantes que he escuchado en mi vida. Lamentablemente este álbum algunos de sus fanáticos fueron alejados o mas bien, no fueron contentos con este álbum, solo porque no hay melodías ambientales y cálidas. Pero las cosas no siempre tienen que ser las mismas, hay que cambiar y evolucionar el estilo.Sus canciones en este álbum me parecen muy buenas e creativas. Su toque oscuro, loco y complejo, es lo que lo hace especial este álbum. Mis canciones favoritas son: "Eidetic Casein", "VI Scose Poise" , "Pen Express" y "Lentic Catachresis"5/5

The mid-1990s saw Autechre embark on a pilgrimage away from the ambient techno of their debut. By the turn of the century, they'd covered some pretty strange territory, like the whirring, complex LP5 and arid ep7. But none of that could've prepared listeners for 2001's Confield. Fans hoping for a return to more familiar sounds must've figured that the duo had finally gone off the deep end.And at first glance, it's hard to blame them. Confield is alien: every detail seems off-kilter and unfamiliar. Bass and percussion co-mingle. Melodic accents drift in, stuttering, then vanish. Tempo is kept by insectoid munching noises. The instrumental timbres are unearthly. It better resembles a snooty musique concrète experiment than the rest of the Warp catalog.And yet the result is… actually good. The gentle opener "VI Scose Poise" conjures up images of a spinning top in some antiseptic surgical suite. "Cfern" breaks into an unexpected swing, and might've been called jazz if the rhythm and marimba parts weren't played by a computer running Max/MSP patches or whatever. "Sim Geshel" takes a darker turn, propelled along by relentless martial clicks.The album peaks with "Parhelic Triangle", a great example of everything gone wrong and right at the same time. "Parhelic" is like a bizarro world dance track. It has all the normal components, but they're just… off. There's a part that's almost a breakbeat, but it's mangled and out of step, looping irregularly against a triad of hollow bells lurking in the background. There are chord progressions but they're dreary and cold. It even has the frail, halting ghost of a snare rush. The overall effect is beyond disconcerting. It falls into uncanny-valley territory, like listening to club music written by a sentient ant colony."Bine", the album's only real flop, shows just how fine a line the producers have walked between regularity and chaos. It's less structured than the other tracks and suffers for it, never resolving into an interesting whole.Fortunately it's followed by more good stuff. "Eidetic Casein" locks into a downtempo groove built around detuned gamelan-like sounds. "Uivol" begins as a tranquil ambient piece, but ominous disturbances appear on the horizon. Finally "Lentic Catachresis" shakes apart Confield's already fractured structure until nothing is left.One thing I enjoy about this album is how little compromise you'll find. There's an inner logic that reveals itself with careful listening, but Confield doesn't extend any special effort to draw you in. It's an artistic statement that you can take or leave as it stands.As you might expect from something so odd, it has aged very little. While the mastering does seem a bit thin for contemporary ears, the music still sounds almost as foreign as it did way back in April 2001. In fact, even Autechre themselves retreated from this direction somewhat: they have never returned to Confield's austere formalism, and their subsequent records don't have quite the same tone or feel.So, Confield is unique. It's worth approaching on its own terms. I recommended it to daring listeners, and especially anyone who finds electronic music boring or predictable. If this album doesn't surprise you, nothing will.

Does anyone know if this originally came with a folded poster? I got a copy a few years ago off eBay and it has a folded poster (20" by 30") of the cover and saying Tour 2001 along the side. Not sure if it was a promo that someone just threw into their copy or if it was included with early copies.

Not included in mine - bought this new in 2001.

Confield is an album of mind-crushing brilliance... one that requires your full attention. It's definitely a worthy successor to LP5 and all.People talk of this album being soulless... like the albums before weren't already soulless. I'd say they're all alike. There are deep melodies to be found here, very abstract... but soul?? If I want soul I'll listen to Otis-fucking-Redding.

Most would say this is Ae at their weirdest and most difficult.I'd instead say them at their weirdest is Quaristice, and them at their most difficult might be elseq.This, along with the rest of the stretch from LP5 to Untilted, is Autechre at their finest.All their stuff is great, though.Even Bine.

Yer not my favourite thats for sure, all technique not much soul.More for chin stoking than enjoyment. *just my opinion.

I loved Autechres first 5 album's but this is dog shit, all I can here is a load of racket. All the reviews below must of got a totally different cd in there's that was great. It's the only Autechre Cd I have ever got rid of.

I think it's amusing that all of the liner notes are written exclusively on the spine.

