Bleep Years day seventeen: Autechre's Arch Carrier (1998)

1998: Autechre's Arch Carrier

An untitled album released by Autechre brings us the next song in our Bleep Years saga. The album, since labelled as LP5, was meant to be a stop-gap between Chiastic Slide and the game-changing Confeld.

But with tracks like Under BOAC, the hidden track Drane2 and the one I've chosen for Bleep Years, Arch Carrier, they produced an all-consuming Autechre classic. It was also their last album before they basically went evil (listen to the wonderful crunching madness of Pen Expers to hear evil in action).

1998 was the year I "became" Fat Roland. I fell down a hole and was afforded telekinetic powers of beat-matching, lasting through long sets and playing anywhere from living rooms to big clubby places. My first public gig was in the middle of 1998 in the now-mothballed Phoenix pub yards from where I work now. I remember playing this track for the first time on my brand new Technics. It is one of my most played tracks, if not *the* most played.

I would like Arch Carrier to be my theme. I will walk in time to the steady beat. When the moody minor chords kick in, I shall glower at passersby. I shall hunch my shoulders and allow my tongue to loll menacingly. I will be The Arch Carrier. They will call me The Gawping Idiot, but I shall know my real name.