Early years (1987–1992) Brown and Booth met through
Manchester's
graffiti scene in 1987 when they both lived in
Rochdale. Heavily influenced by
electro-funk,
hip-hop and
acid house, they began trading
mixtapes and then creating their own
compositions while collecting a handful of cheap equipment, most notably a
Casio SK-1 sampler and a
Roland TR-606 drum machine. Their first release was
Lego Feet, a 12" recorded under an alias of the same name brought out by Manchester's
Skam Records. Their first release as Autechre was the single "
Cavity Job" in 1991, released on Hardcore Records. Booth and Brown pronounce the name Autechre with a
Rochdale accent ( ). However, they have explained that the name can be pronounced in any way one sees fit. Two more tracks appeared in 1992 under the now finalised Autechre name, on the Warp Records compilation
Artificial Intelligence, part of the
series of the same name. The compilation contained "The Egg", later reworked for their first full-length release under the title "Eggshell". Two hours of early material was broadcast live on NTS Radio during Warp's 30th-anniversary weekend, called
Warp Tapes 89-93. It is distributed for free on Autechre's Bleep Store in digital audio format.
Incunabula and Amber (1993–1994) In 1993 Warp released their debut album,
Incunabula, which became a surprise success, reaching the top of the
UK Indie Chart. The album had a cool, calculated feel, with clear techno and electro roots, but also showed hints of the rhythmic flourishes and tuned percussion that would later become an important feature of their work. An EP of remixes of
Incunabulas "
Basscadet" was released in 1994, with animated computer graphics for the Bcdtmx version created by Jess Scott-Hunter. This music video featured on
MTV Europe's Party Zone when Autechre were interviewed during the show in September that year. 1994 also saw the release of
Amber, an album featuring a more
ambient, less percussive approach than their debut. The
Anti EP was released shortly before
Amber and is, as of yet, the only Autechre release to have an explicit purpose: it was a protest against the
Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which would prohibit raves, defined as any gathering of nine or more people where rave music is played. Rave music was defined as music which "includes sounds wholly or predominantly characterized by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats". The record came wrapped in a seal, on which was printed a legal warning: "Flutter has been programmed in such a way that no bars contain identical beats and can therefore be played at both forty-five and thirty-three revolutions under the proposed new law. However, we advise DJs to have a lawyer and musicologist present at all times to confirm the non-repetitive nature of the music in the event of police harassment." In a 2008 interview with
Pitchfork Media, Rob Brown mentioned that
Incunabula and
Amber, retrospectively, sounded "cheesy".
Tri Repetae, Chiastic Slide and LP5 (1995–1999) 1995 saw the release of
Tri Repetae, their third album, as well as the EPs
Anvil Vapre and
Garbage, featuring a monochrome cover designed by
The Designers Republic, with whom Autechre have long held a close association.
Tri Repetae and its associated EPs were combined into a two disc set entitled
Tri Repetae++, which was released in the United States. An official promotional video was created for "Second Bad Vilbel" from
Anvil Vapre by English visual artist
Chris Cunningham (his first). The "Second Bad Vilbel" video featured rapidly cut shots of industrial machinery and robotic movement, synchronised with the music. Cunningham later re-edited the video in 2002, following his disappointment with the original: "It was intended to be completely abstract but it didn't quite work out that way". A two track vinyl-only EP entitled
We R Are Why, was available to buy during certain concerts and via mail order during 1996. Also in 1995, Autechre's track "Nonima" was featured on
Mind The Gap Volume 5, a Belgian compilation of electronic music. Autechre released three records in 1997: the full-length
Chiastic Slide, and the EPs
Envane and
Cichlisuite (pronounced "sickly sweet"). The latter EP consists of five remixed versions of "Cichli" from
Chiastic Slide.