Probably Ae best release .. but Untilted is still growing .. 5/5

oh my fucking god. it's undescribable. like shooting ketamine in your vein while beign abducted by intangible alien examination machine. best autechre's album. i can not imagine how ANY electronic music artist could top what sean and rob done here. the only thought that this music is made by humans makes me wonder: how the fuck is that possible? masterpiece

one of the best pieces of electronic music

This is for one of my top 5 Albums by Autechre, "Confield" is a journey into the underdark world, "Bine" is a good example of a creepy music , i love all tracks, but "Uviol" is my favourite.

The beginning of ae making music without soul.Sorry, I love autechre but this dissapoints. Its not the worst album but I miss the human note.

But this was the beginning of ae's best music. Everything before LP5, with the exception of Tri Repetae, is significantly worse than what came after.

I don't know. For me, listening to this album now, ten years after I first heard it, it makes way more sense than it once did. Autechre albums are like cities, when you're right up against them they seem dense and impossibly obtuse. But when you get some distance and listen to many of the later releases, and are consequently "trained" by them, the albums come into greater focus. Granted, a number of songs remain infuriating, Lentic Catachresis being an obvious example, but I feel this is more to do with the album concept as a whole. I don't buy the whole bit where Booth, or was it Brown, claim they don't have an overarching concept for each album. Why would they order their songs the way they do then? Dael kicking off Tri-Repetae, for example, or Bladelores sitting at the very heart of their latest effort, Exai. Regardless, Confield is certainly a seminal, much unheralded, work of brilliance. You really can't gush enough over it. Ten years on, it may not be as cutting-edge as it used to be, yet it is still remarkable in the artistry of its sound design, precision and absolutely one of the most engaging works released by anyone working in any sort of musical genre today and, probably, for years to come. A stunning work capable of confounding the listener while simultaneously leaving them breathless.

This is Autechre's second masterpiece, alongside their earlier album, Amber. Compared to Amber, Confield feels dark, cold, and utterly alien. There is nothing particularly "pretty" about this record. While Amber had me daydreaming about psychedelic landscapes much akin to its album cover, Confield evokes images of desolate, machine-populated wastelands. Don't get me wrong, I would not call it a particularly depressing album. There is just something so alien about it that at times it is more unsettling than it is an album to relax to after work. I could definitely understand if some people do not like this record; it is not for everybody. I personally think Parheric Triangle is one of the greatest songs in Autechre's catalog, seeping more industrial elements than anything that could be pigeonholed under the "IDM" tagline.

"Parhelic Triangle" is godlike.

One of the most divisive albums in the Autechre catalog. Shunned by lovers of the early Autechre albums for its harsh and difficult tracks like Pen Expers, Bina and Lentic Catachresis, there are also plenty of evocative though abstract melodic moments to be found. The opening VI Scose Poise for example, is one of my favorite tracks, with its weird little bouncing metallic sounds against a backdrop of soothing gong sounds. Parhelic Triangle lays a rusty groove on a tension building ambient carpet, and Eidetic Casein contrasts a rather straightforward main groove with borderline off-key melodic embellishments.Most of the tracks make use of this type of contrast, which make the album rather interesting to my ear. But the main attraction as with any Autechre album is the strange sounds themselves, alienating and beautiful at the sametime, with their trademark crystal-clear production.As other reviewers have noted this may not be the best album to start if you are new to the world of Autechre, but once you get into their sound, this one can bring you many hours of deep-listening joy.

In my opinion, this is Autechre's masterpiece. It seems many, or even most, of this duo's fans prefer the earlier music of Autechre, which was easier to swallow and incorporated recognizable melodies and beats. Confield is an aurally shocking piece comprising electronic sounds arranged in such a way as to be practically unrecognizable and unfamiliar when compared to music as it's widely conceived of, and understood, by humans. This makes it somewhat uncomfortable and disconcerting to listen to until one adjusts one's self to the alien sounds, absence of rhythms, and seemingly aimless progression of the album. Putting the experience of Confield into words is very difficult beyond that. I encourage anyone with the slightest interest in experimental music, ambient and minimal music, avant-garde, and electronic music, to give this album a try with an open mind. I think it's one of the most important electronic/experimental albums of the early 21st century.

