Autechre & Space Afrika

Storm Boelo was hammering the Greenwich peninsula when I arrived. Inside, Autechre seemed to channel that violence into a dense electronic maelstrom with nowhere to shelter. I like to stay curious and try different gigs. A couple of weeks ago, we saw my wife’s favourite Mongolian metal band. This weekend, Autechre scrambled my brain with a kind of electronic industrial madness. I do like much of Autechre’s recorded material, so I find myself wanting to believe in the kind of live experience Derek Walmsley describes in Autechre as Concert Musicians. And after any gig, I like to say I had a great time and maybe write a positive review. But this time, I can’t do that. Autechre’s headline set at Magazine London was a strange experience: a relentless assault with barely a beat of space. It felt dangerous, somehow. I love a lot of their recorded stuff, but I didn’t enjoy being pummelled by relentlessly fast patterns, peaking at 200 bpm, through a thundering PA in a huge black box. For…