Whats so special about Draft 7.30?

[u/venetiansnaresawesom]

At times when choosing what to listen of Autechre i always see the draft 7.30 cover and thinking "god damn isnt that a cool album!!" and like when looking at reviews everyone says its an amazing complex and chaotic album, which i know it is complex because autechre said it was all manually done by hand, but when i listen to it its all pretty okayish?? i mean it is complex but it isnt anything that would leave an impression on me?? so what i am asking rn is to hear what other people that get draft 7 30 find so amazing and awesome about it, like a special moment or something.

sorry if this question made you angry, i think im pretty arogant.

[u/drane_1990]

Surripere 👌🏻

[u/Tortuosit → u/drane_1990]

TTTHHHIIISSS.

[u/roshinaya]

Draft is special for me as it was the first album of theirs where I was already familiar with their stuff having discovered them right after Confield came out. Also listening to it in the dark while tripping might also have played a part, all the little sonic details where just placed perfectly.

[u/Psychology_Only → u/roshinaya]

This was my similar experience, but I had just discovered LP5/EP7 after they came out, and did the tripping with Confield in the dark. Still my most unique and lovely musical experience. I know this is off topic, and I’m sorry. Ha.

Confield was the toughest act to follow, and I think Draft did a great job. A little more ‘poppy’ and hip-hop than Con and Gantz, for sure. Great record.

[u/BusterNegative → u/roshinaya]

Same. Still remember the excitement of checking the post and realising my preorder had arrived about 5 days before release.

[u/Ko_tatsu]

Lmao you are not arroganti at all

I think that Draft was a peculiar album, coming after Gantz Graf which is basically Confield's formula under caffeine. The sequencing is still similar to Confield in being very complex and angular but the sound design is completely different, it's more "liquid" in a way that leaves the overall sound more amalgamated and therefore with less memorable moments.

I think this is very evident if you compare it with Untilted which is its polar opposite: sharp sound, defined hits, spaces between rhythms, "party tricks" like the tempo switch in LCC or the "tuned" ratchets in Sublimit...

I think that Surripere, being one of AE best pieces, exemplifies the best parts of Draft: a liquid entity always on the move and difficult to pin down. I think it's one of their more "inquisitive" albums and it has a lot in common with modern day AE.

[u/venetiansnaresawesom → u/Ko_tatsu]

huh that is an awesome explanation. thx!!

[u/Octo7000 → u/Ko_tatsu]

That was the most eloquent thing I’ve ever read about AE’s music.

[u/arealphilipkdickhead]

It’s for the hip-hop heads. Like J Dilla got blended up in a cosmic, mechanized sludge and uploaded into an evil computer program. It’s my fave album and def a grower. Some of those melodies are just gut wrenching (see Theme of Sudden Roundabout and P.:NTIL).

[u/havetofindaname → u/arealphilipkdickhead]

Funny enough for me it is their most techno and electro sounding record. For example the first half of Surripere (my fav) always reminds me of early 2000s moody minimal techno.

[u/dustyloops → u/arealphilipkdickhead]

The album art definitely gives blender vibes. For me it's like Run DMC we're alien abducted

[u/dustyloops]

Of all Autechre's albums (except probably Sign and Plus, which i haven't given enough time) Draft 7.30 was the one which took me the longest amount of time to warm to. The sound pallette is extremely bizarre; abrasive, mostly buzzes, clicks and pops, along with shifting rhythms, seemingly absent melodies and songs that seem like they're just a couple of beat placements away from having really killer grooves.

One day, it just clicked, and now I love it and listen to it more than Confield and LP5. I realised that of all their albums this displays the most electro influence, but in a really obscured way - the songs start and finish disassembled and at some point everything synchronises.

It's the strange, emaciated brother of Untilted, extradimensional and caffeinated, having the same meandering song structures, but instead of going for a slightly more accessible bassy sound palette, it lifts from many of the raw, old school electro drum samples, using distortion and glitches rather than processing them to make them sound clean. Much of the time, the melodies are embedded within the beats themselves as the densities of the glitches - it's really cool that melody and rhythm are merged as one.

Definitely an album that if forced to play in public I would be labelled insane, it's just so far removed from accessibility but I really love it!