Today is March 30, 2011. Confield was released on March 30, 2001, exactly 10 years ago.Sean and Rob have done it yet again. An absolutely stunning release. I'm amazed how they could have sounded so futuristic back in 2001 and it STILL feels futuristic 10 years later. Timelessness at its best.VI Score Prose is an absolute classic, as is Cfern.Pen Expers is an intricately beautiful barrage of sound and tone, tuned to perfection.Sim Gishel is like being inside some kind of funky machine with evil intentionsParhelic Triangle is one of the darkest tracks I've ever had the pleasure of listening to. Painfully beautiful distorted chimes in the background.Bine is something out of a horror movie, like a thousand bugs crawling in unison.Eidetic Casein sounds a bit out of place at first but once you've listened to the album quite a few times it fits in well and sets the mood, giving a contrast to the other darker tracks and making them seem even more sinister.Uviol is yet another masterpiece, like being stuck inside the lungs of an asthmatic beast.Lentic Catechresis is one of my favorites. It's like being stuck inside the engine of a finely tuned machine, smashed by pistons yet sung to by angels.Confield is as a whole is perfect. A beautifully barren metal and ice soundscape where only few can appreciate the beauty.Confield. 10/10.

Agreed Monsieur O.

One of the best reviews of "Confield" I've ever read :)

I'm not sure I agree with people who suggest to start with earlier Autechre rather than this release. It depends what you're looking for, of course. I discovered Autechre because I was searching for boundary-pushing electronic music. This delivered in spades. It certainly took a few listens for me to be familiar enough to really feel the emotion of many tracks, but I've since had more orgasmic listening experiences with this album than most others in my collection. It's not for everyone, but if you have an interest in this sort of music, you will find little else that comes close, excepting subsequent Autechre releases such as Draft 7.30 and Untilted. After getting into this I excitedly checked out Autechre's back catalog, and in contrast with popular opinion if find the older stuff to be much less organic, less original, less engaging, less interesting. To my ear, this is Autechre at their best. It's music that plays by its own rules, and that's just how it should be.

One of my favourite Autechre albums.With a subtlely inauspicious first track, the music then progresses to an unflinching dedication toward alien structure, abstract rythym and incredible attention to detail. From Cfern to the amazing Pen Expers, the tone for this piece is set. The frenetic 'Bine' is suitably long enough to add an extra reward to the final three tracks: Eidetic Casein following in the overall vein of the album, Uviol, that has echos of Incunabala / Amber ambience, concluded by the stunning Lentic Catachresis.Undoubtedly very difficult to certain ears, and perhaps the most willfully absract of Autechres material.Confield, as it stands, remains a work that's the least favourite you'd take to a party, yet one of their most fascinating and deeply rewarding releases.

I find "Cfern" and "Pen Expers" to be among Autechre's strongest ever tracks, along with "VI Scose Poise" and "Eidetic Casein" they would have made a great EP. The other tracks on display here just doesn't do it for me though, I find them repetitive and underdeveloped (maybe one needs to listen to them on a really good sound system to be able to appreciate them?).

Under no circumstances start your adventure with Autechre with "Confield"! Being a huge fan o "Amber" and "Incunabula", I listened to "Confield" with a feeling of incredulity, which quickly became a feeling of overwhelming disappointment. This album is nothing more than random, nerve racking sounds. Taken together, they are hard to be described as "music" as we normally understand the term. Cold, inhuman and highly irritating album.

This release is one of AE's strongest I think, of course it is abstract and not easy to listening to. When it came out in 2001 I was rather confused about this new style. The first time I listened to it I was rather disappointed probably because I expected something else. But the more often you play it you will find out its beauty and brilliance. A milestone! It creates an atmosphere which neither can be reached by Draft7.30 nor Untilted.

agree with your review, but would argue that draft 7.30 is the stronger record!

ok so it won't be playing at the school disco, unless perhaps every child is born with a computerchip riveted onto their cerebral cortex... but this album is simply incredible, in every sense of the word. This is the sound of the dream/nightmare kraftwerk had before they woke to write their music. This is Deep-Blue humming to itself whilst thinking what move to play. and yet it is not inorganic. This is also the sound of the earths heart; seismic tremmors, pulses, shifting rhythms -subsiduary patterns envelop the first, glitches become the form and the form a glitch, a mass of fighting snakes, the dance of a beehive. - This is ice flows creeping slowly across earless wastelands. electric cables in a desert storm, wailing a lost lament... Spirits of stone and ice singing, and sometimes the rough wildness of the forest fire, and, distantly, the fierce drumming of a pagan listening, playing to the chaotic devine order.

Autechre has fallen into full noisey, hard to listen music at this point in time. Confield marks their first album that almost seemed as if the beats and patterns were created radomally. The tracks really make no progress and you're listening to the same 30 seconds of music over and over it seems. Course there is minimal changes throughout.. maybe a sound here or a clank there.. but still.. very hard listening. Not one of my favorites from them

Honestly I don't see what the big fuss is about Confield. People either complain about it or love it. I find it somewhere in between. Not my favorite Autechre release, but definitley not terrible. The beats are a little different then their usual work, but almost every track has a ambient vibe going on in the background that you can follow to the song and listen to the sounds around it. Pretty good stuff.

