Autechre ( ) are an English electronic music duo consisting of Rob Brown and Sean Booth, both from Rochdale, Greater Manchester. Formed in 1987, they are among the best known acts signed to UK electronic label Warp Records, through which all of Autechre's albums have been released, beginning with their 1993 debut, Incunabula. They gained initial recognition when they were featured on Warp's 1992 compilation, Artificial Intelligence.
Influenced by styles such as 1980s electro and hip-hop, the music of Autechre has evolved throughout their career from early, melodic techno recordings to later works often considered abstract and experimental, featuring complex composition and few stylistic conventions. Their work has been associated with the 1990s electronic genre known as intelligent dance music (IDM), though Booth has dismissed the label as "silly".
History
Early years (1987–1992) Rob Brown and Sean Booth met in 1987 through friends in Manchester's graffiti and breakdance scene. Shaped by Manchester's electro, hip-hop and acid house scenes, they began by exchanging cassette mixes before making their own tracks with inexpensive equipment, including a Casio SK-1 sampler and a Roland TR-606 drum machine. Their first release was a self-titled 12-inch issued under the alias Lego Feet by Manchester's Skam Records.
The pair's first release as Autechre was the 1991 single "Cavity Job". Booth has given the pronunciation of Autechre as "awe-teh-ker" ( ). He later said the name originated while the duo were working on an Atari: the first two letters were chosen for an "au" sound, while the rest were "bashed randomly on the keyboard".
In 1992, Autechre signed to Warp Records and contributed "Crystel" and "The Egg" to the Warp compilation Artificial Intelligence. "The Egg" was later reworked as "Eggshell" for their 1993 debut album Incunabula.
In 2019, archival material from this period was broadcast on NTS Radio as Warp Tapes 89-93 during Warp's 30th-anniversary programming and released as a free download through the AE Store.
Incunabula and Amber (1993–1994) Warp released Autechre's debut album, Incunabula, in November 1993. The album included "Eggshell", a reworking of "The Egg", which the duo had contributed to Warp's 1992 compilation Artificial Intelligence. Incunabula reached number three on Music Weeks Independent Albums chart. Rob Brown later described Incunabula as "more of a compilation of old material", contrasting it with Amber, which he called "the first album we put out on Warp".
In 1994, the duo released Basscadet Mixes, an EP of versions of the Incunabula track "Basscadet". Their second album, Amber, followed later that year. Compared with their debut, critics have described Amber as more ambient and less tied to Autechre's early techno roots, while still containing traces of techno and acid house.
Shortly before Amber, Autechre released Anti EP, a protest against the then-proposed Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill. The bill's rave provisions defined music as including sounds "wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats". The EP's packaging stated that "Lost" and "Djarum" contained repetitive beats, while "Flutter" had been programmed so that no bars contained identical beats; it advised DJs to have "a lawyer and a musicologist" present in the event of police harassment. Proceeds from the EP were donated to the civil liberties group Liberty.
Tri Repetae, Chiastic Slide and LP5 (1995–1999)
In 1995, Warp released Autechre's third album, Tri Repetae, along with the EPs Garbage and Anvil Vapre. Retrospective reviews have described Tri Repetae as a shift away from the warmer, more melodic sound of Incunabula and Amber, emphasising harsher, more mechanical textures while retaining links to hip-hop and techno. The Anvil Vapre track "Second Bad Vilbel" received a promotional video directed by Chris Cunningham.
Autechre released Chiastic Slide in 1997; the same year, Warp also issued the EPs Envane and Cichlisuite. In a 2017 retrospective, Chris Zaldua of Fact described Chiastic Slide as a pivotal album in Autechre's catalogue, arguing that it marked a turn from the beat-centred character of earlier releases towards a more textural and abstract approach.
The duo's fifth album, an untitled 1998 release commonly known as LP5, followed the next year. Pitchfork later characterised it as one of the points in Autechre's catalogue where complex programming and relative accessibility were most closely balanced. In 1999, Warp released Peel Session, recorded for John Peel's BBC Radio 1 programme in 1995, and EP7, which Pitchfork noted was an EP in name despite its album-length running time.
Confield, Draft 7.30 and Untilted (2000–2007)
Autechre's second John Peel session, originally broadcast in September 1999, was released by Warp as Peel Session 2 in 2000. Their sixth album, Confield, followed in 2001. Pitchfork described it as one of the duo's most abstract and difficult releases, characterising the album as a set of ordered soundscapes built from textural, dissonant and atonal repetition. Booth later said that much of Confield grew out of experiments with Max that were not suited to a club environment.
In 2002, Autechre released the three-track Gantz Graf EP. The release was accompanied by a DVD containing a computer-animated video for the title track directed by Alex Rutterford. Pitchfork described the EP as a partial return to more rhythmically direct material after Confield, while still extending the duo's recent abstract approach.
