Bleep

It turns out that SOPHIE and Autechre’s eventual pairing was down to fate. Before SOPHIE became the global arbiter of hyperkinetic pop futurism, the budding bedroom producer acquired a leaked Autechre live recording from 2007 — a document of an explorative phase between Untilted and Quaristice — and promptly sought the hardware they utilised. In a striking turn of historical interplay, those leaked recordings came to inform aspects of the off-kilter club atmospherics of her debut compilation, Product.

A remix was bound to happen. Autechre morph the mega-endorphin influx of the original ‘BIPP’ into a luxurious, syrupy pour; SOPHIE’s diva hook is re-pitched to a chopped and screwed swing, as a plethora of fine percussive detail — an errant hi-hat here, a digitised tom accentuation there — fills the indices between the rave-indebted bass climbs.

Recorded in SOPHIE’s Product days but never given its own release, ‘UNISIL’ is pure menace and mischief. Driven by a grizzly electronica pace and a cheerleader’s “hey”-handclap melee, the track is a potent narcotic made from soundsystem breaking techno and the producer’s penchant for finding the pop even in the darkest of places.

An unforeseeable historical cycle surges through this release, as Autechre simultaneously nod toward their own legacy in addition to the immanence of SOPHIE’s.

Rest in Power SOPHIE.