[rayword45]

Day 365: elseq 1-5 by Autechre (Album Choice: choof)

This is it guys. The bigun. Hey choof, you still owe me a review of It Just Gets Worse.

Yeah I'm not quitting after this, I have nothing better to do with my life. Well, clearly I have something better to do otherwise this wouldn't be coming 18 months late. Or maybe I'm just a lazy sack of shit. Eh... It's 1:00 A.M. and I'm gonna try to at least get through the first 3 EPs before calling it a night and finishing this off. These 365 reviews are like a chronicle of my mental descent. Even the so-bad-they're-terrible reviews like the Scientist albums and Analord 09 hold a special place in my heart as demarcations of certain points in my life. The latter I specifically remember writing while skipping school inside a MassArt bathroom because fuck going to AP Biology. That was a shit class, I didn't get the AP credit so I had to take a science course in college.

Going off that, I originally wanted to review user48736353001 as the big one... Yeah fuck that shit I don't think I'm ever gonna get through the entirety of that. While I listen to this one, I'm gonna reminisce a bit. Don't worry, I PROMISE I won't waste the entire review with dead self-indulgent air like usual. I'll separate the masturbation from the bad-but-legitimate music review.

I started NoFap as an experiment on January 3 because my bartard (I love you bro) friend convinced me to give it a shot. He swears by it like he swears by etizolam. 4 nights in, the only effect I'm truly noticing is multiple dreams, and they're very retarded dreams, shit like old high school spats turning into dance battles. I question my own psyche sometimes. And reading through these first few reviews of the challenge... Dude I have fallen for some ugly-ass chicks, inside and outside. Not specific to summer 2014, that's pretty harsh and I don't mean it there, I just mean in general. Fuck I have terrible taste in a lot of things. Ah well, opposites attract, right? That's why I get so much pussy. I was an angsty ass 16 year old back then and now I'm a numb, repressed, drugged up 19 year old, although I still have the exact same sense of absurdist hipster humor. Life is good, man. Those last two sentences came out way more depressing than I intended. Wait, HOLY FUCKING SHIT I started this challenge before I even had ever been drunk let alone try drugs that aren't weed. Wow perspective is insane. I bet if I looked at my posts on this website from 2007 I'd wanna kill myself.

3 years later, my favorite genres are still pretty much the same and I'm surprised I didn't list any electronic genres as favorite because they definitely were back then. Maybe it's because you're all weebs and I knew I would get a bunch of bleep-bloop recommendations anyways. There's a fuckton of albums I never revisited, maybe some warrant a revisit. Then again, a fuckton do not.

I'm gonna take a break after curvcaten to listen to Bohemian Rhapsody. It could just be the lack of sleep but reading through this is making me feel all kinds of ways. Also there are a lot of reviews, including A Day At The Races, where I gave glowing reviews yet never returned. I'm not fixing that particular one right now I just need the bombast in my ears.

This song reminds me of Clone High for some reason. Okay, being dead serious, I am SO GLAD I am not as much of a loser as I was that summer. Jesus Christ, I don't feel I've changed much at all but I hate my slightly younger self so much. It's funny, because I talk pretty much the same way except I'm probably dumber now. Or I'm just as dumb but slightly more self-aware.

I am fully convinced the guy who recommended Believe to me is going to die one day of something stupid and drug related (good thing he'll never read this, I'm a bitch). Serves him right for recommending that album, just kidding I hope he turns his fucking life around. Man, I've only hung on to like, 7 or 8 friends from high school, really. It's only been 6 months from graduation, but this is also affected by my high turnover rate for friendship. In reality, the friends I've lost fucking suck and I am always right, but it sure does induce longing to think about that time period. Those time periods. Lemme peep these 2013 reviews real quick.

Ugh, that was terrible. That's enough of a picture of me for me. The other day, I managed to get the 5 people in a hipster restaurant to laugh by complaining about the hipster radio station playing Neutral Milk Hotel. I don't get it, I'm not funny and that wasn't funny, that was sincere. That 2013 shit was from when I was just starting my old job (which I had to leave in August because college). I miss my old job. I miss having a job. Even the prospect of an unpaid internship is sucky because I am a broke bitch.

"I need to experience this in some outdoor festival or gathering or something, preferably surrounded by MDMA (which I would NOT take)." - Me in my review of Vision Creation Newsun. That album is still fantastic but seriously, who the fuck did I think I was back then? I really don't remember my identity back then much because I hung out with people with entirely different interests than me. Oh yeah, I was a hipster who did crazy shit for laughs. That... still describes me. I really have no idea where I am going, do I? Hey, I remember the exact moment of this 4-album streak! I have fond memories of that family camping trip, but I'm bothered that I seem to remember only uneventful events instead of, like, the drama that I was so addicted to. Oh yeah, BabyMetal still sucks ass. HOLY SHIT MY FIRST TIME LISTENING TO BORIS THAT'S HOW I FOUND MY ROOMMATE. Weird way to find a roommate, but it's been working out well enough. Thank you noname219, I owe to you a large part of my college identity as a... Why the fuck am I considered "street-smart"? I'm not street-smart I'm just surrounded by rich white kids and brain frying hippies who probably shrivel up at the sight of a cop car. Why did I bold a username? I'm keeping that bolded. Looking a little further, I am so glad I was right in my predictions that college would be better than high school. Fuck high school that place fucked me up bad mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically. Well, not so much physically but FUCK BLS. I wanna go up to my most hated teachers and administrators, brag about my now full point higher GPA, and blow weed smoke in their faces. In reality, that would accomplish literally nothing, but a boy can dream, can't she? I just ran across an old photo where the College Board (based on test scores) told me to apply to all the Ivies as well as Colby and Brandeis, man fuck were they thinking? That GPA would've gotten my ass called up then beat by the admissions officers.