Radio Mix was also released in 1997; a rare CD-only promotional recording, it contains an hour-long DJ mix of other artists' tracks, some of them remixed by Autechre, as well as a short interview edited sometimes to the point of incomprehensibility. An untitled record (typically known as
LP5 or simply
Autechre) followed in 1998. It has been seen as a transitional work, with Brown commenting in 2005 that "a lot of people have cited it as a classic Autechre album because it bridges the gap between the guys who liked our old stuff and the guys who got propelled on to our new stuff." 1999 saw the release of
their first Peel session EP, consisting of three tracks broadcast on
John Peel's show for
BBC Radio 1 in October 1995, as well as a vinyl-only limited edition promotional EP entitled
Splitrmx12. 1999 also saw
EP7, which is classed by the group as an EP despite the CD version being over an hour in length.
Confield, Draft 7.30 and Untilted (2000–2007) The new millennium brought about a drastic change in Autechre's style, demonstrated by
Confield (2001) and
Draft 7.30 (2003), as well as the
Gantz Graf EP (2002). The title track from
Gantz Graf inspired an iconic video by British designer
Alex Rutterford, featuring an object (or an agglomeration of objects) synchronised to the music as it morphs, pulsates, shakes and finally dissolves. Rutterford, who had previously created an unofficial video for the
Tri Repetae track "Eutow" as part of the
Channel 4 music programme
Lo-Fi in 2001, claimed the idea for the "Gantz Graf" video came during one of his
LSD trips. The
second Autechre Peel session EP was also released in 2002, containing four tracks broadcast in 1999, named by John Peel himself. Autechre released three collaborative albums with Andrew M. McKenzie's
Hafler Trio collective during the following five years (see
collaborations).
Metacritic rated the critical reviews to
Confield as "universal acclaim". According to Sean Booth, "most of
Confield came out of experiments with
Max that weren't really applicable in a club environment." In contrast, 2003's
Draft 7.30 was seen by some as an easier record to grasp. Booth stated in an interview around the release of
Draft 7.30 that "[rhythm] doesn't seem to limit us in the way it did when we first started. Now I think we just get it, we're totally fluent in it and can be more expressive."
Untilted (a play on the word "untitled"), the duo's eighth album, was released in 2005. It roughly continued the sound of their previous two LPs, though featured compositions that mutated greatly during their duration, typically alternating between passages of ambience and heavily processed, precise beats, such as on "Ipacial Section". Its final track, "Sublimit", is at almost sixteen minutes; Autechre's longest composition to feature on any of their albums until 2016's
elseq 1–5. The release of
Untilted was followed by a two-month tour that took the group around Europe, America and Japan, but withdrew them from studio work for an unusual length of time. The outcome of this, coupled with a forced change in studio setup, was a gap of three years between releases, longer than ever before.
Quaristice, Oversteps and Exai (2008–2013) Their ninth album,
Quaristice, was released in early 2008. In contrast to
Untilted, it is made up of twenty tracks, more than any other Autechre release, each typically around 2 to 5 minutes in length. The download-only
Quaristice.Quadrange.ep.ae EP that accompanies it (as well as the
Versions bonus disc and three tracks released exclusively through the Japanese
iTunes Store) brings the total length of music released during their
Quaristice era to over five hours. Among this is the hour-long "Perlence subrange 6-36" that closes the EP. Each track on
Quaristice was edited down from lengthy improvised sessions between Booth and Brown, the album was also released by Warp Records as a double LP and a single CD as well as an elaborate two CD edition by Warp Records. Limited to only 1,000 copies, and containing both the regular album and
Quaristice (Versions), this special edition was packaged in a photo-etched steel case. It sold out within 12 hours of being announced. On 13 January 2010, Warp Records announced
Oversteps, Autechre's tenth album. Originally slated to be released in March, it was released a month early in digital form on Bleep.com to those who preordered it; the CD and deluxe vinyl editions were released on 22 March 2010. A two-month European tour occurred in support of the album, followed by limited shows in Japan and Australia, the latter breaking a 15-year absence. Autechre then compiled a mix for the magazine
FACT, released in February of the same year, that consisted of tracks by artists such as
J Dilla and
Necrophagist. On 25 May 2010, Warp Records announced the ten track
Move of Ten, an EP by the duo in conjunction with the release of
Oversteps. The digipack CD and the two 12" vinyl version, as well as a digital download, was released on 12 July 2010. In April 2011 a boxset of EPs entitled
EPs 1991 – 2002 (excluding
Move of Ten) was released, with artwork from the Designers Republic. It includes a CD copy of their debut EP,
Cavity Job, the first time it has been released on the format. In 2011 as part of Warp's 'Made in Japan' relief concert for the victims of the
2011 Sendai earthquake, an eleven-minute piece was released entitled "6852", possibly part of a previous live recording. The eleventh studio album entitled
Exai was released on 5 March 2013, having been available for download from the official website as of 14 February 2013. The duo announced their 14th EP
L-Event on 17 September 2013, which was released on 28 October 2013.
