Taking Sides: Autechre vs. Aphex Twin

i think your definition of breaking ground is different to mine. i mean he's always taken an older style and put his spin on it. the analord stuff takes established dance forms but beefs everything up with fat analogue synths, and it's not like he's just got a 303 or a pro-1 and a few drum machines, the sound design is pretty unique to him. he's also pushing the boundaries of the form in typical aphex style. hyper dense, challenging music. the same as he's always done. and on top of all that, it bangs like a daddy.

IIRC he claimed he made RDJ album short because he thought long albums were boring, despite having already released SAWII, pretty much the epitome of "long and tedious" (as brilliant as it is!)

maybe releasing it all the Analord stuff on expensive, limited vinyl wasn't a smart move? because I would agree, that stuff is plenty good

"Chosen Lords", in my opinion, doesn't really capture the best stuff, from what I've heard. The thing is that it's really the same stuff he's always done as AFX, neat acid junk that really has the mark of a man who composes like 250 tracks a year and doesn't have much time to work on them, but I prefer the Analords to the Analogue Bubblebaths (which have awesome tracks but as a whole are kinda...eh)

― frogbs, Wednesday, 9 May 2012 16:09 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This. I lost patience with the series as I haven't had a record player (or storage for records) until recently. Plus it's a mammoth collection to sift through. Think the series was good for obsessives, but a terrible commercial mis-step. I'm sure he doesn't give a hoot, but it completely wrongsided fans like me who'd been disappointed by Druqks and would have preferred an approach like ICBYD.

I'm not sure how much he cares about commercial success, but is he really still just living off money from his 1996-1998 heyday? It's not like he tours much.

probably.

radiohead fans

He must make a fair amount of dosh each time there's a TV documentary about the paranormal.

plus I guess pretty much everything from SAWII was licensed out

IIRC they used "4" in some kind of anti-drug advert which struck me as really odd

Orange (?) probably paid a fair few for To Cure A Weakling Child too.

didn't that series "Jam" use a ton of Aphex music

aphex still plays too and probably makes mad $$$ every time he does

afaict lots of retired or semi-retired electronica dudes make a lot of scratch hush-hush on the side doing uncredited sound design for tv, commercials, movies, video games, etc

not sure if aphex is doing that or not but i know a lot of other people are

like who

i know richard devine's stuff is everywhere but he's hardly retired or anything

xxpost I know a handful of local producers who do this - it's very common and good money. Wouldn't be surprised if that's how a lot of ex-popular musicians get their beer money.

i encounter loads of people that say they do this, but in reality they sit around smoking spliffs and maybe do a job or two a year for like an iphone game that never gets released. and there are libraries and companies that specialise in this stuff now.

That's probably what I'd be doing too if I was a washed up bedroom producer. Sounds great.

good autechre article for the geeks

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr04/articles/autechre.htm

<3

"The worst things are the timeline sequencers where you can see on the screen what's coming up. That really f**ks with your head when you're listening."

one prominent example would be photek - that's basically what he was doing from 2000 to 2010

another two i know about by name are neil landstrumm, who did sound for playstation games iirc, and gold chains, who basically quit recording to do sound design for mtv promo spots

http://oi45.tinypic.com/289m0e8.jpg

ae PWND AGANE by afx

http://www.synthgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/aphex_face.png

tlg PWND AGANE by SYNTHGEAR

worth a click through though

http://www.bastwood.com/?page_id=10

i remember that. the venetian snares one cracked me up

yeah i remember hearing about that and thinking it was photoshopped, but sure enough

that face is great. and it sounds otherworldly.

the live face recognition / remapping thing also fantastic.

but i still voted ae.

Is it just me, or is "Clipper" (and I guess other bits of "Tri Repetae") the closes Autechre came to sounding a lot like Aphex, or at least not dissimilar?

Not to me. I always thought that Amber was their most Aphexy album.

In fact, I still think that "Nil" sounds an awful lot like "Schottkey 7th Path."

Keynell

... is awesome

really like the lego feet EPs, probably more than any gescom except the immortal detroit techno masterpiece that is TWO OF

Hah, listened to Confield for the first time in ages, and sure, I can see why folks might think that one is taking the piss.

oi mates some granular synthesis is all over me bloody techno lp im going to make me an orrible post about it to me ilxor chums