This was my second Ae buy after 'Amber' and boy what a difference three years makes. This populates a different universe than the previous three albums - 'Amber', 'Incunabula' and 'Tri Repetae'. Most of their moments are melodic, 'funky', or at least 'structured' in their innovative broken-beat way.

Chiastic Slide is more than a bit anarchic beside them, but boy what a ride! There is just so much happening all the time on this album, that it really demands attention. It makes good background music as well, but is best listened to in the dark through decent headphones, as all good electronica should be. Ordinary speakers lose so much detail in music like this, unless you have a 'distraction-proof' room with decent acoustics.

There is an 'industrial' edge to many of the tracks on this album, hinted to on 'Tri Repetae++'. "cipater" rumbles on innocently enough until broken into pieces and reassembled with menace three and a bit minutes in. It is the entry to a darker Ae world that is as engaging as the more melodic earlier albums in its own warped way. "rettic ac" begins like a constipated modem tone signal and somehow morphs into a nothingish-synth-wash-with-constipated-modem-tone-signal-background snippet, which suddenly becomes the skittery-beat "tewe" before you can guess what it might have become. "tewe" manages to also morph - this time into more syncopated beats - a stunning Ae romp. "cichli" bounces off the inside of your skull like some cheeky little 'follow the bouncing ball' ad etched in electro-sound. Woven into this is some stunning synth melody, which just adds to the allure of a remarkable journey through the ever changing Ae sound-world. Your $15 would be well spent just for the chance to hear this one track!

Boy oh boy. After "cichli", "hub" is an industrial wake-up call. Gone is the cheekiness and melody and on comes the intro to the piledriving future Ae 'let's break up the sound into mildly palatable beats and melodic snatches and see if we can bend some ears and minds'. It sure works for me!

Don't go thinking that the boys'll let you off after that either - "calbruc" doesn't break the driven industrial mould. Sure, we get a bit more melody, but this is not 'Amber' style Ae. "recury" is no antidote either - this is uncompromising music that demands attention and is not for the sonically faint-hearted!

"pule" comes as a bit of a relief. Its catchy, bouncy beats allow the mind to rest after the relative punishment of the previous trio. But, ha ha ha, they tricked us, because "nurne" festers, as we're given more tempters for the ascerbic and driven later albums - lucky us! "nurne" dissolves away into bass throbs and jittery, statticy white noise. Lovely dark way to end a darkish album.

If you like to be challenged sonically, Ae is your ticket. Every album is worth a listen and none will disappoint if you give them a chance to insinuate their way into your synapses.

I guess this goes without saying, but Autechre's music is really strange. For the longest time I didn't like it; it sounded too cold and mechanical. Then I started to like certain tracks off Tri Rep and Incunabula, and when I purchased LP5 I was instantly impressed. The paradoxical thing is, I think their music is so intriguing because it always leaves you dissatisfied on some level. I return to their music again and again, not because it has addictive hooks, or because it's emotionally moving, but because it can seem willfully oblique, pretentious, brilliant, underdeveloped, overly macho, touching, and immature, often all at the same time. Even now, though I own more of their albums than any other electronic artist, can I say that I love Ae's music? Not really. Some of it, especially Confield, I find near unlistenable (in the sense that the pain far outweighs the pleasure). Is it because their music is always brilliant but difficult? Again, no. Some of their music is quite boring, some of it comes across as childish. But at their best Sean and Rob capture something no other electronic artist can, something visionary and damaged.

Anyway, this is one of their best albums, but as others have noted, it is not for beginners. Or maybe it is, for ones with patience and sophistication. All in all, I would say this is their most "feminine" album, in the sense that it has great melodies, and it almost feels like something is gestating within the music, or that the music comes from a pullulating electronic rainforest (especially Pule). It has a lot of static, "crunchy" and analog sounds, which gives it a warmer feel, that contrasts nicely with the snappy and often harsh beats.

The best tracks to my ears are Cipater, Rettic AC, Cichli, Calbruc and Nuane. Everyone talks about Cichli, and I like it too, but it is somehow too obvious and irritating after a while. I'd like to recommend Calbruc, which like Cichli starts out harsh and ends with fragile strings, but is to my mind the better of the two tracks.

