Chosen Words: A is for Autechre

a.k.a. World Cup Distraction Exercise: Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and associated "facts"

Autechre is an electronic music band from Manchester, UK.

To many techno fans, they represent the purest expression of computer music. They shun presets on synthesisers; instead, every Autechre note you hear has been lovingly crafted from scratch.

In their long history away from the mainstream, they steadfastly refuse to repeat any bars and phrases. In fact, they have never repeated a single sound even when playing the same track at different gigs. They don't even use the same word twice when speaking.

It is easy to hold Autechre in high esteem, but it's important to remember that the duo that front the band, Sean Booth and Rob Brown, do not play any of the notes themselves. They are very much the Milli Vanilli of intelligent dance music. Their music is automatically generated from an audio synthesis stream of energy released from the gases of Jupiter.

Next time you hear Granz Graf, their most well-known track, just think of the big planet and it's burping juices.

Top five unpronounceable Autechre tracks:

- Cep puiqMX
- Outh9X
- Rsdio
- SonDEremawe
- Yulquen

2020 update: this text has been adapted for the A-Z Guide To Electronic Music video series. Have a look:

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