In 2010, Autechre were in a bit of a crossroads, their reputation in the electronic music world was firmly in the 'impenetrable black box' territory, as the journey towards ever weirder music that began with Tri Repetae had fermented into records widely considered to be pretty incomprehensible for the average listener. They were fresh off of releasing Quaristice, a record composed of edited down live jams which saw a marked departure from the planned and composed Draft 7.30 and Untilted. Oversteps would also be a further left turn, as the generative elements present in their late 90's work and Confield returned, with additional emphasis on Max/MSP and VSTs. Oversteps was considered by the duo, according to The Designers Republic's Ian Anderson, designer of the artwork for the record, to be their "most unhuman album" yet, something which contrasts his thoughts of it being their most organic one. This contrast between humanity and the machine is a common trait of Autechre's record, and that in the context of the late 2000's and early 2010's reminds me of the design of that time.

Take the revisionist aesthetic of Frutiger Aero; when distilled into its most basic elements, it represents Oversteps quite well; synthetic and plastic naturalist works, which in the world of corporate design, behaved similarly to a flower growing and blooming amidst derelict and brutalist structures, something which works as an apt description for the record's atmosphere, whose musical palette is composed of the oxymoronic expression that is natural synthetic sounds. Facsimiles of metallophones, string instruments, soft and graceful pads, elements which seemingly fight against corruption from massive sounding synthetic drums. It's a beautiful juxtaposition of nature and brutalism; drum sounds towering over the soft, algorithmic melodies present in the record, in a strange dance between the harsh, dark, noisy characteristics of one, and the fluid, graceful and soft ones of the other.

The battles between nature and brutalism have numerous states in this record. For instance 'qplay', after a 40-second long beautiful, frigid synthesizer melody, is overridden by harsh synthetic drums, FM-synthesizer pads and a 303-sounding bass melody above it, with little respite throughout the four-minute runtime, with the section in the middle of the track, when the drums slow down, showcasing how it is irreversibly damaged, being faster and slightly less harmonic. Whilst 'see on see' is entirely nature, with a primary waterfall-esque melody backed by a slow bassline and accompanying pads, with drums absent with the focus entirely being on the dance between the cascading notes and the bass which attempts to guide them. For something entirely brutalist, the closest may be 'st epreo' a loud track led by a distorted analogue bass line, and distorted noisy drums, these backed by a hypnotic arpeggio melody. This tension between these two elements never drifts into the unsatisfying or uninteresting, it is always enthralling and the detail present within this rewards one's attention and time spent.

Oversteps provides Autechre's most beautiful compositions. Unlike Draft 7.30 and Untilted which focused on rhythmic supremacy, Oversteps provides an enthralling atmosphere which results in one of Autechre's most intoxicating records ever.