Nuane deserves special mention. It's a stunning track. Imagine you're standing in the middle of the desert when suddenly a vibrant parade passes by, led by drummers but eventually with wild dancing, lurid floats and confetti, eventually receding into the distance. Perhaps it is the "pied piper" Ae track, leading the faithful on to the more sinister terrain of following albums. To me it's one of Ae's most positive - even inspirational - tracks. Someone here said it sounds evil, but I disagree; to me, it sounds defiant, buoyant in an unsentimental way, as if saying "yeah, life is difficult, but we are going to party, d*mn it!" Nuane fades out it into a single tone, that seems fitting at the eight minute mark, but overstays its welcome by the twelve minute mark. That's another thing, Sean and Rob are ornery guys, so several tracks here may try your patience, especially Hub, Recury, and Pule. Still, it's worth sticking with it - its a grower.

On a side note, in terms of the "best starter album" in Ae's ouevre, I'd like to say that Tri Repetae++ is not one of my favorites. Strangely everyone seems to praise it, but I didn't like it much when I bought it, and I still don't (the Anvil Vampyre and Garbage EPs are tasty though). I'd start with Incunabula and LP5, then depending on which style you prefer - ambient or experimental - move on to Amber or this album, respectively. Why not?

I don't agree with most of the critics of Chiastic Slide, indeed I would go as far as to say that it is the most satisfying of all the full-length albums the band has done so far. While LP5 and Tri Repetae are certainly forces to be reckoned with, I find that there is something so emotional about the metallic clanky beats and faraway claxon hums and static pads of Chiastic Slide that it seems to leave those other two pinnacle albums looking somewhat impotent...
Chiastic Slide sounds like the consummation of the early period of Autechre, where they had taken the dark hardware machine beats as far as they could be taken, not in terms of aural wreckage but in terms of just raw feeling. After Chiastic slide, Autechre began to evoke less grandeur and more inward chaos... it began to sound less like immense machines and more like artificial intelligences of quasi-physical design. Confield was a bit of a return to the machines, as was the second half of EP7 (another personal favorite), but no album since Chiastic Slide had really captured these particular vibes so well.
A lot of critics point to the middle tracks of the album, which feature beats that really don't evolve much throughout the track, but I find that these tracks are the ones that carry the most emotional weight and really envelop the listener. By the time the tracks end, they have gathered so much sonic dirt, light and glory that an entire new world has been created in your ears. These are the things that bring me back to Chiastic Slide over and over again, and these are the things that should be praised on this fantastic album.

I had gotten this album a little bit after buying Tri Repetae++, Draft 7.30 and Confield (which made me an Autechre fan, I just couldn't get enough of the weird noises of that album) and after having taken a quite large amount of listens at it, I just am not impressed. I really tryed liking this record, but I just can't embrace it like almost every other Autechre album I currently own. There's something clearly missing in the execution of the tracks here.

The album's beginning shows great premise; Cipater is an angry up-beat industrial number that morphs halfway through into an incredibly dislocated and interesting drum pattern with a sparse melody mixed in whilst Rettic AC is a short, yet immensly enjoyable static grunge that features incredibly scary synth pads. Tewe has a nice percussion track that keeps clicking at various time intervals through the song's 6 minutes. Cichli is an actually catchy tune, featuring a 5/4 drum track over which various melodies start overlapping each other and forms an haunting finale.

Things go downhill from here though. Hub is an attempt to simulate an abandonned warehouse setting and the melody do fit the bill, but the drum track is unnerving and never changes through the whole's song length. Most other tracks suffer a similar fate and are way too repetitive or abrasive to be actually ambient. Recury kicks off with a drum loop and a 3-note melody which never changes through the song (and it lasts close to 10 minutes!) whilst Nuane is harsh-sounding and not really interesting neither. For a 13-minute long track, it just has not enough ideas to stay interesting.

In the end, if you are a Autechre fan I'd say you should still listen to that album. The first half of the album is actually great and even surpasses Tri Repetae in terms of quality, but the rest of the album is pretty much forgettable mostly due to the huge amounts of repetition in the latter tracks. This is also definitely not a starting point for Autechre's newcomers, your best bet would either be Incunabula or Tri Repetae++. These are their best, yet more accessible releases.

This record is, in my opinion, Autechre's best, Closely followed by the infamous Confield.
Each track is beautiful in it's own way, and they've each got a unique sound to them. Something I've personally never heard done.
The standout tracks are Cichili and Nuane though, they're both so well made it's amazing.
Cichili is a wonderful track with a really harsh industrial sounding 5/4 drumbeat, it's very dark and you can hardly tell the drums are in 5/4 time because they're so well made, they just give off an incredible feel of push and pull.
The melody is lead by a pizzicato string, square lead bass and another string pad of some type.
It takes more than one listen to really appreciate though.
Nuane on the other hand is evil sounding.
It starts out with a really muddy and paranoid drum loop that drags on until the bass cuts in. The bass in this song is just a two note thing, very simple but adds great effect to the whole song.
The other melodies and leads follow, and they come to rest at about 5-6 minutes and the rest of the song is static and bass, but it somehow manages to keep the listener's attention.
Those are the standout tracks. The rest are good as well, but those two are the real keepers.