AENA tour, AE_LIVE, elseq 1–5, NTS Sessions (2014–2019) During 2015, the duo embarked on a tour across North America, marketed as AENA. The tour was officially announced on the Warp Records website on 25 May 2015, but promotional material (specifically the logos for the upcoming tour) was released on 13 August 2014. On 29 October 2015 members of the Autechre mailing list were given invite-only permission to download a live recording from the duo titled '''', a collection of four one-hour-long
soundboard recordings of a series of concerts that took place in 2014. On 1 November 2015 a Bleep.com substore opened up giving the public the ability to purchase and download the collection. On 13 May 2016 a new Autechre track by the title of "feed1" was played on
Tom Ravenscroft's late evening show on
BBC 6 Music after an announcement made on the Warp Records Twitter feed which was accompanied by a piece of geometric album art. On 18 May 2016 a second new track was played on KSUA, an Alaskan student radio station, again announced in a tweet by Warp. Afterwards, Warp released the snippet of the Autechre song on their
SoundCloud account under the title "c16 deep tread". On 19 May 2016, their twelfth studio album,
elseq 1-5, on Autechre's AE_STORE_ page. Warp Records have stated that there are no plans to release the album on a physical medium, making the album Autechre's first digital-only studio album release. On 6 April 2018, a livestream of new material was broadcast on
NTS Radio, marking the first of four live streams released every week of the month. On 9 April 2018, it was unveiled that the sessions, totalling eight hours of material, would be packaged and released as
NTS Sessions 1–4 with a listing on the AE_STORE, including 12×LP and 8×CD boxsets. The livestreams coincided with the announcement of live sets in Japan and Australia, including their first-ever performance in
Tasmania at the
Dark Mofo Festival. In November 2018,
Richard Devine joined the user chat room of the electronic music forum We Are The Music Makers and hinted at an
easter egg on the AE_STORE website. Following a partially hidden link, the user could download instrument parameter files for
Elektron's hardware which Autechre used for the 2008 Quaristice tour. When loaded into a
Monomachine or Machinedrum these files allowed the user to create their own Quaristice tour soundboard.
Sign, Plus and AE_2022– (2020–present) In April 2020, Autechre released
AE LIVE 2016/2018, a set of tour recordings from those respective years. On 1 September 2020, Warp Records announced that fans should sign up to the Autechre mailing list. Shortly after, Autechre announced their next album,
Sign, which was released on 16 October 2020. In 2020 interviews, the duo stated that they had been recording material for
Sign since the summer of 2018, after their Australian tour, up to February that year. Booth remarked that the songs were more emotional than other works, and that this was the first album recorded with their revamped systems. Another album titled
Plus was surprise released digitally on 28 October, with physical and streaming releases planned on 20 November. On 10 August 2023, the duo released a compilation of live
soundboard recordings titled
AE_LIVE 2022–, which consisted of 7 recordings, all between 60 and 80 minutes in length. On 4 November 2024, the release was renamed to
AE 2022– and included a new batch of 12 new recordings from their 2023 and 2024 performances. The "live" label was dropped from the new release; in an interview with
Metal, Booth stated that he is "honestly not that interested in records anymore. The concept of what a studio album is seems outdated." On 9 December 2024 Autechre were announced to become
BBC Radio 6's
artists in residence. The duo were confirmed to be playing a 1 hour long set every night from 9 December through to 12 December. ==Influences==