“Less is more” has never been an adage applicable to pioneering electro duo Autechre, and their 11th studio album confirms this.
Clocking in at two hours, Exai is a digital leviathan, undisciplined and perhaps self-indulgent. For the hardcore fan this could easily be Autechre’s magnum opus.
However, to the uninitiated listener, beware: this one’s not for greenhorns.
The full gamut of the duo’s diverse and often challenging back catalogue is on display, from Amber’s soft ambience on “cloudline”, to Chiastic Slide’s electro-industry experimentation on “Flep”, to the thick atmospherics of Oversteps of the beautiful “bladelores”.
Despite the sonic range, the album is dominated by frenetic, jagged beats, out of which emerge textured synths subtly budding in crystalline growths (see softer highlights “jatevee C” and “T ess xi”).
From these basic elements come moments of dark beauty, dystopian paranoia, and what could well be the sound of artificial intelligence going mad.
This unremittingly tense atmosphere is precisely what unifies the disparate elements of this monster of an album. Unfortunately, it’s also this that makes it so difficult to listen to in its entirety.
The running time is so long, the atmosphere so intense, and the digital darkness so deep, that they threaten to overwhelm the inexperienced listener.
Exai is a difficult, frightening record, a bloated work of the darkest sci-fi atmospherics, and one that would absolutely benefit from an editorial pruning.
When Skynet becomes self-aware and the war begins Exai may well become the machines’ battle hymn. But until that time comes Autechre, divisive as always, have created an album that will thrill fans and scare the hell out of the casual listener.