I don't understand how this album could be considered a disappointment in comparison to Tri Repetae. Tri Repetae must have impressed most critics with its stark and elegant production; as has been said before, Chiastic Slide is like Tri Repetae dragged through sludge (it's funny how similes and metaphors must always be applied when describing Autechre's music).

The difficult label did not seem to apply to me either; granted, this isn't probably something you want to drive to or work to, but if you put it on while you're at the computer, or just listen to it for what it is, the tracks here are simply much, much, much more interesting and captivating than just "difficult."

Cipater and Cichli are most often mentioned as best tracks. I like them too, but Nuane and Recury get stuck the most in my mind. Nuane is a jagged, punchy piece with a very disconcerting synth in the background-- it's menacing and creepy but undeniably cool. Recury is a repetative track, but what a beat to repeat-- clinks & clanks with a wobbly synth, gives me the feeling of people working in coal mines. And, heck even for a piece of mostly static, Rettic AC is cool and works with the album as a whole.

I would agree with the reviewers who said that this album sounds more like the mind of an overstimulated individual rather than machinery, that it is definitely not the Autechre album you want to start with (try Incunabula or Tri Repetae), and conversely it is infinitely more accessible than Confield.

My views may not be much different than what has already been said, but I am surprised at how little comment this album has got. If you are partial to Autechre, give it a few spins. Once you become familiar with it (and then addicted...), it will be a clear five stars.

Autechre is the premium in avant-gaurd industrial/ambient techno or, best termed electronic. "Cichli " is the first piece that really caught my attention and NOT on the first listen. This piece is a really good example of Autechre's true prowess. It's place on the recording is number 5 (I think) and it does not start with overly abrasive anti-Symphonic beats. It is louder industrial, but takes the listener through many ebbs and flows as it moves along.

There are many such gems on this recording but if you are familiar with records such as Amber, this is NOT like Amber at all. Quite honestly, I did not like this recording on the first few listens. Their genius was over shadowed by the abrasive percussion attacks and any true artistry was left undiscovered... for a good while. I kept putting it on the shelf and going back to what I knew. NOW, I appreciate it for what it is.

Buy anything from 1994 and then buy Gratz Graf and THEN buy Chastic Slide! Listen to it in doses when those frantic moods arise. You WILL eventually fall in love. Superior spin!

A bold statement but one I stand behind. This is the single most addictive and inspiring album of all time. This album changed my life and caused me to look at everything differently. This is a must have for EVERYONE.

This is Autechre's 4th album. It's absolutely excellent. While it is quite harsh in sound, it shouldn't take long to warm up to it if you already are into IDM. Otherwise, you may wanna get something like Tri Repetae.

This album shows Autechre exploring more of the industrial sounds they started to experiment with on Tri Repetae. They sound like a completely different badn though. Everything is just gone so much... "more". The beats are harsher, and more abstract and more complex and some even use unusual time signatures making them hard to follow.

The melodies are darker and more beautiful than ever before. They just sound more mature, and more unlike ANYTHING you've heard before. They also experiment with odd song stuctures.

Although I like ALL the songs, I'd say the highlights are Cipater, which has a rather groovey industrial, crunchy beat and a nice change up half way through. Cichli, although repeatitive is INCREDIBLY beautiful. Hub is also very beautiful and majestic, suprisingly short as well. And Nuane is just plain cool... gives me the same feeling when techno and dance was cool. Even though it's not beautiful, it's just cool.

Overall, I highly recommend you get this if you are into IDM.

I love this album. To me, it plays as if Mother Nature has opened her wing to include all machines along with organic life. But maybe that's what all Autechre's work sounds like?
This is like a glowing pregnant woman...It's very much a feminine record when considered alongside the fluctuating, almost incoherent LP5.
What I love about this album is that it's really an ambient record. It recalls towering amphitheatres ("Recury") and tidal waves ("Rettic AC")...To me, it's almost as much an ambient record as Amber. Well...

An awesome awesome album.track 4 "Cichli" will bring tears to your eyes.if it doesnt your not human and you must be a robot.

