Frost, Foil and the 6:42: A 24-Day Autechre Countdown for a UK December

December is a strange month to be an Autechre fan. Everyone else is reaching for the same twelve songs, and you are three tracks deep into something that sounds like a filing cabinet learning to breathe. So here is a different kind of countdown: twenty-four doors, one piece a day, each one pinned to an actual thing you will do in an actual British winter — scraping the car, queuing for stamps, sitting in a taxi that smells of somebody else's office party.

The rules are simple. Durations are rounded, so nobody gets caught out by a track that overruns the walk. Every piece here comes in under twelve minutes, which means nothing needs a dedicated evening. And each entry tells you whether it wants the kitchen radio or the good headphones, because that decision matters more than most guides admit.

Before you open door one

Three things worth agreeing with yourself in advance. First, one a day, in order — the sequence is built to sag in the middle of the month and lift at the end, mirroring the month itself. Second, no skipping ahead to the long ones; they earn their place by arriving after three weeks of short pieces. Third, treat the radio entries as genuinely background. If you find yourself standing still in the kitchen with a tea going cold, you have accidentally upgraded the door to a headphone door, which is allowed but should be noted.

Doors 1–6: the thaw

1 Dec — “Foil” (Amber, about six and a half minutes). Kitchen radio, low. The first proper frost on the bus stop window, and the least confrontational thing in the catalogue. Put it on while the kettle boils and let the pads do the defrosting.

2 Dec — “Bike” (Incunabula, about eight minutes). Headphones, walking to the postbox with a fistful of cards. Long enough to cover a residential street, warm enough not to frighten the neighbours.

3 Dec — “Altibzz” (Quaristice, about two minutes). Radio. Two minutes is the correct length for the moment you realise the office heating has broken again.

4 Dec — “C/pach” (Tri Repetae, about five minutes). Headphones, de-icing the windscreen. The scraper keeps time with it, which is either a coincidence or a gift.

5 Dec — “Yulquen” (Amber, about seven minutes). Radio, very low, while wrapping presents badly on the living-room floor.

6 Dec — “plyPhon” (Quaristice, about three minutes). Headphones on the school run or the walk to the station. Short, springy, and it survives being paused halfway.

Doors 7–12: the office fortnight

7 Dec — “VLetrmx21” (Garbage, about eight minutes). Headphones, Sunday, doing nothing. This one is often filed under the usual quiet-tracks list, so use it properly: sit down, no phone, one cup of tea.

8 Dec — “Dael” (Tri Repetae, about six and a half minutes). Radio on the desk. It has enough forward motion to keep you off the intranet and enough repetition to survive a Teams call.

9 Dec — “Rae” (LP5, about seven minutes). Headphones, immediately after the Secret Santa. Whatever you received, this will make it feel deliberate.

10 Dec — “Notwo” (Quaristice, about three minutes). Headphones in the lift, or the stairwell, or the two minutes you spend pretending to check your phone before a meeting.

11 Dec — “Eutow” (Tri Repetae, about five minutes). Headphones, walking to the works do that you are already regretting. It puts a bit of strut in the step.

12 Dec — “os veix3” (Oversteps, about four minutes). Radio, stirring something in a pan. The percussion is oddly good company for chopping.

Doors 13–18: the dark middle

13 Dec — “VI Scose Poise” (Confield, about six minutes). Headphones, lights off, curtains open. The first genuinely cold night, and the first genuinely strange door. This is where the calendar stops being a nice idea.

14 Dec — “Uviol” (Confield, about seven minutes). Headphones on the long bus. Sit upstairs at the front if you can; it rewards staring out of the window.

15 Dec — “Flep” (Exai, about six minutes). Headphones in the taxi to wherever you are going. It fills a car pleasantly and stops small talk.

16 Dec — “see on see” (Oversteps, about four minutes). Radio, wrapping paper everywhere, sellotape on your sleeve. Gentle enough for other people in the room.

17 Dec — “Simmm” (Quaristice, about five minutes). Headphones, the late train home, seat reservation ignored. Something about the drum programming suits a carriage that is half empty.

18 Dec — “bladelores” (Exai, about eleven minutes). Headphones, Saturday afternoon, no interruptions. This is the big one of the run. Eleven minutes is nothing until you are in it, and then it is a small holiday.

Doors 19–24: the taper

19 Dec — “Under BOAC” (LP5, about six minutes). Headphones, the post-office queue that snakes past the cards and out of the door. Perfect tempo for shuffling forwards by one metre every ninety seconds.

20 Dec — “r cazt” (Sign, about seven minutes). Radio, low, while the flat gets tidied for people who will not notice.

21 Dec — “Outh9X” (Quaristice, about seven minutes). Headphones for the last big shop of the year. Bring it in at the car park, not the aisles, unless you enjoy being asked if you are all right.

22 Dec — “Drane2” (LP5, about nine minutes). Headphones, the drive to family. Nine minutes of something slowly coming apart is a fair description of the M6 in December.

23 Dec — “Yuop” (Oversteps, about seven minutes). Headphones, late, lights off, everyone else asleep. This is the door that does the emotional work.

24 Dec — “Nil” (Amber, about seven minutes). Radio, then headphones for the last two minutes if you want. Christmas Eve, everything bought, nothing left to do. A good place to stop.

Radio doors versus headphone doors

A quick decoding for anyone planning to follow this properly. The radio entries — “Foil”, “Altibzz”, “Yulquen”, “Dael”, “os veix3”, “see on see”, “r cazt” — are chosen because they hold up when half-heard, when there is a kettle or a conversation on top of them. Keep the volume where you would keep a radio station, which is lower than you think.

The headphone doors are the opposite: they want the whole ear. “VI Scose Poise”, “Uviol”, “bladelores” and “Yuop” in particular fall apart if you are doing something else, and that is the point of having them in a countdown rather than on a playlist.

The printable checklist

Screenshot this or print it; it fits on one side of A4, which makes it useful for a Sublimit meet-up or a listening group chat.

• 1 — Foil (radio)
• 2 — Bike (headphones)
• 3 — Altibzz (radio)
• 4 — C/pach (headphones)
• 5 — Yulquen (radio)
• 6 — plyPhon (headphones)
• 7 — VLetrmx21 (headphones)
• 8 — Dael (radio)
• 9 — Rae (headphones)
• 10 — Notwo (headphones)
• 11 — Eutow (headphones)
• 12 — os veix3 (radio)
• 13 — VI Scose Poise (headphones)
• 14 — Uviol (headphones)
• 15 — Flep (headphones)
• 16 — see on see (radio)
• 17 — Simmm (headphones)
• 18 — bladelores (headphones)
• 19 — Under BOAC (headphones)
• 20 — r cazt (radio)
• 21 — Outh9X (headphones)
• 22 — Drane2 (headphones)
• 23 — Yuop (headphones)
• 24 — Nil (radio)

On the twenty-fifth

Nothing. Leave it alone. Twenty-four doors is enough for one catalogue and one month, and the whole appeal of doing this is that it stays a small ritual rather than a project with homework. If you want something to do with your hands, go and read a sleeve properly — you have earned it. And if you only manage fourteen of the twenty-four, that is also a perfectly normal December, and the doors will keep until next year.