Draft 7.30 followed in 2003. Pitchfork presented it as more rhythmically graspable than Confield, writing that the record foregrounded beats and melodies more clearly than its predecessor, while still dividing listeners over whether it represented a return to form or a refinement of familiar methods. Booth said in a 2003 interview that rhythm no longer seemed to limit the group, adding that they had become "totally fluent" in it.
Autechre released Untilted in 2005. In a 2005 interview, Booth said the album contained "no generative work", contrasting it with the generative and software-based methods associated with Confield. The release was followed by a tour through Europe, North America and Japan. Brown later said that the tour, Booth's move from Suffolk to Manchester and a more portable working setup helped shape the sessions that led to the shorter, jam-derived tracks of Quaristice in 2008.
Quaristice, Oversteps and Exai (2008–2013) Autechre's ninth album, Quaristice, was released by Warp in 2008. It marked a structural change from Untilted, consisting of 20 shorter tracks rather than the duo's longer, more continuously developing pieces. Brown said the album followed the 2005 Untilted tour and Booth's move from Suffolk to Manchester, during which the duo adopted a more portable working setup and generated weeks of multichannel audio from jam sessions. The resulting material was edited into shorter tracks, with longer versions left aside. The album was later expanded by the download-only Quaristice.Quadrange.ep.ae, a set of extended and alternate versions whose runtime is around 150 minutes.
In 2010, Autechre released their tenth album, Oversteps. Pitchfork described it as quieter and more atmospheric than Quaristice, leaning toward the slower and more ambient aspects of albums such as Amber while placing greater emphasis on texture than steady beats. Later that year, the duo released Move of Ten, a ten-track companion release that Pitchfork characterised as a beat-driven counterpart to Oversteps, emphasising sharper rhythms and more direct links to techno and electro.
In 2011, Warp issued EPs 1991–2002, a retrospective box set collecting 47 tracks from Autechre's EPs across the first eleven years of their recording career.
The duo's eleventh studio album, Exai, was released in 2013. Originally scheduled for physical release in March, it was made available digitally in February; the album contained 17 tracks and ran for about two hours. Pitchfork described Exai as Autechre's longest album to that point and noted that it ranged from bass-heavy beat tracks to more amorphous drone-based material. The album was followed later that year by L-event, an EP that Pitchfork described as closely related to the Exai material.
AE_LIVE, elseq 1–5 and NTS Sessions (2014–2018) Autechre performed at Warp's 25th-anniversary event Warp25 in Kraków in September 2014, and toured North America the following year. Recordings from this period were released as AE_LIVE, a series of digital live albums. The initial 2015 release collected four sets recorded in 2014, followed by additional 2015 recordings later that year.
In May 2016, Autechre released their twelfth studio album, elseq 1–5, through their Warp-hosted webstore. The five-part release contained 21 tracks, including the previously issued "feed1". Pitchfork described the release as more than four hours long and noted that it had no planned CD or vinyl edition; the review also presented elseq 1–5 as an extension of Autechre's recent live sets, with a richer range of sounds.
In April 2018, Autechre broadcast four two-hour sessions of new material on NTS Radio. The material was later collected as NTS Sessions 1–4, an eight-hour release issued digitally and in 8-CD and 12-LP physical editions. Booth said the project was conceived as a radio show after the duo realised they had enough material in their software patches to fill eight hours, and that the tracks were edited and sequenced with that format in mind. Pitchfork described NTS Sessions 1–4 as Autechre's longest experiment to that point, placing it in continuity with Exai, AE_LIVE and elseq 1–5 as part of the duo's move toward large-scale digital releases.
Sign, Plus and AE_2022– (2020–present) In April 2020, Autechre released AE_LIVE 2016/2018, a set of seven live recordings from concerts in 2016 and 2018. Later that year, Warp announced Sign, Autechre's first standard-length studio album since 2013's Exai; it was released on 16 October 2020. Booth said the duo began building the album's software rig in summer 2018, after their Australian tour, and finished the material in February 2020. Pitchfork described Sign as a comparatively compact and direct release after the duo's large-scale digital projects of the preceding decade.
Plus followed twelve days later as a surprise digital release on 28 October 2020, with vinyl and CD editions released on 20 November.
After the two 2020 studio albums, Autechre returned to releasing live-recording series. In August 2023, the duo released seven 2022 recordings under the title AE_LIVE 2022–; the sets were recorded in six European cities and ranged from 60 to 80 minutes. In November 2024, they added twelve recordings from 2023 and 2024 under the title AE_2022–, amounting to about 14 hours of music. In a 2024 interview with Metal, Booth said the concept of the studio album had become outdated for him, while Brown described the duo's current approach as performing, recording the sessions and releasing those recordings.
In December 2024, Autechre were BBC Radio 6 Music artists in residence, broadcasting four one-hour programmes from 9 to 12 December. In 2025, the duo announced European and North American dates, including their first North American tour in a decade; the North American itinerary was later expanded, and Pitchfork reported that recordings from the shows could become part of the ongoing AE_2022– series. In December 2025, Autechre announced 2026 dates in Japan and Europe, including a London show described by Pitchfork as their biggest headline date to that point.
Influences