Autechre - classic or dud

I think even at the time of Incunabula, there stuff wasn't considered that simple.

I probably wasn't being very clear earlier as I was at work. Chiastic Slide, will always be appreciable to many because it was made in the way it was (like Kraftwerk is still appreciable today). But I'm guessing at what role Autechre's music plays in 2010 when everyone has access to computer programs that can replicate Autechre's previously painstaking techniques. I don't see Brown & Booth being happy to sit on their laurels making MAX/MSP patches just like everyone else forever and ever.

Grrrr... dinner time now - that didn't make sense either.

Is the Autechre concept still relevant for people any more?

They are still more ae-sthetically pleasing to me than other IDM groups.

They still have done things that other IDM groups haven't accomplished (to my knowledge). For instance, they did some songs where you can still hear notes that are no longer there (and I remembered them mentioning stuff like that in one of their interviews). I still vision Autechre as top of the line innovators of experimentation even if I don't care much for the last couple albums.

is the music of the future now so current that Autechre are being beaten at their own game?

I dunno. Hate to sound rockist but technology only gets you so much. I think they use it better than most.

In their prime, Ae got by on being the pioneering experimental act; whose influences stemmed as much from hip-hop and graf culture as avant-garde architecture; who championed the art of circuit bending and algorithmic composition to create sculptured mathematical sound-art; but who also displayed a Gorecki-an knack for hide-and-seek extra-human melodies that only revealed themselves through intensive listening.

But how can Autechre continue when the dubsteppers are creating these incredible experimental soundscapes that you can dance to? When pop and r'n'b producers are moulding and shaping sounds beyond human imagination whilst still maintaining a sexual sheen? Does Autechre's brutal, often ugly intellectualism become redundant when modern bedroom producers can recreate their techniques without putting a sequencer through a food condenser, and make it pleasant to listen to as well?

I fully realise that these questions make me sound like I don't "get" Autechre - really I do. And while I thought pretty much everything between Confield and Untilted was (come on face it) the electronic equivalent of Yngwie Malmsteen playing a 24-string guitar with his arse-cheeks, Quaristice was a surprisingly welcome pull away from the brink of total meltdown.

The difference between albums like Draft7.30 and EP7 wasn't just down to method, it was conceptual too. EP7 remains their most interesting work because each track has a tangible concept that it is based around. Draft is pure electronic gymnastics, probably fascinating to MAX/MSP dorks but little interest to those looking for beauty in the random/not random jitter.

So the reason I'm interested in this next album is to see where they go next. What tricks do Booth and Brown have up their sleeves? What is the 2010 equivalent of circuit-bending and how will Ae outrun their competitors?

Well I've heard it, and its nothing like the last couple of albums. Its more ambient and much prettier.

I think it may divide fans a bit actually!

Has it really leaked yet Trayce?

yes, the actual album is now circulating.

When pop and r'n'b producers are moulding and shaping sounds beyond human imagination whilst still maintaining a sexual sheen?

this just ain't so. sure they're using some strange noises and inventive arrangements, but no way is pop or rnb approaching ae-like levels of sculptural weirdness.

DL I think the point is that Autechre fans (such as you and me) enjoy the off-putting strangeness for its own sake. It's not so much that they're creating "incredible experimental soundscapes", it's that they make their listeners feel like they've really worked to get to the chewy center. It's what has always set Autechre apart from AFX, the Orb or what have you. I guess you could argue that in their prime they were pushing Max/MSP in interesting new ways, but I'm not sure you could keep the argument up for long. There have always been lots of talented producers. Autechre have been pioneers of the machine aesthetic more than the machine technique. I say this as one who considers them beyond brilliant.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you can enjoy Autechre without believing that they are ***INNOVATING*** at all times.

DL yeah as of yesterday or day before, at least according to Modey. I'm pretty convinced - it sounds damn good.

that they make their listeners feel like they've really worked to get to the chewy center.

Yeah I relate to this. Ive always found Ae really... difficult. Since being with a big Ae fan with a very musical ear, who points out complex and winding little melodic or rhythmic passages Id've otherwise totally not even noticed, it is more rewarding.

