autechre & pals @ batofar report

[e <fabriquedecouleurs@xxxxxxxxx>]

i had the chance to see autechre play live yesterday (maybe 3-4 times the
crowd inside the venue could not get in...). it was the second time only
they were playing in France (1st time was for Feardrop festival at Evreux a
few years back, to some 170 lucky people).
I met a guy saying he had travelled from Bulgaria just for the show.

but
this was kind of a disappointing set.
it's pleasing to hear their characteristic liquid-ultradynamic sounds and
shuffling rythms live, but the performance lacked some restraint (or
questioning ?)... even changing every ten seconds, the rythmic patterns
where almost always present, trusting the foreground while some textures
underneath might have got some interesting exposure.
they had very few pauses, playing extended slowly evolving explorations on a
same set of sounds, never offering some suggestion of a melody or any stuff
to hang on to, without interaction or permutation between the
fore-background layers of snd.
i love sonic experiments but this show was not very rewarding for sure (to
me at least).

i don't think ae has to be seen live...

russell haswell's multilayered anarchic mix was the peak of the evening.

emmanuel