Autechre: Classic or Dud?

9 chr0 is a motherfunkin' DOOZY of a track. NTS Session 2 keeps on giving, and giving..

someone on this thread i think was saying that some of nts isn't really that far off from amber. i had that in mind today and discovered "clustro casual" from nts 3 sounds a lot like "teartear"

i hope this doesn't come across as too self-indulgent, but i wanted to put down how i've been experiencing these last three releases (nts, elseq and exai), because it seems like i probably wouldn't have become so attached to them if i'd heard them in another context. basically i play them on headphones while i'm running on mountain bike trails for 50+ minutes at a time. so i'm listening for long enough to just let several tracks play through. and i think they mirror the experience of trail running in the sense that transitions from step to step can be very dynamic, contrasting and broken up, but there are these sustained sections where your steps seem to be broken up in the same way, or where there's a larger trend or pattern going on. and then suddenly, the trend just changes. so i i guess i've become convinced that what they're doing correlates to the experience of moving through a dynamic natural landscape - the tiny variations, the larger trends formed by unidirectional forces, the time it takes to traverse each section and the sudden transitions between sections.

Yep, "four of seven" sounds lifted straight out of the Amber era too. Also noticed the pads from "Altibzz" creeping in at the end of "debris_funk", I think.

Landscaping is a good way to think of the long tracks, like worlds to visit and look around.

Maybe they are seeding the new algorithms with old tracks?

There's a track in exai that is obviously (to me) based on Being Boiled. Using their own tunes seems to be an obvious step.

(I've not got beyond nts3 yet, have been listening to exai / elseq lately)

good post, map. I haven't listened to this on a run yet but you're making me want to

I feel a bit like I'm playing "chicken" with the CD box.

Can't quite bring myself to buy it, will be a bit gutted if I miss out on it.

I looked up how their favorite software works, and yeah, starting with one of their own tracks and manipulating the parameters seems like a no-brainer strategy. I have often wondered to what extent the album tracks are improvised, whether they are more or less composed in one pass or tweaked over the course of several sessions.

i play them on headphones while i'm running on mountain bike trails

running on mountain biking trails, what disgusting savagery is this.

"gonk tuf hi" and "dummy casual pt 2" make for a nice little 1-2 punch

xp I look on buying the physicals not so much as what I get, but what my purchase enables. Because I very much want these guys to make a living creating giant slabs of fascinating sound.

^^^

Yeah, I may not ever even pull the CDs from the sleeves, but I bought the box anyway.

x4, especially given that I've already been rocking the FLACs for the past week and a half now. May even keep the box set sealed in the event I need an operation someday and have to sell some stuff

I was tempted to buy at least one of the vinyl sets (#4 most likely), but that would have been too reckless even for me. If I'm already not sure whether or not I'll ever play the CDs, I know I'll never play the fucking vinyl.

Did I already mention this is easily AOTY for me and I'm already pretty sure nothing else will even come close?

"splesh" is fabulous.

Paul, same for me - this pretty much is guaranteed a spot on my list. Today I am reading Rachel Kushner's "The Mars Room" and listening to NTS Sessions straight through.

dead-on score, less a review than an essay

i guess you mean this:

oops

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/autechre-nts-sessions-1-4/

which links to this interview:

https://thump.vice.com/en_us/article/bman95/autechre-is-still-more-post-human-than-you-are

which links to this 4 hour set of their influences:

https://soundcloud.com/dkmntl/dekmantelpodcastautechre

shoulda been BNM but really, who gives a shit at this point

good review though (though I'm not sure I would describe Coil as "nauseating"). Could have used more talk about individual songs, maybe.

this:

Booth and Brown have so completely mastered their aesthetic that it no longer seems rational to compare it to anything born outside of it

is otm

noz!!!

Ledge: yep

Paul: I didn't have a issue with how it was written really, just that the 2-3 graphs with actual descriptions of songs seems to have gone missing

This seems like it should have been a Pitch or Feature piece.

(Oh - I see that he did write about two songs there. Well, that's something.)

v good review, made me feel even better for ordering the CDs

xp I guess it really doesn't address at all about how this album is distinct. It mostly just talks about, err, Autechre. But imo it does a decent job of that. But yeah, subbing out two or three sentences, this could be a review of any modern Ae album.

well, they've been on the outs w/ pfork

this should be a genre option on that ol spotify

brutal raw chunks of chords

can someone link me to the overall Ae poll we did? ta.

IS IT WASHAPOLL? - ILM ARTIST POLL #57 - AUTECHRE - RESULTS thread

IS IT WASHAPOLL? - ILM ARTIST POLL #57 - AUTECHRE - RESULTS thread

thanks j!

floAting in an
infinite sound hEaven

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/autechre-nts-sessions-1-4/

Huh, highest rated Autechre release since Confield I believe. Still think Exai and Elseq were vastly underrated by them.

eh, i wouldn't worry so much about the actual score (which isn't determined by the reviewer). i mean, the subhead says "Though it’s created by a computer, it will bring you to another plane of human existence if you let it." 8.2 oooook

a plane of human existence where the pa is playing music that is an 8.2

the usual plane has like 4.8 music

i dig this plane's music scene, very cool here

damn "move of ten" is really good

h8 planes

holy shit "move of ten" is like really wowing me, yay

there are no bad autechre albums, just autechre albums you love immediately and autechre albums that click for you years after you buy them

and el-event.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHo6qWxoDOQ

and el-event.

― lana del boy (ledge), Thursday, May 17, 2018 4:29 AM (eighteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol. latter category for me, or so I predict. but "M39 Diffan" is great

L-Event ain't bad, just a bit unnecessary

Move of 10 is indeed great. a few tracks you forget you're listening to Autechre.

Listening to this straight through while marking exams today. The ghost choir on xflood seems to be mourning this particular student's poor performance.

I didn't remember e0, which is lovely.

Finally got to nts4 this morning. <3

(following on, loosely, from my question about how successful autechre are, here's a list of their plays on the bbc.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/artists/410c9baf-5469-44f6-9852-826524b80c61

there has been one (1) play of four-of-seven on Benji B's show last week but nothing else from the new releases. and about 8 plays of other things so far this year.)

I finally cranked the volume way up on "Overand" and wow I didn't know there was such a complex rhythm underpinning the whole thing

kinda wonder what else I'm missing by not listening to Autechre at ear-splitting volumes

OK I know you've all been champing at the bit for me to reveal my edited-down NTS playlist so here you go:

bqbqbq
debris_funk
carefree counter dronal
gonk steady one
four of seven
xflood
gonk tuf hi
dummy casual pt2
violvoic
e0
9 chr0
clustro casual
tt1pd
fLh
glos ceramic
nineFly
icari
frane casual
mirrage
column thirteen

I think editing this down defeats the purpose tbh. Go hard or go home.