is Confield AE's best album?

i just finished listening to this album right now. it still feels fresh and it seems to have all my favorite things about autechre's music in it

so?

Essentially, yes.

Probably their most esoteric album I'd say. Realizing it came out 12 years ago makes me feel old.

just asked sean, he says "mental."

It's definitly in the discussion. Probably their best album with headphones.

It's not unanimously their best, but a lot of us would agree.

ooo yeah

best japanese bonus track

somebody link the 'best albums/best eps/best openers/best etc.' poll that was done. and i think may still be active.

i don't think Confield won. it wouldn't win in my book. but god damn is it great, and perfect at being what it is.

I say yes.

I switch between confield and ep7 as my fav, but I still respect confield more as a fully formed body of work

No.

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i still dont have all of them. i've been slowly trying to catch up and i have about half of the catalog, kind of spread across their career. so far i think confield is what i think of when i think of ae, and i think it is my favorite.

You know when someone scratches a fork on their teeth or rubs cotton balls together and it makes your stress hormones bloom and your jaw clench? that's prettymuch what VI Scose Poise does to me. Its one of the few songs I've encountered that my body physically reacts to and says NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO otherwise it's pretty good but because I can't stand the first song I don''t often listen.

  On 2/6/2013 at 3:36 AM, usagi said:

 

  On 2/6/2013 at 2:39 AM, whylessness said:

best japanese bonus track

 

now this is absolutely fucking true. best bonus track of theirs.

truth.

Oh...and I can't pick a favorite ae album.

  On 2/6/2013 at 2:47 AM, sweepstakes said:

 

No.

Curious to know which Ae albums you do like

  On 2/6/2013 at 2:43 AM, auxien said:

somebody link the 'best albums/best eps/best openers/best etc.' poll that was done. and i think may still be active.

 

i don't think Confield won. it wouldn't win in my book. but god damn is it great, and perfect at being what it is.

http://www.misterpoll.com/polls/486973/results

Confield seems to be the favorite album but also the most unbalanced, since it has the highest percentage for a single favorite song on an album (39% for Pen Expers). I find it strange considering that the main reason people invoke to justify their love for Confield is the cohesion and the balance of the album.

On a side note, this poll shows interesting results, but Quaristice as the second least favorite album? I say no...

I trust no one's opinion..... quaristice is pure magic once you lock in.... it feels like the first lp they made after confield that broke away from it almost completely.

  On 2/6/2013 at 2:43 AM, auxien said:

i don't think Confield won. it wouldn't win in my book. but god damn is it great, and perfect at being what it is.

also: Chiastic

draft is better

  On 2/6/2013 at 4:41 AM, fizzkinz said:

 

  On 2/6/2013 at 2:47 AM, sweepstakes said:

 

No.

Curious to know which Ae albums you do like

Chiastic Slide and Quaristice would be good guesses.

I think it depends on the criteria.

It's definitely the most 'autechre' album in the sense that, all the innovation and magic of LP5 and ep7 notwithstanding -- it really cemented what sets the autechre sound and compositional style apart from any other artist at the time or evarrrrr. LP5 was the first ae album I got (thanks to BMG Music Club!) and I could dig it even as a dumb-ass high school NIN fan, but I just could not enjoy Confield, until years later when i got it and could never listen to music the same way again after.

I can't say the same about all the following albums because at that point, the thing that made ae so amazing and revolutionary was set. Nevertheless, as far as the beats and sound palette, I think Draft and Untilted and Gantz_Graf are better -- even more zany and mindblowing, but again, within the framework that only Confield was able to set.

So in that respect, I think Confield is their best in that is a pre-cum masterstroke, of which the following three records were the subsequent jizzy spurts of genius.

I fucking love vi scose poise -- but what's weird about it is that no other song on the album has such a chill / ambient vibe, so it really throws you for a loop once you get into the rest of the tracks. In that way, a perfect opener that sets up a hard left turn.

Hard!

ps: Quaristice sucks!

Draft is definitely better than Confield in my opinion but they aren't too comparable

I think Confield is the most unlike anything else they've made in a very good way. So sterile and icy and scary. I love the extreme subtleties that you just don't find to this extent in their earlier stuff.

yeah, i'd include gantz graf.. the whole era of confield and the following albums. indeed.

yes

  On 2/6/2013 at 6:54 AM, Joseph said:

draft is better

agreed, i love confield but it wasn't until Draft that i really understood what Confield was going for. It feels like a more complete less minimal confield

I think Confield marks a turning point for AE, the biggest turning point in their discography, which is kind of funny if you think about how much of a shock LP5 was when it came out. The reason I think it's such a big turning point is that all the albums prior to it had a kind of fragility and broken-ness about them (apart from perhaps Tri Rep, which I think has quite a bit in common with Confield). But Confield is really aggressive and weird in a very masculine way. I think that's why I've always had trouble getting into it, I prefer the mulchy broken computers and introspection of their previous albums. After Confield, it seems like their emotional palette is a bit clearer and more obvious. Imo. It's like they went through their own (admittedly doll-house IDM scale) transition into being celebrities, during the creation of that album.