Autechre Guitar

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This record shouldn’t, strictly speaking, be possible at all.

It’s not just that Autechre’s music is electronic and Shane Parish’s is acoustic. It’s not just that Autechre come from electro and techno, while Shane’s solo guitar music is rooted in jazz, folk, and the blues. Those borders, between mediums and genres, are as porous as you want them to be. But Autechre are synonymous with difficulty, opacity, inscrutability—known for unparseable rhythms, cryptic riffs, and shapeshifting timbres. Even on their early records, before they’d begun building out the mind-bending software systems that have defined the past quarter-century of their music, the duo of Sean Booth and Rob Brown were working at the very limits of their machines: eking melodies out of drum sounds, programming intricate polyrhythms of superhuman complexity, and writing sequences that defy attempts to decipher them. I’ve been listening to “Yulquen” for 31 years, and I still couldn’t tell you just what is happening between the melody and the beat; try as I might, I simply can’t count out the steps.

Now take Shane: one guy, one guitar, two hands. Six strings. Ten fingers. (Throw in a tapping foot for when the timekeeping gets tricky.) That’s the sum total of what he’s working with. These are not the kinds of tools you’d think would be equipped for Autechre’s music. But if anyone could take on a project like this, it’s Shane.

Tracklist

1. Maetl 02:10
2. Eggshell 05:14
3. Eutow 05:11
4. Slip 04:51
5. Bike 06:27
6. Nine 04:43
7. Yulquen 06:15
8. Lowride 06:04
9. Corc 06:34
10. Clipper 04:07