Album:    Incunabula
Artist:   Autechre
Label:    Warp Records
Released: 1993-11-29
Summary:  Sublime and otherworldly enough to warrant a listen.

If B12's Electro-Soma is background music, Autechre's Incunabula
takes you on a journey.  Best listened to with headphones and your
undivided attention, it's an ethereal soundscape above all else.

The first track, Kalpol Introl, is a crescendo of breathtaking beauty.
Sparse, squishy bass sounds run through a delay take centre stage,
soon joined by an atmospheric pad and quirky, hissing percussion.
The overall result is as sublime as it is otherworldly.

Overlapping with the end of Kalpol Introl is the beginning of the
slightly more down-to-Earth Bike (if you were hoping to include them
in a randomised playlist, I'd recommend joining these two tracks
together, as they go well together anyway).  This is where a regular
drum machine makes its first appearance, providing a more familiar
type of percussion: a repetitive rhythm.  Combined with the sort of
synthetic bassline that you feel more than hear, and delayed melodic
synths with quick envelope settings on the higher frequencies, this
is another wonderfully atmospheric track.

Autriche starts off with an inviting, warm pad and distant talking,
swiftly accompanied with another rhythm on the analogue drum machine,
but in my opinion spoils it with the inclusion of a grating timbre
for the main melody.

Bronchus 2 sounds like someone plucking a long, twangy, metal cable,
drenched in delays and reverb.  This one just leaves me with the
feeling that I missed the point of the track entirely.

Basscadet is rhythmically more upbeat, yet with a haunting atmosphere
and a distorted timbre that all add up to create a jarring sound.
Slightly scary stuff.

Eggshell is much more my cup of tea.  It's more laid back and sounds
to me more like it's trying to convey a sense of wonder than fear.
By all rights, it should sound too repetitive: a mere two chords
provide the musical setting for nine minutes' worth of music.  By
the time the second melody arrives, however, Autechre have proven
they can pull such a feat off.  The music flies by all too quickly.

In my opinion, Autechre sound like they're trying too hard to be
clever with the confusing percussion at the beginning of the next
track, Doctrine.  It soon starts making sense when put in context
(albeit a rather loud context).  The actual melodies and harmonies
are nice for the most part, as long as you can get past the loud
clanging of the rhythm.

Moving on, Maetl is slightly more calm, yet still fueled by a clangy
beat.  Its melody seems almost bittersweet, and once the pads fade
in, it fits in much better with the album's overall spooky, otherworldly
feel.

At over eleven minutes long, the next track, Windwind, is an epic
offering.  Its seemingly unrelated components, which fit together
so well, feel like a continuation of the opening track.  The epic
pad, combined with all the interesting underlying parts, creates a
soundscape that makes you wonder just what untold adventure inspired
this piece.

Lowride chills you back down again.  While not breathtaking, it
provides a much needed rest.

The last track, 444, is another dramatic affair.  Using intense
harmonies, it takes you on a final journey before letting you go.
The unintrusive rhythm takes a back seat to the delayed synthetic
sounds playing the strange music.

Whether I would recommend this album depends on the individual
listener.  It has its bad points as well as its beautiful moments.
Personally, I found the sublime journey that the album took me on
to be worth tracking it down.  I tend to only listen to roughly half
of the tracks that it has to offer, but I wouldn't want to part with
them.  It's a quirky release worth at least a listen by anyone curious
as to how unusual music can sound while remaining good.