Even for me this is the hardest release to get into, but once you're in you know the real meaning of deep electronic music. Put your headphones on and expand your mind with the best AE work. 5/5 no doubt

Confield: Autechre and broken beat music at the highest level. You have never heard anything like this before. It's like letting a computer loose to make beats. The idea that a computer has no emotion. Just twisted genius. There's angry music, but I've never heard anything so cold and dark before. It really is nasty and has no soul, but at the same time there's a warped beauty about Confield. (Notably on Cfern.) No hooks or structure to the majority of the tracks. Percussion that can seem totally random, although each track does actually keep to its time signature. Formless and very minimal melody, just swirling, growling moans and digital glitches. For these reasons, most listeners can't grasp the concept of this LP. It's been said that Confield is an album to respect but not enjoy. I think anyone who is open enough will love it. It leads you everywhere and nowhere at the same time. An album I personally could never get bored of listening to.

"Confield" was my first Autechre album, and while my original thoughts were that I had wasted my money, over time I have begun to appreciate what Autechre have created here. "VI Scose Poise" begins with annoying metallic clanking noises, but the haunting keys add substance to this opening track. "Cfern" is up next, with it's elastic beats and almost jazzy sounding melody. One of the highlights, "Pen Expers" follows, the combination of abstract breakbeats and gradually emerging melody, is strangely compelling. "Sim Gishel" has clicks forming the rhythmic sounds while machine groans join in to create a bizarre track. "Parhelic Triangle" continues the abstraction, with ominous bell tones joining the twisted rhythms, gradually being ripped apart towards the end of the track. "Bine" would have to be the darkest track here, a frightening combination of menacing ambience and industrial machinery out of control. "Eidetic Casein" is much more coherent, another obscure melody is manipulated for the whole 6 minutes of it's duration. "Uviol" is my favorite track, the fluttering melody and ticking hi-hats creating a dreamland of sound. "Lentic Catachresis" starts with robotic screams of DSP manipulation, while the squashed beats build up in speed before going ballistic just before the 3-minute mark. The track continues in this vain for the remaining 5 minutes, a fitting end to "Confield". Arguably Autechre's most difficult album to listen to, "Confield" is not nearly as bad as some people would have you believe, but newcomers to Autechre's music would be better of starting with "Incunabula", "Amber" or "Tri Repetae".

For me this was the hardest release to get into (Even more so than Gantz Graf - and Draft 7.30 is the most straightforward material they have done in quite a few years in my opinion,) and truth be told I've still not got my head round a lot of it yet. As a big fan of Autechre I know that I have to persevere with it and I will be rewarded. Pen Expers has a stunningly beautiful melody, and note that the beats sound straight forward until the barely-audible chords come in.. as you start to concentrate on the melody the beats go more and more haywire... and as the synth melody is brought to an abrupt end you realise the chaotic drum patterns remaining... genius.

Confield was the first Autechre full length that I ever purchased. Not to say it’s a bad effort on Booth and Brown’s part but it’s a bit of a turn off for someone that has barely listening to Electronic music such as I. At that point I had only a few choice Warp records, mostly Aphex Twin releases, and I decided to go out on a whim and buy a release by Autechre. From all the listener reviews I had read their music was nothing short of a stroke of genius. When I picked up Confield and simply took a look at the artwork I was amazed. I hadn’t seen anything like it before, and when I popped the CD in I was once again amazed. The first listen didn’t really take. I listened to it some more and I really haven’t found a place for it yet but I know eventually that I will come to appreciate it more fully with time. What you should glean from this experience is that you can’t judge an artist by the first release that you listen to by them. For example If I would have picked up Aphex Twin’s Drukqs before anything else I would be missing out on a music genius equal to that of Autechre.

For someone that has barely listening to Electronic music, Autechre is not something you should start with. It's not just electronic but experimental electronic music & one of my fave Autechre releases ever. Like Vertiphon said: "arguably Autechre's most difficult album to listen to, but newcomers to Autechre's music would be better of starting with "Incunabula", "Amber" or "Tri Repetae".

I consider myself a pretty experienced Autechre listener, but I just can't get into this one. I've listened to most of the tracks lots of times, and they don't impress me -- the exceptions being track 3 (which is really quite dramatic once you "get" it), and maybe 7. I think Autechre even admitted in an interview that they got too caught up in experimenting with their generative software tools for Confield. Most of the tracks feel claustrophobic, paranoid, and obscured, like some from EP7 and many from Draft 7.30. I know this is a lot of people's favorite, but I think you need a masochistic edge to really enjoy this.