I remember buying Chiastic Slide a year ago before it was available in the States. As much as I loved Autechre, this CD was about as accessible as K2 to a man with no legs. I liked listening to it, but it was an occasional listen. In retrospect, I see it as how you view the album in terms of mood or emotion. Autechre provide no clues whatsoever about the emotion of the song, they leave it completely up to you. That being said, it takes a few listens in order to comprehend what they may or may not be saying. Some people claim Chiastic Slide (and Autechre's work in general) lacks emotion. I think just the opposite. Autechre let us into the dark recesses of the mind with this one. Melodies lurk ominiously above percussion that devours everything in sight. Then everything changes, and light breaks over the bleak landscape. Chiastic Slide is almost schizophrenic in it's approach, which I feel is what makes it so great. I don't picture robots and computers when I hear this, I picture the mind of an over-stimulated individual. And now that this CD is available here, hopefully more people will be exposed to the infectious disease which is Autechre.

This may very well be the great lost electronic record of the 1990's. Autechre followed the warmly-received Tri Repetae with Anvil Vapre, an ep that hinted at an edgier, darker and more organic side. Chiastic Slide showed that side in full view.

Someone once compared the music on Tri Repetae as the sound of machines chattering away to each other in the dark. If so, then this record is the sound of those machines trying to drag themselves out of a dark tarpit under the glare of acetylene lights on some forgotten evil robot construction site.

No, this isn't an easy record to get into, but with time, it reveals what is, at its heart, some of Autechre's most beautiful music. It's brutal and stark in its delivery sometimes, but it's nowhere as difficult as Confield.

"Cipater" starts off with a slow hip-hop influenced beat that's just somewhat...off. Over the course of the piece, the melody slowly develops, the first rhythm drifts out and is replaced by a second one, which lopes along in an odd 3/4 vs. 4/4 friction. It then segues into "Rettic AC," which is a two-minute wash of tuned static with a slight melody poking through the mist. It's very similar to "Caliper Remote" on LP5.

"Tewe" is a shambling, limping beast that trudges through, leaving only fragments of melody and a sloooowly developing rhythm track in its wake.

"Cichli" is the centerpiece of the record, one of Ae's most disorienting *and* beautiful pieces. It takes a bit to realize that the whole track is in 5/4, but because the drums are programmed so well, it doesn't seem forced a bit. As it rumbles on, a slow string melody ala "Vletrmx21" gradually builds and drifts into the foreground until the drums gradually fade out and the result is a gorgeous two-minute chorale.

"Hub" as a track of seemingly disconnected beats that coalesce and dissipate around a slow melody. Not bad, but nothing we haven't heard before.

"Calbruc" enters with an absolutely punishing drum track that sounds like pistons in need of oil. At the 1:30 mark, the whole effect changes when the strings and a single bell enter, harkening back to the chorale-like melody of "Cichli."

"Recury" follows with a floating, clanging beat overlaid with menacing open-fifths from the strings and what sounds like reversed church bells, which intermingle with what sounds like either a whale sound or a dead siren. Very neat.

"Pule" has a pizzicato string line that just seems to drag on for about eight minutes. Nothing special, but pleasant just the same. Of course, it acts to soften the listener up for "Nuane," which is just menacing.

A disjointed beat box pattern characterizes the first part of the track. It's definitely in four, but, like much of the rest of the album, you really have to listen closely to keep your place. The whole thing mutates very subtly over the course of twelve minutes, and though nothing changes much, it's still engaging, and a darn classy closing track.

Smog and darkness seem to permeate the whole record. Much of the sounds use sound as if they were once analog, and living up to Tri Repetae's promise, there's plenty of surface noise here, not to mention quite a bit of grease seeping through the cracks. The polished chromes of their earlier work have been replaced here with rust and oil, but the melodies that struggle up out of the grime are among the most beautiful they've ever come up with. Most of the pieces are very long and take their time to develop, and this is not an immediately accesible album, which is probably why many listeners panned it at first.

It's also worth mentioning that this record shows them pursuing a much more hip=hop influenced approach, which along with the analog sound, they pretty much abandoned for LP5. This approach is also used a great deal on Envane, the EP that followed this record (which is possibly my favorite record of theirs). The Cichlisuite EP, if you can find it, contains radical reworkings of the title track, most of which sound like either throwbacks to Tri Repetae or steps to LP5.

If you're already an Autechre addict, you'll get this sooner or later. If you're not yet hooked on their mind-expanding assemblages of machine noises and sublime melodies, you're better off starting with Tri Repetae, Incunabula or EP7. Chiastic Slide is far less immediately enjoyable, except for track 4, the lovely "Cichli," easily among Ae's most mesmerizing compositions.

