Autechre - Confield (2LP)

Autechre’s Confield landed on Warp Records on 30 April 2001, and even now it feels a bit like stepping into a lab at 3 am. The duo, Sean Booth and Rob Brown, had been edging away from hip hop skeletons and into stranger terrain since the mid 90s, but Confield is the point where their process really mutates. In interviews around the time they talked about building their own systems in Max/MSP and letting them behave in unpredictable ways, then carving the output into music that still felt human, just not in a way you could trace back to a drum machine or a piano roll. You hear that most clearly in how the record never repeats itself in the usual sense. Patterns are there, but they slide, buckle and reform like metal under heat.

The first minute of VI Scose Poise sets the tone. Little ticks and clipped tones scatter like pebbles on glass, then lock into something close to a rhythm before slipping again. By the time Cfern arrives, the sound palette feels completely alien yet oddly tactile, as if each hit has a physical shape. Pen Expers is the closest thing to a single, at least in the Autechre sense. It’s jittery and hyper-detailed, the kind of track that rewards headphones and patience. I remember hearing Parhelic Triangle over tiny café speakers back in 2002 and thinking the stereo was broken, then realising the track itself bends perception that way. It sits there, slow and glacial, a mist of harmonics with a sub-bass that doesn’t so much drop as materialise.

Eidetic Casein is a good example of how the duo balance chaos with intent. The percussion feels generated by a machine with too many limbs, yet the timbre choices are so deliberate. Nothing is harsh for the sake of it. Uviol might be the most physical cut, all heaving pulses and filigree detail, while Lentic Catachresis closes the album with a feeling of structures collapsing in slow motion. The track names read like scientific terms or invented classifications, which suits the sound. But Confield never plays like a cold exercise. There’s melancholy in there, a kind of weather system that passes through the record.

Plenty of electronic albums flirted with so-called glitch around that era, but Confield treats malfunction as composition rather than decoration. It doesn’t lean on the genre’s clichés or chase club utility. Instead it builds a world. The sound design is wildly specific. You can picture the rubbery attack of a kick, the papery decay of a hi-hat that isn’t a hi-hat, the distant tonal smears that act like chords. It’s music you feel in your hands as much as your ears. That’s why Confield vinyl is such a draw. On a good system, the low end sits like a deep breath in the room, while the micro-detail up top flickers with a clarity that digital often smears. If you collect Autechre vinyl, this one tests your setup in the best way.

People sometimes frame Confield as difficult, and sure, it doesn’t hand you a 4/4 anchor. But it’s generous in other ways. It invites you to listen closely, to follow a thread as it shifts colour and weight. I’ve played it late at night more than any other Autechre record because it changes the air. Even the quiet feels active. That’s a big part of its reputation among fans. There are debates about the peak of their catalogue, but when talk turns to albums that rewired how electronic music could move, Confield is right there.

Context helps. Coming after LP5, which already pushed their programming to a high gloss, this feels like a decision to unlearn. The duo have said they were more interested in what their tools would do when set loose, and you can hear that trust in process. Max/MSP isn’t a genre, but on Confield it becomes the instrument. Still, what matters is taste. Anyone can generate complexity. Autechre shape it into forms that hold up to repeat play. Two decades on, the record has aged well because it never chased fashion, it found its own physics.

If you’re crate-digging and spot it, don’t hesitate. Autechre albums on vinyl tend to disappear and reappear in bursts, and Confield is the sort of LP that rewards years of listening. If you prefer to buy Autechre records online, keep an eye on reputable sellers. For those in Australia, plenty of local shops list it when it’s in stock, and there’s real joy in walking into a Melbourne record store and finding a crisp copy filed under A. Either way, it’s a cornerstone for anyone who loves electronic music that thinks with its hands. As far as vinyl records Australia goes, this is one of those pieces that reminds you why the format still matters.