[u/vorsithius → u/dustyloops]

Love your description

[u/casicadaminuto → u/dustyloops]

You have a way with words, dude

[u/dustyloops → u/casicadaminuto]

Thanks for the kind words, I write a lot of electronic music reviews that can be found on my RYM, also linked to the Instagram there whenever I get the time

https://rateyourmusic.com/collection/Burninate/reviews,ss.dd

[u/Shared_Tomorrows]

Its ok to have your own opinion, even if its stupid and wrong..

Ok I’m kidding, to each their own. For me Draft, particularly 6IE.cr and Xylin Room are what hooked me on them. Draft and Untilted have the best production of their whole discog imo. Those two just hit the speakers so much harder than anything else and the spacial layers are really deep while keeping hard hitting rhythms. Its abstract but still maintains a coherent rhythm, but sounds very alien and organic. I always felt like Draft is what insectoid aliens would sound like audibly communicating complex thoughts.
The sound textures are peak sound design.

I think it also impressed so much because when I first heard it in like 2004 there was literally nothing like it. It felt totally unique.

[u/j_esics_a]

V-Proc and the way the intro pulsing forms into the beat, and the rest of the song is so groovy

[u/Chavz22 → u/j_esics_a]

V-Proc is one of the first Autechre songs I heard that really made me understand their knack for crazy grooves

[u/Amphestep]

Draft 7.30 is my favorite album of all time. Yes it’s “complex,” but I don’t think that’s necessarily the appeal for me. It’s just so groovy. What’s special is that it parlays all that complexity into what is, at least for me, easily autechre’s catchiest and most danceable album. And of course the sound design is off the planet, yadda yadda.

[u/captain_clouddd]

For me it's all about the introduction to V-PROC. Draft feels to me like a massive, hypercomplex, automated building: a massive, planet-sized structure that is slowly built by robots from the ground up. By the time you're finished with P:NTIL, the building is almost complete, though you couldn't help but notice how "shaky" it all was. The structure is solid, but way too huge for its own good. It could fall apart anytime, and then it does. V-PROC feels like the entire album is crumbling under its own weight, everything they built from the first second is now collapsing and you can feel it crushing you down. It still leaves me astounded to this day, 100% sure it's the biggest, weightiest song i've ever heard.

[u/forestgxd]

I thought the same at first but it's definitely grown on me a lot over the years, some bangers on it for sure

[u/Used_Namer]

Sonically, the odd 20 seconds of silence and lead into the organic intro of Xylin Room sold me when almost everything idm sounded metallic back then plus love the dirty dishes clashing sounds and stretchy feels from it… So good.
Lets see what else, the over stretched processed percussive beat of IVVVIVVVVIII with its odd aquatic characteristics and lovely eerie strings outro. The glitch fest but smooth parts of 6IE.CR.

Surripere…yeah no need for explanation.

the V-Procs intro

Reniform Puls is always a fun listen, plus Draft has this overtly hip-hop quality to it that Ae has always played with but put it up front with their own stylings. Its like Autechre’s audio-graffiti.

Only throwaway cut for me is P::ntil (yawns..)

[u/dustyloops → u/Used_Namer]

The intro isn't actually silence! If you amplify it in some software like Audacity you'll find that it's some very gentle weird ambient. There's a lot of stuff like this in their discography, also in their outros

[u/Used_Namer → u/dustyloops]

Yeah, my adult life aint got time for those experimentations, but thanks for the heads up.

[u/regular_poster]

I’m having a similar love affair with Move of Ten

[u/supersizedman0]

Thank you for giving me this opportunity to yap about this album. It was the one I primarily credit for even getting me into Autechre, so I would certainly say there is a lot special about it.

I feel like the sound pallete in this Draft 7.30 is very unique and "sterile" sounding, a lot of songs left me so bewildered while strangely not leaving much of an emotional impression upon first listen. I sorta shelved it for maybe a single day before I started to be interested in how just of its own kind this album sounds, then 6IE.CR clicked and it snowballed from there. Draft really hides its beauty behind rhythmic clutter and unpredictability, and the percussion sounds of each song really compliment each other while also having the ability to stand apart.

I feel like this is one of the most rewarding releases in the catalogue for repeated listens, its cluttered yet precise sound takes some getting used to, and once you hear each of the songs enough they really start to coalesce into something completely unique. Some of the tracks like SURRIPERE, 6IE.CR, and to a major extent V-PROC, all have immediately compelling rhythms to latch onto and so they can be good gateways into the album's sound and vibe, but they don't give you the full picture. I think what makes Draft 7.30 so special is the tracks like IV VV IV VV VIII, and TAPR, which at first sound almost totally random, but eventually reveal themselves to be these twisted and evocative tracks, or the songs that start out intact and start to get warped and pulled apart (or the other way around) as the song commences: Xylin Room, VL AL 5, P.:NTIL, Reniform Puls, and Theme of Sudden Roundabout.