I got this album, along with Aphex Twin's SAWII for Christmas, and this is the one I've listened to the most... I love it... sure it's inaccessible at first (not half as inaccessable as SAWII I might add), but give it time... it is very rewarding after a while i've getting used to it... At first I thought it was ok, but really repetative... now I think each and every song is amazing... this is only my second Autechre purchase, although I have heard Amber, and parts of LP5, and Tri Repetae, and already I think it's the best out of those... It's just so beautiful, and noisy, and desolate, and lonely all at the same time... it starts with Cipater, which is a very cool song which starts one way, and morphs into something totally different before it ends... track 2, although considered just noise by many, is beautiful... I liked it right from the start... Tewe is another good one... the percussion is really cool, softer then some of the other songs, and it has a beautiful subtle melody that really comes into view after a few listens... Cichli however is the highlight for me... it's one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard... and the ending where the percussion falls away and the melody is left alone is simply perfect... the rest of the songs are each amazing, and the last song is another highpoint, which I only realized earlier today... it's a great great ending to a beautiful album... track 8 is the only song I haven't totally gotten into yet, but even that one is very appealing to me... look, if you like electronic music, are sick of the state of popular music today, and are interested in exploring different types of music, then definately check this out... it is absolutely brilliant!

"Modern" Autechre began with Chiastic Slide.
Though it still has many nods to the old school AE of Tri-repeate (which every Autechre review must refer to by law), it marks the beginning of a more "glitch" than "industrial" sensibility, abandoning metallic machine noises for blipping popping sweeps of static and skipping. All this, of course, layered over and woven around the melodies and beats that Autechre specialize in. Clear, emotional, and rythmicaly weird. The main difference between old AE and new AE, pioneered with this record and the "Envane" EP just before it, is that where tri-repeate (extra mention! 200 points) and others get tired, this one grows on you at a mathematical rate till every little noise is fun and satisfying. Required listening for us geeks who want to track Autechre's the Artistic Development.

In 1997, Autechre released their fourth LP entitled Chiastic Slide and after four years of the US fans been isolated from easily obtaining, Warp has finally released in the US.

Chiastic Slide is a departure from Tri Repetae in terms of sonic timbre. Instead of the analog warmth of "Eutow" (Tri Repetae) or even the spacey clicks of "Rsdio" (ibid), you have the grit of "Second Bad Vilbel" (Anvil Vapre) magnified to the third degree. The result is "industrial IDM" where grit, pound, feedback and clicks run the show. Of course there is somewhat of a soft side but it's buried underneath the grit.

Naturally this is not the album to start with (unless you like the gritty techno of Oval and later Aphex Twin). I still would suggest starting out with Tri Repetae++. But this album shows Autechre's continuing progression of making sonic architecutre more Bauhaus/cubist.

I have had the pleasure of owning this cd for 3 years now. Well I borrowed it for three years.. Anyway, I think this CD is their best. I very much ep7, Tri Repetae, and their S/T, but Chiastic Slide is my fav. Please do your self a favor and try and get this CD somewhere ......

I have had the pleasure of owning this cd for 3 years now. Well I borrowed it for three years.. Anyway, I think this CD is their best. I very much ep7, Tri Repetae, and their S/T, but Chiastic Slide is my fav. Please do your self a favor and try and get this CD somewhere ......

I love Chiastic Slide myself. It's probably Autechre's most musical album to date. Almost every base has been covered in a 9 track span. But, it's hard to get into, and most people will probably listen to it once and be put off by it. This CD, probably more than any other Autechre, rewards deeper listening. I've listened to every Autechre CD I own constantly, and know every little quirk by heart, but not with Chiastic Slide. I hear new things every time, no matter how subtle they are. "Cipater" is probably my favorite off the CD, reminiscent of driving through the bad part of the city at 3am in the morning. The sitar that floats over the last 5 minutes is one of the most beautiful moments in electronic music history. "Rettic AC" is the track that takes the most time to get used it. To the untrained ear, it's just a bunch of random noise, but what lies under the noise is something you have to hear to understand. "Cichli" is a schizophrenic robot, with it's constant clicks and bloops covering up it's cries for help. "Hub" is something like what I used to create with my drum machine and Yamaha keyboard. I'd record the track, then slow it down and reverse it. It's completely alien, and almost disturbing at point. "Recury" launches itself forward with one of the fattest and largest breaks I've ever heard, twisting and spewing through nearly 10 minutes. "Pule" is probably the most musical and pleasant Autechre track of all time. It's got a Carribean feel to it, and I assume the melody is composed of steel drums. It's the kind of music you'd want playing while in Heaven or the afterworld of your choice.
I'd say, paying the extra money is well worth owning this. Even though Autechre constantly evolves, this is nothing like they've ever touched before. It's just incredible.