Theyre still not a band I like putting on while I'm doing the housework or reading, mind you. They're too much work for that haha.

you can enjoy Autechre without believing that they are ***INNOVATING*** at all times

More importantly, you can enjoy Autechre without BEING INVESTED IN believing that they are innovating at all times. I always feel like their best stuff sounds totally inhuman - the kind of music computers would make for the entertainment of other computers - but that's just a description; it's not a value judgement. Dog latin, you come off like Autechre not being weirder/more obsessively intricately hi-tech than everyone else on earth, and doing things you can't possibly figure out how they did them, is a deal-breaker for you. That's a really weird, crabbed approach to art, seems to me. Would you elaborate, and/or tell me I'm wrong?

Draft is pure electronic gymnastics, probably fascinating to MAX/MSP dorks but little interest to those looking for beauty in the random/not random jitter.

I dunno man, 'draft 7.30' / 'grantz graf' are my favorites of their whole trajectory. the melodies they used to play on their keyboards are still there, they're just completely baked into the sound design of each track, and those sounds are beautiful in and of themselves. and when they do return to the keyboards... last track on 'grantz graf' is one of the most beautiful pieces of music they've ever done, when that high descending line comes in for the first time, it's just effortless

pfff, Untilted rocks like fuck!

and even the the old "IDM = lol electronic fretwank" opinion/cliche yet again.

(Trayce - I had no idea you and Modex hooked up [this is correct, non?]- so pleased for you both!)

LOL it happened 2 years ago! :) I thought you knew :) yeah its been awesome =)

unperson, ledge, lukas and everyone above are of course, otm - because it's obvious when listening to the best of Autechre's music that there's more to them than their technical brilliance. Quaristice was a very smooth sidestep, but I did get worried at one point, around the time of Untilted and Draft that they'd become quite happy to coast along.

xpost nope didn't know until the other day haha!

One more thing about Ae before I go to bed. What were people's overall opinions on Draft7.30 and Untilted? I don't HATE these albums I must say. They have certain merits.

In mind Draft7.30 is the sound my brain would make if I were kidnapped by pirates and forced to remember an entire Funkadelic album so as not to be seasick during a storm.

Untilted makes me think of a janitor sweeping up a stadium after the world's biggest breakdance event.

Untilted is phenomenal, but my memories of Draft don't make me want to return to it.

also love untilted.("sublimit" people!!)

I throw draft on every once in a while and nothing sticks. all these years later and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. I imagine every ae fan has an album or twelve that fit this bill.

there just weren't enough melodies in draft (/geir)

Untilted makes me think of a janitor sweeping up a stadium after the world's biggest breakdance event.

lol

someone could write an algorithm that generates an infinite array of ae lolsoundslike similies

o rly

brb throwing all my autechre CDs out the window

I can understand being drawn to music due to it being innovative, but there has to actually be something there to keep you there, right? The idea of Autechre being "beaten at their own game" means nothing to me, as their game is to make music that people will presumably want to listen to. I don't think there's some producer->consumer contract where both sides agree that it has to be innovative.

I kind of cringed at the idea of Kraftwerk being appreciable only because their music was "made in the way it was." It's appreciable because it's good music!

The point of some Autechre work, to me, when it's not immediately accessible or danceable and certainly not hummable, is that it can evoke feeling. There are a couple parts of Confield that make my teeth hurt and make me feel uncomfortable as they sound so alien. I don't necessarily get pleasure from that, but I definitely get something, so I return to it on occasion.

extra-human melodies that only revealed themselves through intensive listening.

HUH?? I've listened to them all these years, and huh??

I can't listen to Draft or Untilted -- hate the compressed sound. In fact, I think Confield used up all the patience I had to try to get into subsequent Autechre releases, so that I don't even have time to try to "get" Quaristice.

Quaristice is pretty accessible IMO, some of the outtake material even moreso.

New album sounds like Plaid imo

Good '90s Plaid???? Say yes, Tray!

Well Ive only heard Double Figure, so...

