And if Robert Schröder is a perfect example of German electronic music at the start of the '80s, then this is classic Sheffield electronic music from the mid '90s, on the crest of Warp's first wave. And I know Autechre aren't from Sheffield, but they were living there at the time of this album — just off the Abbeydale Road, in fact, about half a mile from me. Gill, who started working for me a few months after this album came out, was friends with them, though I never met them.
This was during the period when I was working a lot on providing online services to organisations in the Sheffield's Cultural Industries Quarter. That included The Designers Republic, who had an office just downstairs from me. We created a newsgroup for them on our servers, and it was far and away the most popular newsgroup we had, because they really have a global fanbase. People would offer to pay to work for them. (One time our whole building had to be evacuated for half a day, because one 'creative' decided to show how off-the-wall he was by sending his portfolio/job application in the form of a letterbomb. Oh, how we all laughed.) You can see Ian Anderson from tDR talking about this experience in a video we commissioned. Nancy had fun editing it with the bluescreen background, so that, at one point, Ian appears to have horns.
Anyway, it was around the time that we launched this newsgroup that Chiastic Slide came out. People on the group said you really had to get the vinyl version of the album to appreciate the graphics (by tDR of course). The cover is part-gloss, part-matt finish, so it has an extra dimension that you probably don't get with the CD cover.
But being a double LP, I hardly ever listen to it. See, there's no pleasing some people. I've lost count of the number of times I've complained in these pages of albums being too indigestible when consumed in one 60-70 minute lump. But break that 70 minutes into four, as in the case of this album, and I complain it's too inconvenient to listen to. David, get a grip on yourself and dig out this record out more often: it's worth it.
And listening in four sessions, rather than one, is better.
Happy Winter Solstice! One year on from the first entry here.
 MusicBrainz entry for this album
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