Approach every autechre CD as you would an ambient CD (does that explain why some think this album is repetitive). To understand their music you must first understand the underlying emotion of each song. Some people say its just a bunch of noise (especially the Confield album) but really they just can't get in contact with the needed emotion. But once in contact you become fused with the music!

I just got this CD in the mail and I'm on the 7th track. It is definately worth the purchase so far. The music is complex but that doesn't necessarily make it difficult. LIke I said, maybe that's because I've listened to so much ambient music (ENO, Tangerine Dream...). What I'm trying to say, though Im not good at writing stuff, is that if your an intellectual, romanticist, or industrialist THAN THIS CD IS FOR YOU!

If you're thinking about getting this album and have never heard it before, then don't let the negative reviews turn you off. While Chiastic Slide may not be as immediately listener-friendly as some of their other albums, it is ultimately a rewarding experience. And, you'll be able to hear the beginnings of their shift to their present EP7-esque style on this album.

There are albums out there that make great background music, or thinking music, or driving music. Chiastic Slide is not in any of these categories. It is your "turn off the lights and do nothing but listen" kind of music. Some have said it is repetitive and boring but if you listen to it under these circumstances you'll find layers of detail there you never knew existed.

The structure and form of these pieces are very unique and unlike earlier Autechre works, for example, the first track shifts and pulsates into a completely different rhythm halfway through without the listener even knowing it until after the fact, then eventually fades out into ambience in a style much less loopy-sounding than some of their earlier works. The interweaving Autechre melodies we know and love are still there, just buried deep under layers and layers of samples, sometimes not even recognizable until you've heard the disc a few times. Track 3 is one of those tracks that can't be described, bizzare soft-metallic synth leads and sharp string-plucking sounds form a most unlikely combination that works. Track 8 is a mesmerizing ambient track which starts with a very autechre-ish melody remeniscent of their Amber style, which eventually disappears into a sea of warbling melodic waves, remeniscent of late-night b movies. Track 9 is arguably one of autechre's best tracks of all time, starting with a formulaic mechanical beat, then suddenly turning into a slower, almost hip hop style track, while autechre takes ambient vocal sounds, even feedback, anything they can get ahold of, into a swarm of digital harmony.

There is definitely more movement on this disc than previous Autechre works, and the entire CD starts and ends without any space between the tracks, some are crossfaded. There's so much going on, so much to listen to, yet it is so controlled and precise, that this CD is anything but boring, and once you like it, you'll wonder why it took so long.

Chiastic Slide is Autechre's most unique and consequently strange and alien album so far (Up to and including EP7 and Peel Sessions). It is also the most challenging. Some chide it as being directionless or uninspired, but I think this is simply due to an inability to see something deeper. This is by far Autechre's most dissonant production. It is harsh and violent, but each track conveys a distinct atmosphere. It sounds like the music of metal insect robots from another galaxy.

It opens with one of the most catchy tracks on the album, Cipater, but the next track, Rettic Ac. Everyone else describes this track as simple noise; apparently I am the only one who hears the beautiful pad behind it. To me, it sounds like a strange yet beautiful cave with digital air. The third track, Tewe, is perhaps the best on the album. From there it sinks into a discordant lull, but is still enjoyable. But the last track, Nuane, takes it out with a bang. Like someone else said, it is definitely a headphone album.

Unfortunately, this album is not for everyone. To some, it is just too strange (and repetative!) to enjoy. To me, it is brilliance.

Lots of very Aphex Twin-esque tunes, but with intricately-produced rhythm tracks utilising lots of cut-up, 8-bit samples. And that's 'Chiastic Slide', really. It's very measured and modern, and impeccably tasteful to cite as an influence and / or inspiration, but often quite dull as music once past the initial novelty of the production. Such is their image, it's annoyingly impossible to criticise without appearing to be a real-ale drinking musical philistine, too. Nice packaging, though. I hear they got better, however, as time went on.

Are record companies in the U.S. to afraid to release this? The album sounds like something you would hear inside a factoy. Some tracks are good like Cipater, and Calbruc while some like Rettic Ac sound like pure feedback. Only buy it if you really like Autechre, otherwise the import price isn't worth it.

