"All Tomorrow's Parties Vol. 3 - Autechre Curated"

The key to this souvenir from the All Tomorrow's Parties festival from 2003 is in the second part of the title, Autechre Curated. The tastemakers of the avant-garde electronic music scene have brought together a collection of artists from different schools of modern music who are, like Autechre, pushing boundaries and exploring new realms of sound. This series of collections from the festivals has only been getting better (see Volume 1.1, 2.0, and even the excellent 1.0 for more), and this release again expands (it's a double disc this time) and improves upon what has come before. Autechre have professed their love of hip-hop, which is well represented with contributions from Public Enemy, Masters of Illusion, and Dr. Dooom. The IDM scene is also well documented; tracks from Bola, Disjecta, Baby Ford, and others (including Autechre themselves, and their alter ego, Gescom). And Jim O'Rourke holds the torch for the avant-garde with his contribution, "Call Up on Your Sisters," along with tracks from O.S.T. and Pita. The selection of artists cannot be doubted. This is the strongest of the ATP compilations yet in that the artists involved are all searching for what is next with their sound, and their experiments are for the most part successful (although, to be fair, Anthony "Shake" Shakir's drum'n'bass sounds a little tired, and Hecker's DSP/glitch weighs in on the uninspired side). For those not familiar with the electronic music scene as it stood in 2003, this compilation provides an accurate and engaging snapshot of the time as it was, and will become essential as that time passes by.

3 stars