Autechre Guitar sees guitarist Shane Parish tap deeper into the endless potential of electronic music.
Release date: February 27, 2026 | Palilalia Records | Bandcamp | Website
A certain dichotomy of stylistic choices tugs at the ends of this particular record: one one side, we’re exposed to the digital wizardry of Autechre, whose brain-knottingly abstract interpretations of electronic music have provided them with a fierce reputation; on the other, we have the medium Shane Parish chose to present them, namely the fingerstyle acoustic setting of American primitive guitar. Analog and digital clash deliciously across his new album, fittingly titled Autechre Guitar, although one would be hard-pressed to find anything remotely primitive about this outstanding collection of covers.
It has to be pointed out that we’re not talking about Autechre at their most intimidating, their most abstract. Parish has purposefully chosen tracks from their early body of work, where melodies were abundant and the indecipherable rhythmic genius behind their methods had yet to be revealed to the world. Indeed, their ambient phase could be described as juvenilia in the context of their later records; and yet, it would do injustice to those records and the brilliance of Parish as an interpreter of their idiosyncrasies to brush them off as mere easy listening muzak.
Autechre Guitar is, at its core, a lovingly demasking rearrangement of 10 tracks from the duo’s ‘90s period – Incunabula to LP5, mainly. One man, one guitar, no abundance of layers to hide behind (or hide some secrets in, I suppose). Essentially, Parish further reveals the emotionally resonant underbelly of Autechre’s run as ambient producers, before the complexity of their music ramped up significantly. To anticipate my inevitable conclusion, he’s accomplished his task beautifully; this album would be a joy to listen to even without its thematic throughline or referential (reverential?) gimmick.
Notes ring and reverberate in a pristine microcosm of acoustic guitar, highlighting Parish’s obvious chops as a solo instrumentalist. He leaves very little room for imagination regarding his potential – the way he utilizes both his instrument and the source material for these covers reveals him to be a measured and mindful guitarist. The signature sound of his steel-stringed instrument (a must-have given the genre he’s inhabiting) adds a tactile attack to the otherwise dreamy atmosphere of his reinterpretations. Under his fingers, Autechre classics like “Bike” and “Eutow” are transmuted into miniature revelations from an idealized Deep South.
Even the more challenging pieces (“Corc” and “Clipper”, for example) sound like they were meant to be presented in this – comparatively old-fashioned – way, as though they arose from the fantasy of a rambling bluesman instead of two computer age Brits. That’s not to say that either way of playing these songs invalidates the other; quite the contrary. When presented as true counterparts, they render each other all the more fertile in their atmospheric potential. In my opinion, that is.
No stranger to the task of reworking other people’s material – 2024’s Repertoire saw him tackle the likes of Aphex Twin and Kraftwerk – Shane Parish must have tapped into some sort of flow state in the creation of Autechre Guitar. This is his take on acoustic guitar music but taken to a different level, sonically and spiritually. Imagine him applying the possibilities of electronic music to his own compositions; one can only imagine what might transpire. Future applications notwithstanding, Parish has delivered an outstanding body of work here, one that will hopefully resonate with many fans of electronica and folk music alike.