I notice that the word rif***e was once censored because of the word "***" being place inside. Dude, there has to have been like a thousand words that got censored because of that. When I was 13, I thought I was asexual, but then I discovered I was just repressed. I'm on 2015 in this thread of self-indulgence and occasionally music now. What happened that year? The only real stand out memory is going on a boat for New Years. Damn was that one of the best experiences of my life, only to be topped this year. Life is good, I self-deprecate too much. Wait, I used to hate TRAP? Dude I was a boring fuck most of junior year!

I've chronicled a shitton of my life on the internet, but most of those memories have been lost to time, hosting issues and database purges. And good on that, this is cringe enough. Damn I come across as pretty self-important, even pompous. That Drake review, ugh. Not the whole thing, but the intro is at least... ugh. Holy shit, I started this challenge before going to my first real concert! I started this challenge before ever actually getting anywhere with a girl! I started this challenge before I had any legal troubles! Well, none of those were actually that long ago, but still, time flies. Interesting to see my first impressions of some of my favorites and some things where my opinions changed drastically (damn, that Solid Gold review had some tracks replaced with Return The Gift versions by mistake). Meanwhile, I've remained the same angsty fool inside, I should probably see a therapist. I just realized that the point where I stopped and started again within this shittier section isn't very well specified. I didn't write this all at 1:00 A.M but oh well, assume I did.

The imagery some of these old reviews conjures up in my head makes me long for times that were objectively shittier. Well, not really, I'm missing the good times like listening to Porcupine Tree in a sweaty-ass Puerto Rican car, but then I remember that those good times were surrounding by poopy times. Oh yeah, that Shaggs review... Man, what the fuck. Wait, I made it PAST halfway within 365 days? Really? That's surprising to me.

"Regardless, I'll push on, let's aim for the end of the summer, and failing that the end of 2015." lmfao

That Saralee album review makes me more depressed than the Shaggs one since it's slowly coming true. Be careful what you wish for, I suppose. And this is the point where I'm gonna stop with the self-reflection... Man, I'm a mess.

Okay, why the fuck did these guys tour in 2015 and drop this so long after? I can recognize feed1 from that night, but that's it for this first EP. That's the best track of the first five for sure. The rest is still very good, but a lot of it seems to drag on quite a bit, especially c16 deep tread. Remember how when I reviewed Oversteps I commented on the song names? Yeah that still applies here, WHAT THE HELL IS THIS CRAP? Being obtuse for obtuse's sake is not something I can get down with if I can't say things out loud. Regardless of these complaints, this is a damn strong EP... or album. These really shouldn't be called EPs. I'm definitely gonna at least return to feed1 and 13x0 step, probably the whole thing.

elseq 2 is a little bit more acid. Is this just gonna be 5 mini-reviews following a bunch of bullshit? Probably. This first track makes me wanna dance, and it makes me long for New Years again, until it meanders around the halfway point. Why? Is this supposed to be a solo? An analog synth solo? This just sounds like ASS. It's not interesting the way Gantz Graf is with the seemingly random sounds, it's just equal parts boring and grating. Yeah I'm an Autechre pleb. I can't listen to this as a 4 hour album, it's just not gonna happen. I'm gonna treat it as such for the sake of the review but it really already feels like separate EPs. That first EP was great, this one started strong but then it devolves into nothing but fart sounds. Well, c7b2 also has a little bit of taste to it, but it mostly sounds like the same old wankery.

Each EP has its own flavor it seems. This is barely an album then. Regardless of that fact, eastre is fucking phenomenal drone. I think the flavor of elseq 3 is repetition. mesh cinereaL is great... whatever. Abrasive and atmospheric stuff, reminds me of what I wanted Tri Repetae to be. Not much else I can say for this third disc except I'd place it between the first two in terms of quality and enjoyability.

This stop-start shit is great. These staccato sounds are great. I'm not gonna separate my opinions of discs four and five into separate paragraphs. Minus elseq 2 which I can safely say I'm not a fan of, I think this is gonna be a great accompaniment to some acid trips. Funny, the acid disc is the one I don't want touching my acid.

Okay, yeah I had to seperate the last two discs into two seperate paragraphs because they're so utterly different. elseq 5 is the minimalist disc, or at least minimalist by my standards of what I expect Autechre to be. Remember, Gantz Graf is my lifeblood. On that note, all five tracks here are wonderful, especially freulaeux. I kinda expected a more explosive ending than oneum provided, but it's still gorgeous.

Okay, and that's it. I'm done. 365 motherfucking albums. I could've just done one of these but I had to do something kinda grand at least. The problem with rating this one is that most of these are really good EPs, but they don't really add up to a cohesive whole. If I were to rate these in order, it goes 8, 5, 9, 7, 8.

Fuck it, I'll just give it an 8. This was a clusterfuck trainwreck.

Best Track: eastre or freulaeux
Rating: 8/10