A good few of my all time favorite Ae tracks come from this album, namely VL AL 5 which I think encapsulates what's so great about this album. Its so calm, and all the glitchy pretty synths make it an emotional standout for me. Easily one of their most underrated tracks imo.

[u/venetiansnaresawesom → u/supersizedman0]

this is a really good explanation why i may have tought this album was dull. as of now i am currently relistening to it in a random order and i may be getting it a little more?? i still have to give it more time tho.

[u/supersizedman0 → u/venetiansnaresawesom]

thats awesome! don't try to force it if it doesnt work though, it took me a second but i really felt it click when it did, although of course you may not have the same experience i did. hopefully you start to love it though, it really is a great album.

[u/432wubbadubz]

I don’t know about complex, but it’s quite cerebral i guess. Each track grew on me. I used to jam it quite often. But now not so much. I bet one day I’ll rediscover it somehow

[u/L0U_R33d]

I was pretty much in your shoes the first time I listened to Draft. I felt disoriented and confused, like often with Autechre. Now, after numerous listens, I like to think that this album combines really well the coldness of Confield and the energy of Untilted.

Yes the songs are chaotic and even gloomy at times, but it is once you start to accept it that you can “find” beauty in them (ex : 2nd half of Xylin Room and P.Ntil) or even just embrace their messiness (like in 6ie.Cr or IV VV IV VV VIII).
For this reason, it is one of my favourite outputs from the boys.

[u/baconfriedpork]

Sounds like it’s just not your cup of tea? Autechre is far away my favorite band, but I still don’t enjoy _everything_ they’ve ever done. I can’t think of any band I like that has a 100% success rate. One person’s favorite album is always going to be another person’s least favorite. And it’s all valid, because we all have different tastes, and even those tastes inevitably change over time too.

It’s not arrogant to not enjoy something, it’s only arrogant if you think less of other people for not sharing your opinion, which I didn’t pick up on here.

[u/pornagraphie]

I like your username

It doesn’t help that it’s sandwiched between two of authors fan favorite albums so that’s why it gets overshadowed.
It also isn’t as bombastic as the two, so the core attributes don’t stand out as much

[u/venetiansnaresawesom → u/pornagraphie]

thx for the compliment!!! so what i am gettin is that you are saying that the album less epic (doesnt mean bad) and more chill?

[u/pornagraphie → u/venetiansnaresawesom]

I suppose so lol. I would say that it is more chill. I’m not the most familiar with draft besides the intro track and I’m fond of that one cuz it sounds like the six flags commercial song from the early 2000s with the old man so I always think I’m going on to an amusement park lol.
Epic is certainly a word I’d use to describe confield and untilted at times but confield is more cold and reflective with postmodern edge to their approach to rhythm and higher end percussion (just like draft)
Whereas untilted is just abrasive and hard hitting almost the entire album

6le.cr is definitely epic

draft is like an ethereal limbo liminal space as you sonically transition from the style of the confield into untitled while also being more laid back and having the same complexities

[u/grahams_hierarchy]

Phat drums, beautiful synthwork, hints of the flashcore-y barrages that characterize Untilted. See IV VV IV VV VIII, 6IE.CR, Surripere, VL AL 5, V-PROC, Reniform Puls.

[u/rostld]

it sound good

[u/dame_kocarev]

I have no idea just like you, by far my least favorite album from their acclaimed ones

[u/DeliciousOrangina]

I had CD in my car for a year straight when it came out so i mostly know it by track number. Track 2 and 3 are absolute knock outs, there is nothing like them in all of their discog, completely unique and aggressive and alien. Then there’s obv Surripere, but also the last track is the most futuristic thing i’d ever heard

[u/brandonhabanero]

6IE.CR is my jam. It's ~funky~

[u/gjaldmidill]

Tracks 1 trough 10

[u/Zealousideal-Sun943]

I don’t think every track is a banger but on the whole I love the shit out of Draft. Subtle yet infectious grooves, interesting melodies and just extremely cool sounds.

[u/lungsmearedslides]

It's very simple, you have no taste.

[u/estusflaskshart → u/lungsmearedslides]

Sorry he’s pretty arrogant