Are you telling me this is AE: SIGN? (Autechre LP 14)

That chatroom is so gross and unpleasant and reminds me why I don't look at 99% of things I could look at online

This is lovely music though

lol i never dreamed of looking at the chat, same as i turn it off if i'm watching a football stream

yeah it's gorj so far. leaving the chat tab hidden for sure

The synthetic yet operatic quality of the pads and their lovely, cavernous reverb (which seems to be a different reverb effect they've been using the last 5-6 years) is incredible. Very different vibe immediately

ah here we go on some electro shit

omg whut with this 2nd track already

oversteps feel here. so lush though! almost feels like they're trolling us.

soo...Oversteps 2??? nice

def lush

If this is trolling, keep trolling me daddy

beautiful

SFJ interview with the guys

https://sfj.substack.com/p/autechre-sign

sounds almost progressive / symphonic. they've really developed a lot melodically.

ugh no thanks to having to sift through sfj words xp

i checked in on the stream late and but whatever is happening now is phenomenal

this disembodied marimbas thing is great
and NEW
how are they always new?

haha fair, here are the good bits:

“I hadn’t felt that solid about putting together an album in a while,” Booth said.

“We started building up the rig in the summer of 2018, right after the Australian tour,” Booth said.

“The MIDI keyboard only handles a very limited set of information,” Booth says. “And it’s based on the piano, a very specific instrument from a very specific time. We’re just using MAX to be more compositional in what we do.”

The duo worked on tracks for over a year, finishing in February of 2020, before lockdown.

“We’d get in touch and it would turn out we were doing the same kind of thing, without even talking,” Brown said. “I’m not sure we could do it in the same room now. But we’re often thinking the exact same thing.”

Like what?

“Ah . . . that’s lush—fuck.”

gently burbling programmatic music w mean ole bass

There's some really interesting, subtle delay FX on those marimbas that have been building over the whole track in the background there

and that dry muffled kick I always love

there are a couple more quotes in the article ... for those who DARE

gently burbling programmatic music w mean ole bass

― Give me a Chad Smith-type feel (map), Thursday, October 8, 2020 1:19 PM (fifty-two seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

the core, the heart music

omg jerk my tears why dont u

Oh HELL yeah. Oversteps 2 is exactly what I wanted

this is incredible so far

woot

This is easily the first Ae album fans who departed in 2001 might actually enjoy. Much more so than even Oversteps.

it's very complex in a melodic way. 2-4 have been basically ambient.

beat back tho

the funk

snappin

8-bit chirpin

into it

Sakamoto vibes

the expanding universe

this reminds me of fennesz a little bit!

oh man it's so pretty

most flat out beautiful track they've done in a decade

feeling like i'm trapped in a slow-motion horror film and klaus schulze did the soundtrack

yeah I already like the beatless tracks here better than all the beatless tracks on NTS (and I'm a freak for NTS)

very emotional

ok we're gonkin

The comment above about "How are they always new?" is ringing hard with this.

ok we're gonkin

― J. Sam, Thursday, October 8, 2020 1:37 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

like a streamlined nts jam, really sick

I already preordered the LP and the stream keeps cutting out so I'm gonna bail on this but I loved everything I heard

this one

feel like the beat tracks are interludes between the ambient tracks, which are the highlight! another gorgeous one

oh man this is soooo good

"gr4" more like gr8

feel like the beat tracks are interludes between the ambient tracks, which are the highlight!

otm

That would be a neat idea

They said that they didn't sell generative software because they wouldn't own the copyright to the output, IIRC.

Autechre's algorithms are nothing like LLMs. LLMs get fed a bunch of examples and imitate and interpolate. Autechre's algorithms don't do that, they generate sound based on ... well, lots of different things, but I guess the analogy I would make is that Autechre's algorithms are like little robots holding paintbrushes and LLMs are like cameras that take a bunch of photos and print out one Ultimate Average Photograph.

Yeah I remember them addressing that question too, but it would be a sweet medium of expression that would fit their ethos and aesthetic nicely, but alas.

maybe they just want to make music

i hope they go back to "albums" or studio releases. the live stuff is great but tends to be in a certain format. composed stuff is where they really let loose imo. i ended up liking plus more than sign. good time for a revisit.

and yeah i would be surprised if ai had any effect on what they do. it doesn't really seem to fit their aesthetic or their process. but who knows. can't lie i'd be bummed if they started using ai generation tools to create sounds. wouldn't blame them for using ai to code though. are they still using max? i wonder if max has like ai integration now.

xp I would too, but all "signs" point to them performing live and releasing the recordings as their "albums" for the indefinite future, as per their recent interviews.

It's now been the longest gap of time for them between album drops (5 years) if you don't count their recent release of live recordings last year.

oh i know all that. things change, people change. i hope they change their minds. but whatever they do i'll enjoy it i'm sure. and we'll all continue to do galaxy brain posts about it :)

i listened to SIGN on a long, slightly inebriated walk home from a DJ gig.

my thoughts on this one is that in the context of the COVID pandemic and lockdowns it was exactly what I wanted to hear from them: A stripped-down version of their sound exposing the pretty melodies and counterpoints that usually gets buried in a thicket of other sounds. It was a salve to have this music. Easy listening in hard times.

So it surprised me that my walk home was a tense and paranoid one. Maybe the music reminded me too much of those uncertain times, or simply walking home late at night was making me feel on-edge, but I don't remember this album sounding as sinister as it did.

In today's context I feel like SIGN has switched with the NTS Sessions in my estimation. NTS used to feel tough-going and claustro. So much going on. Such long tracks that repeat and repeat. But now I think of NTS as the thing that suits my mindset. I just love zeroing in and in on the little details, whereas SIGN is very surface level really - you just get taken along by the synthy sounds.