Rae - A piece that stands out

With recent albums SIGN and PLUS you can clearly hear the big difference in sounds, textures and composing style compared to Incunabula, Amber and their Lego Feet stuff. 
Older releases are almost Pop album for the kindergarten compared to the very deep soundscapes in OneSix and all of their Live material, NTS and Elseq. 
Even Rob and Sean thinks their old stuff sounds a bit "cheesy" but this of course in a positive manner. 

What happen if you can take all this elements of Autechre and blend it to one piece?
The answer is: Rae

With Rae filled with crunchy beats, abstract noises and a beautiful FM chord progession just blasting off in your face with nothing in mind except for taking you on a ride where you don't even know where the destination is. 
After 3 minutes intense beat mangling it slows down and the mix goes into a new phase: this time with no punchy bass drums and the track turns slower. The percussions with more sounds added and melodies getting clearer and has more layers and texture as it then fades out to only hearing the main tones almost a minute before it ends. 

This is when Autechre peeks! This is what I would wish to hear more of. This is the root of Autechre. 

On a big Facebook Poll the group admin turned Autechre tracks against each other for people to rank their favorite tracks. The competition went on for many days and it ended with the highest ranked Autechre tracks in a Final Poll. 

And the winner track was? You guessed it! 
 

Love this about Autechre. 

I've got 50 tracks of theirs 'liked' on Spotify and Rae isn't in the list. 

That doesn't mean that anyone is wrong. 

Just means that there is different 'peak' Autechres for everyone. 

But Dropp is also peak Ae. And Surripere. And Cloudline. And Dilankex rmx. And tt1pd. And Vletrmx. And Pendulu hv moda. And... 

Truly incredible track. Can't call it my favorite when there's so much other gold abound but it is one of the great ones. LP5 is usually the album I recommend to new listeners, I've always felt like it's their pop album in a way.

havent listened to a lot of their older stuff in quite some times but...yeah...speechless. just an utterly beautiful track

the melodies are fucking saying SO MUCH. cant put it into words. 

Tip top tune. I still listen to LP5, probably twice a year and it still blows me away. As an album viewed from beginning to end and as a whole, its probably my favourite. I'm careful not to overplay it though. I did purposely rest it for a few years. Though Corc not Rae is my pick of the crop.

LP5 was my first Autechre album so naturally holds a very special place in my heart. I totally agree that the album as a whole works so damn well, the track listing has such great tension and release... Feels like a really dark story with glimmers of hope.

Rae is the first warm hopeful moment, and then it turns in that second half... It's so tragic!

Still one of my favorite albums of all time. I think it's their album that has the strongest sense if narrative.

Def one of their best imo

Rae is definitely a great one from LP5. I like almost everything on there, though I've never enjoyed Melve. Acroyear2 is weighed down somewhat by its melody for me on some listens. Corc is very, very pretty and has a very nostalgic quality to it, the melody often recalls their first two albums in a good way. But it doesn't quite fit with the others in my estimation.

  On 9/14/2022 at 4:47 AM, splesh said:

Rae is definitely a great one from LP5. I like almost everything on there, though I've never enjoyed Melve. Acroyear2 is weighed down somewhat by its melody for me on some listens. Corc is very, very pretty and has a very nostalgic quality to it, the melody often recalls their first two albums in a good way. But it doesn't quite fit with the others in my estimation.

I used to feel that way about Acroyear2, I thought the melody was cheesy in a similar way to how I saw that melody in Autriche. But now it feels more like an essential part of the track that that I love, its like an anchor for the percussive / noisy / timbre changing melody that expresses so much. They seem to reinforce and synergize each other in a way that wasn't obvious to me early on, great track.

And of course Rae is great, though quite a depressing track to me, starts out with so much energy and then seems to get sickly and crippled, something like that anyway.

  On 9/6/2022 at 9:09 PM, springymajig said:

LP5 was my first Autechre album so naturally holds a very special place in my heart.

yeah same to me

  On 9/6/2022 at 9:09 PM, springymajig said:

I totally agree that the album as a whole works so damn well, the track listing has such great tension and release... Feels like a really dark story with glimmers of hope.

Rae is the first warm hopeful moment, and then it turns in that second half... It's so tragic!

yes exactly that.

rae, melve, fold4 wrap5, underBOAC, arch carrier, drane 2 : all beauties. very emotional.

So Rae was made during a hangover, according to Sean in the droid interview. 
‘and Sean says  i did the track so assuming it’s an onlysean autechre track  ?

really another era

real aesthetically emotional

really... another epic

  On 10/22/2023 at 11:26 AM, zaizai said:

So Rae was made during a hangover, according to Sean in the droid interview. 
‘and Sean says  i did the track so assuming it’s an onlysean autechre track  ?

Yes and Krib also! Those tracks are really emotional aren't they? 

Pls Sean be more hangover ok? 

  On 9/6/2022 at 9:09 PM, springymajig said:

Rae is the first warm hopeful moment, and then it turns in that second half... It's so tragic!

yes it does !

  On 10/22/2023 at 12:13 PM, cern said:

Those tracks are really emotional aren't they? 

yes they are.

Rae really has something special to me also. as Corc. as well drane 2.  as well, .. all of the tracks from this LP . (back in the time, LP5 being my introduction to AE btw)

in @droid 's recent interview they were saying something about like " then ep5 we were trying to get how song writing works" or something.

this resonate with the LP5 as it's got loads of chords combination / melodic works somehow. I liked to to read that from them, because I always thought that LP5 is like Leonard Cohen using casio and nords instead of an acoustic guitar. . . 

  On 10/27/2023 at 12:50 AM, neurone said:

 I always thought that LP5 is like Leonard Cohen using casio and nords instead of an acoustic guitar. . .    serioulsy, not joking.

The ladies' man writing his famous ballad Under BOAC:

(But in the perspective of their previous output, yeah, I can kinda see what you mean in the chords progressions of, say, fold4wrap5 or corc...)

Yeah never really thought about it befbut yeah, LP5 is totally about interesting chord progression (I guess that's why T ess xi sounds like LP5).

Like the chord progression on Vose In is spectacular,  I love how it so seamlessly transitions from dark and sinister to that kind of warm-but-sad nostalgia (that "yearning" they talk about in that interview).