I mean obv it sounds like Ae, really! But it has these Plaidy bits here and there.

someone could write an algorithm that generates an infinite array of ae lolsoundslike similies

― nakhchivan, Monday, February 8, 2010 6:26 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

o rly

brb throwing all my autechre CDs out the window

― Salvador Dali Parton (Turangalila), Monday, February 8, 2010 6:39 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

yeah

btw "Know" (or whatever the 3rd track is called) is gorgeous

This whole premise that Autechre were great because they were more technologically adept than their contemporaries is ridiculous, and frankly, more than a bit elitist. And by the way, have you heard that all rock music from the past thirty years is crap because no modern day guitarist can shred like Hendrix?

But how can Autechre continue when the dubsteppers are creating these incredible experimental soundscapes that you can dance to?

Of course it's obvious to everyone that experimental soundscapes you can dance to >> plain old experimental soundscapes. Oh wait, it's not obvious, that's a completely messed up strawman argument. Why should I continue listening to the Rolling Stones or MBV or Yo La Tengo when Pink makes rock music with better videos and cooler outfits?

This discussion actually makes me angry. I think I need to get off the thread.

Oh, and in my first paragraph, I'm not claiming that Autechre are/were the Hendrix of tech wizardry. I've never tried to seriously compare the "difficulty" involved in making Autechre's music with that of their contemporaries. It's never even occurred to me to try. I only care about what the end product sounds like -- besides, seemingly complex sounds can be obtained simply, and vice versa. I prefer to remain agnostic about the electronic music-making process, for the most part, and just go by what I hear.

hehe, calm down guys - as i mentioned before, my rhetoric was meant half-baitingly in order to generate response, not as a critique of Ae.

yeah, pretty sure everyone on here is on the same page, more or less.

Yngwie Malmsteen playing a 24-string guitar with his arse-cheeks

Can we please figure out a way to erase this horrendous image from my brain, kthx.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/106530/ae_wire.jpg

When I listened to half this album a few days ago I was under the impression that this album was 'pure atmospheres' as opposed to 'pure moods'. I wasn't feeling any emotion from it, perhaps because it was only an early listen. But on a track or two I did imagine a marsh at night full of tall trees with reddish bark being lit up by passing will 'o' the wisps among tin sounding machinery still churning away in the saturated overgrowth of moon-lit marsh

Needs more listens

Needs more listens

As usual it takes me a long time to 'get' whatever they're doing. Finally caught up to Confield and it's one of my favorites.

Oversteps threw me because it is unabashedly beautiful a la Amber - I was used to their records being ultracomplex transmissions from some unfathomable alien intelligence and wasn't really ready for anything 'pretty'. Hangs together as a coherent record much better than Quaristice did, which felt like random sketches and experiments (didn't help that there were, what, four different versions of it). Seems like their career has come full circle and that this is a sort of return to what they were doing in 93-94, but it doesn't feel like they haven't learned anything along the way.

If there is dubstep out there as 'advanced' as what AE is doing (and I'm a big dubstep fan) I'd love to hear it, I sure don't know of anything that's as interesting. But the audiences are different and so are the expectations, dubstep's a functional club music and AE are more academic, closer to the electroacoustic/IRCAM tradition.

I still don't know if I quite understand Confield yet, and it's what, nine years old this year(!)

I think my main problem with it was the harshness of certain rhythms, particularly on tracks like Cfern where the bass drum sounds like a close-mic'd football being launched about a tiny metal room. And while that may sound interesting, it just gets irritating after a while. I think I've mentioned once before about the time I once ran feverishly around my room in a waking fright-mare when my stereo alarm decided to rouse me to the strains of Bine one morning. It took about a minute for me to realise what was going on and where I was. All I can say is I was terrified!

Autechre is a "tracks band" for me. I like around half of Confield a lot and appreciate the rest. Bine moves like an assembly line into a threatening trash compactor if I remember correctly. It's one of the better tracks on Confield.

some of this reminds me of the synths on the apocalypse now soundtrack

Cfern where the bass drum sounds like a close-mic'd football being launched about a tiny metal room

that is certainly one of the better autechre similes i've read

throbbing like an amputated limb while weightless choirs ascend

4/10

Anyone have the track running times for like the first 3-4 tracks? Trying to figure out if I have the correct "leak." Don't worry, Ima buy the damn thing.