This, by far, is the darkest CD put out by autechre (and my least favorite)which is probably why it hasn't been released stateside. Unlike autechre's Incunabula which moodily meshes subtle dance beats with their trademark discordant and jarring noise soundscapes or Amber which delves into a more ambient arena, Chiastic Slide is a dark, brooding unfocused mess. In this follow up to the absloutely brilliant Tri Repetae++ CD, which is by far the most perfect piece of work this duo has created, it seems as if Booth and Brown dug deep into the recesses of their psyches and came up with what appears to be a CD of deeply personal psychological creativeness, dark and moody and sometimes even scary. Tracks like Cichli start off light hearted with beats that ping pong back and forth like Jiffy pop in a tin can and then suddenly, without warning, turn dark and brooding. Some tracks slide into static, others become repetitious and annoying. As a die hard fan of autechre, anything these guys do is nothing short of genius, but chiastic slide is definitely NOT thoer finest hour. Fortunately, this dark period was brief as their self titled CD autechre (also known as LP5), the peel sessions and EP7 (which is actually a full length CD for the price of an ep)find booth and brown returning to form. Chiastic slide disapppoints but is a definite must have for fans.

As a physicist, I have a somewhat different (from the norm) set of images that come to mind when I listen to music. I tend to imagine particles moving about; robots clanking; planets hurtling through space.

Chiastic Slide is the only album I own where everyone else talks in the exact same language. One of my friends described this as "the soundtrack to robots making love," an especially apt description for the metallic, yet playful scrapings of tracks like "Tewe" and "Cichli."

The first track, "Cipater," reminds me of a series of gyroscopes spinning unison, destabilizing at times, then snapping back into sync. The music essentially oscillates between periods of perfect flow and periods of abrasive cacophony, subtly converging at the end into an amazing composition that I never fail to see coming.

"Pule" is one of the most laid-back pieces on the album, but it's one of my favorites. It's an example of everything that's done right about tonal ambience, the kind of sound that made Arovane so popular, but which Ae perfected first. I've always felt that it takes someone truly intelligent to compose good IDM, and I hear it most clearly in this track - the way Booth and Brown keep altering the tempo and aural interplay to elevate this track from "just" ambience into an engaging, breathtaking listen.

I'm a huge fan of Autechre's early work, mainly because I've gotten too busy to follow them in the past 8 years. Chiastic Slide is easily their best work from that period, standing out so far above most of my collection that I'm increasingly frustrated with people who could even have to think twice about purchasing the album. It was a rough listen for nearly a year; but now it's brilliant and I can't bear to part with it. If you find yourself starting to hear the brilliant moments of Tri Repetae++, pick this one up - it's got a million more.

Comparing this album with their previous or later work would be a rather absurd thing to do,all of their works are excellent in their own right and represent prominent milestones in the ever so capricious evolution of the Electronic genre,a big part of which they brought about themselves.This album is definitely one of those prominent milestones and represents a pinnacle achievement in the abyss of Electronic.I would best describe the evolution of Autechre's music as a constanly expanding conoid,their ability to be thought provoking has never ceased to amaze me,and I don't think it ever will.

I have no idea how they do it but Autechre creates a distinct original sound that can't be recognised with each album. Like diffrent flavors of something tasteless. Chastic Slide almost has the most distinct sound I've heard from them....

Autechre is indeed an amazing group. The name of the band couldn't have been a better way to describe their music. Chiastic Slide couldn't be a better example of how brilliant this group is.

While early albums like Incunabula and Amber were minimal and melodic, they seemed to lack and eventually seem uninteresting on the surface. Tri Repetae was a breakthrough for the group and showed a renewed spark in their direction. Chiastic Slide is the masterpiece which this band should hang above their mantle.

From start to finish this album seems to tell a story almost, as each track fluidly transitions into one another. The first track, Cipater, is a gorgeous intro, with flowing distorted beats and lucious melodies. The syncopated tunes toward the end (sounds much like a digitized harpsichord) seem to invoke chills. The third track, Tewe, shows autechre's advanced skill at creating some of the most lovely percussion loops that seem to never "loop." As the album progresses, the tracks eventually seem to disintegrate into static, giving the album continuity and an overall atmospheric theme.

It finally climaxes at the last track, Nuane, which will not disappoint.

It's a tragedy that this album is not being domestically distributed. It is their best work. Maybe Nothing or Matador will notice it and make it easier for American fans to pick it up.

If you like CS, then get Envane. An amazing EP.