If you are new to autechre's music this is a hard album to begin with. yous should start with any older album instead. it's very good record, autechre's key to the hallof fame of the hallof fame. weird. lots of bpm changing in a lot of tracks, complicated arrangements, ultra minimal melodies. not for rookies.

Confield heralds a period of apotheosis in Autechre's body of work that I hope to see advanced still further in years to come. Before Confield I admired Autechre and followed the releases dutifully. Since Confield -- particularly since the subsequent tour brought them to my area -- I have regarded Booth and Brown as geniuses, and awaited every new offering with breathless anticipation. The concert was musically more in line with the later Gantz Graf in its dizzying amalgamation of abstract, arrhythmic patterns and rich, broad-spectrum noise. The result was an aural experience that I can only hope to come across again. My expectations for Autechre are now, of course, very high, but I am confident that future releases will match and exceed the exaltation of Gantz Graf and Confield.

Being a huge AE fan and being delighted with LP5, I eagerly awaited the release of Confield. I bought it the day it was released and ran home to give it a once through listen on my headphones. It was one of the biggest disappointments I have ever had. I tried hard to find at least something that I could enjoy in it, but failed. It contains nothing but random sounds. It sounds like a computer made it instead of Sean and Rob. The beauty that was once an AE album has turned to chaotic noise. Definitly not recommended, unless you are a robot.

I remember Derrick May saying in some interview that many electronic musicians do not know how to end their tracks. Autechre for sure knows how to end their albums! Lentic Catachresis is one of the most mind expanding tracks ever made. It is a culmination of the structures of the album, a climax of aural experience that leaves you wanting for more. Get yourself good comfortable headphones, sit down and listen the whole thing straight through. Or alternatively, do the same thing except go take a walk around some busy urban environment.

interestingly enough AE continue to evolve despite many listeners crying for the wafty synths and beat box rhythms of Incunabula. AE dont do the past, nor do they do the future (as some assert) they do the present in all its momentary glory, tossed off generative themes, daydream beats that shudder, the finger on the pulse, you can see Booth and Brown smile knowingly at each other, maybe a subtle wink, perhaps a sigh,....booth says to brown, "they just dont get it eh?" fuck em.

Autechre's sound keeps growing like a field of mushrooms. This album manages to be suprising and familiar all in the same instant. Sounds like a thousand ideas wrestling for attention.If Autechre continue to develop their music at their current pace then reality is in serious danger of imploding in front of our ears.

Autechre is a group who creates sounds, but not exactly music. And they've taken that to a ridiculous level on "Confield." The tracks sound like living organisms, not songs. It takes a well trained listener to appreciate it, but if you're up to it, it's quite an experience. At first glance, the songs seem to avoid any pattern or rhythm, but closer inspection will reveal that patterns do indeed exist. On tracks like "Sim Gishel," the beat seems pretty simple, but upon closer inspection you'll discover it is really quite head twitchingly complex. I agree that this is not the best Autechre album to start on, I'd recommend "Incunabula" or "Tri-Repetae+++" but it's a great album if you're looking for something completely unlike anything you've heard before.

This release, was for many who have followed Autechre in the past, a very difficult set of music to listen to. As such, it has received less than stellar reviews from listeners and writers alike. Admittadly, on the surface it is a convoluted barrage of electronic warfare. Some say it lacks soul, others say it lacks coherancy to the point of being sonic gibberish. Underneath the surface, far beneath, lies nine tracks that once mentally mined will reward the listener with an astounding conception. To me, the theme of this release could best be described in a few words: Making Sounds without Sounds. It is a well known concept that the brain, when given a set of harmonics missing key sections, will construct the missing sections within the head, even if the sounds never existed in the first place. This has been used throughout history. The Gregorian monks would use it, and echoes, to make a group of four singers sound like six or eight. The first half of Confield expores this concept with subtle and efficient grace. In some cases harmonies weave into existence from nothing. Slowly building into a crescendo. On the other hand, others start with a defined sound, and it slowly breaks apart into cacophony. If you concentrate on the music at all levels, you can hear it happen -- if you let it flow through you, it is as if the sounds construct themselves in your subconscious. The rest of the songs are equally interesting to me. Some, like Uviol, sound like slumbering machines in a factory far off. Or the delicate opening track, a sordid combination of wind chimes and long gone days. In short, it is a release that goes places their other material does not. It would be a bad choice to start the Autechre experience here, but by no means does that mean this is a pile of rubbish.