I've listened to just about everything they've done, and this is the best, most consistant Ae release to date. And I don't agree that early Autechre is better than their later stuff. Chiastic Slide is more inventive, more beautiful and more listenable than anything they've done before. A joy from start to finish.

I can't tell you in words how much I've been disappointed by this album. After listening to "Tri repetae", I spent sleepless nights, and I still use "Tri repetae" as a reference point when I do reviews of techno records. "Chiastic slide", in many ways, just tries to duplicate the ideas and sounds of this masterpiece, and it even brings an ugly, dissonant and uninspired edge into the music. Many tracks are just built around a simple noise riff and crashy sounds, without much substance. The first two tracks are pretty good, though, and "Cichli" comes up with these psychedelic melodies so typical for Ae's earlier output. The rest is just plain boring for me. It also lacks the concept character of Ae's previous albums. And subsequent efforts like "EP7" with even more noise and less inspiration have really put me off. Not only Autechre, but also the Warp label started to fade. However, "Chiastic slide" is an o.k. purchase for new fans, but for me it was the beginning of the end.

This is Autechre's best and most challenging recording. What makes this album a delight is the unconventional instrumentation that carries each track. "Cipater" sounds like a room full of malfunctioning copier-machines chattering away at one another, while "Rettic Ac" is pure static disturbance, sounds like the amplification of feet stomping through snow combined with an odd scratching noise. Autechre has knack for taking the familiar sounds of our everyday world and twisting them just beyond recognition, to where one can only guess it's origin. This is definetly a headphones album, as there are moments that sonically jump unexpectedly, to wonderful effect.

Strange. The more I listen to Chiastic Slide, the more it grows on me. I can remember how painful my first couple of listens were. In fact, this is probably one of the least accesible albums I've ever owned. And the fact that its so hard to listen to made me feel kinda uneasy, seeing as how I had to pay an import price to own it. But strangely, theres something attractive about Chiastic Side- even if I do have to force myself to listen to it sometimes. Here's what happens with CHiastic Slide. Track one plays, and the intro features some really sweet percussion. Then we hear a really dark and synthetic bass, and it sounds really nice. It gets under your skin for about 4 minutes, at which point the song mutates into something a little more agressive. "Sweet" i thought, expecting that the other tracks would feature a similar formula. But then track 2 plays, and track two happens to be really really strange and noisy, devoid of the cleverness of a strange drum loop or a wicked synth noise. It just sounds like....like nothing. Or too much of something....hmm. I guess what I'm trying to say, is that it didn't fit. Or maybe it did, and my ears just didn't react like they should have. Either way, the whole album continues in this veign, and is very unforgiving.

The reason I would deem Tri Repeatae as the paradigm Autechre album is because of it's variety. We get to see Autechre do EVERYTHING that they do. Some of it was hard to listen to, some of it was easy. Some of it was hugely ambient, and some of it was profoundly straightforward. It had something for everyone, and it was the perfect introductory album. Unfortunately, Chiastic Slide isn't so fair to the listener. It challenges, both rhythmically and mellodically, by being as odd as it possibly can. Some songs were a little too much for me to grasp, and i sat listening for the cue to nod my head (which never came). So i was led to believe that i might have been listening for the wrong reasons, nd that i should stack it on my shelf till i was in the right mood...

And that turned out to be a good idea. So now, there are times when I wanna set the volume to max, and hear Chiastic Slide fo what it is- but those times are few. When it does happen though, I can appreciate the sexiness that comes with Autechre's odd time signatures and twisted-as-anything samples. And at those moments I'm happy. So the bottom line is this: I don't always enjoy Chiastic Slide, because I'm not always in the mood for it. I know that this can be said for any music you listen to, but I think that it applies a little heavier for Chiastic Slide; listen, and you'll know what I mean. It might take a while to get into, But Autechre fans (like myself) are ready for that sort of thing. And for those diehard Autechre fan folks out there, this is an album definately worth seeking out.

Autechre really baffle me. They are talented, this much I know. What is the problem though? Music is a mass medium with a wide audience. When you are a musician, or team of musicians, you have some kind of responsibility to people to repay the time and attention they give to listening to something, or watching it, or reading it. I don't know if there is anything of that nature to speak of here. I don't know what this is, frankly. It is not music. The sounds are fascinating, but Autechre has always been about these amazing sounds they create. But what is this that has been collected. I am baffled, period. Possibly it is so ahead of its time, or I am just a fool. I don't know, but I cannot imagine the appeal of Autechre anymore. This is like music for your computer, for a robot without a thinking mind, only a calculating one.