Autechre: Classic or Dud?

search: LP5

as for "inventive," well, the IDM list be damned, they pretty much defined how IDM has sounded for the past 4 years or so by dint of every semi-talented derivative jacking their style (phoenicia, entire schematics roster, everything i've heard on musik aus strom, especially the horribly derivative but not even close to the mark flagship duo funkstorung, etc, etc). their fault or their misfortune, you be the judge.

but in the last 6 months i've begun to change my mind, and i'm beginning to really love some of what they do (most of LP5, a lot of Chiastic Slide, and Clichi Suite are beautiful records i think).

it seems strange that it too such a long time for me to really like them, but then i did that with piano magic, happy mondays and tom waits too, and i love 90% of all their stuff too.

got tri repetae recently, but having difficulty getting into that one so far.

saw them at Brixton Fridge the other week, and they were excellent. every track seems to start off so uninviting, but gradually becomes wonderful

so, i think i'd head towards classic really

So there you have it: we're the new folkies! :) Let's all grow beards.

Just got sent this:

Autechre - 'EPS 1991-2002' WARPCD211
5 X Deluxe CD - 47 Tracks - 5hr 39min 59sec
47 track digital bundle available now
CD shipped & released 11th April 2011

Order CD with instant WAV/MP3 download at Bleep
Download MP3/WAV at Bleep (includes videos)
Download digital at iTunes

Visit Autechre.ws

(Made in The Designers Republic™)
CAVITY JOB, BASSCADEP, ANTI EP
(Disc 1)

Cavity Job
Accelera 1 & 2
Basscadet (Bcdtmx)
Basscadet (Basscadoublemx)
Basscadet (Tazmx)
Basscadet (Basscadubmx)
Lost
Djarum
Flutter

Tracks 1 – 2 originally released as Cavity Job (p)1991 Autechre.
Tracks 3 – 6 originally released as Basscad EP (p) 1994 Warp Records Limited.
Tracks 7 – 9 originally released as Anti EP (p) 1994 Warp Records Limited.
GARBAGE, ANVIL VAPRE
(Disc 2)

Garbagemx
PIOBmx
Bronchusevenmx
VLetrmx
Second Bad Vilbel
Second Scepe
Second Scout
Second Peng

Tracks 1 – 4 originally released as Garbage (p)1995 Warp Records Limited.
Tracks 5 – 8 originally released as Anvil Vapre (p) 1995 Warp Records Limited.
PEEL SESSION, ENVANE
(Disc 3)

Milk DX
Inhake 2
Drane
Goz Quarter
Latent Quarter
Laughing Quarter
Draun Quarter

Tracks 1 – 3 originally released as Peel Session (p)1995 BBC.
Tracks 4 – 7 originally released as Envane (p)1997 Warp Records Limited.
CHICHLISUITE, EP7
(Disc 4)

Yeesland
Pencha
Characi
Krib
Tilapia
Rpeg
Ccec
Squeller
Left Blank
Outpt
Dropp
Liccflii

Tracks 1 – 5 originally released as Cichlisuite (p)1997 Warp Records Limited.
Tracks 6 – 12 originally released on EP7 (p)1999 Warp Records Limited.
EP7, PEEL SESSION 2, GANTZ GRAF
(Disc 5)

Maphive6.1
Zeiss Contarex
Netlon Sentinel
Pir
Gelk
Blifil
Gaekwad
19 Headaches
Gantz Graf
Dial.
Cap.IV

Tracks 1 – 4 originally released on EP7 (p)1999 Warp Records Limited.
Tracks 5 – 8 originally released as Peel Session 2 (p)1999 BBC.
Tracks 9 – 11 originally released as Gantz Graf (p)2002 Warp Records Limited.

ooh, they've split the EP7s across two discs. Bad show.

(closes eyes, mutters 'i do not need or want expensive box-sets, i do not need or want expensive box sets...')

('I have all these tracks already, i have all these tracks already')

Seems a little odd not to include the Seefeel or Beaumont Hannant mixes of Basscadet, but maybe that can be justified. Putting "Anvil Vapre" before "Garbage" seems like flat-out bad sequencing.

?

Tracks 1 – 4 originally released as Garbage (p)1995 Warp Records Limited.
Tracks 5 – 8 originally released as Anvil Vapre (p) 1995 Warp Records Limited.

ah, my mistake!

This is disappointing. At least include all vinyl-only tracks, not only Cavity Job.

I don't feel this is worth the double-dip.

Sorry boothbrown, I already have all the original releases.

only own the Anti EP but not sure what I would do with this package - EP collections on several CDs just seem so impractical

This is disappointing. At least include all vinyl-only tracks, not only Cavity Job.

I don't feel this is worth the double-dip.

OTM.

Better to have the original Anti and break the seal on it to show what bollicks the Criminal Justice Thingy is.

http://thequietus.com/articles/10978-autechre-new-album-details-exai

I couldn't decide which C or D thread to pick so I made a new one

Autechre Exai

http://youtu.be/lC7LGzCZ-q0

classic

track at 18:00 is pretty sick

that whole video is rad, oh man that brings back memories, esp. the whistles and the whole dudes-with-long-fringe-swept-back-w-headbands thing, damn haven't seen that look in a minute

http://ge.tt/9ZkPRWw/v/0

more ore

http://p.autechre.ws/proxy?lnk=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.discogs.com%2Fartist%2F41-Autechre

possibly discussed elsewhere, but Autechre put out a 5.5hr mix of 1992-ish stuff that contextualises the newly-reissued Artificial Intelligence compilation. It's akin to that marathon electro mix they did a while back and is great:
https://autechre.mixlr.com/recordings/1977679

it was mentioned on a thread called "autechre - classic or dud"

:-)

what we didn't mention was the tracklist, which is this work in progress (not my work)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Fy1mZkeMTI1CvLWmPy7NOAwFkFu-a6FHrx2EMgt4_3w/edit#gid=0

ah the perils of two C or D threads! thanks for the tracklisting sheet...

nice, hope they keep going. I'll get these but Untilted/Quaristice/Oversteps/Exai are the ones I really want

https://www.treblezine.com/autechre-announces-vinyl-reissues-of-confield-draft-7-30/

Will definitely be picking up the Confield reissue. I want both, but I'm trying to buy fewer records this year. It's not going well so far.

Very happy about this. Wish I could get my hands on the rest of the EPs on wax though. Would love Envane, Cichlisuite and EP 7.1 (I have 7.2).

They seem to have forgotten the CD editions.

They seem to have forgotten the CD editions.

The idea of listening to Autechre on vinyl is completely baffling to me. "You know what this ultra-pristine collection of 100% digital crunches and pings needs? Some hiss and crackle! You know, to add 'warmth'! Oh, and less bass!"

What is life without Plumtree's potted meat? incomplete

unperson I assume you know they put this sticker on the Tri Rep CD:
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7TCF8SlZcMQ/W-LlsMHTAAI/AAAAAAAABlg/ATiFT3Ry4PAHM1889JNer2WR9_D4ggJqACLcBGAs/s640/autechre1.jpg

tri rep is the only one I felt like I should own on vinyl. Got it as birthday gift to myself last year. For all the rest I'm fine with CDs or digital.

LP5 has so much bass it causes the needle to jump around if your turntable’s cheap

I have to remember that I’m no longer part of whatever “the demo” is now, and what the demo wants is vinyl reissues.

To hell with "listen to this on vinyl" pointers on CDs

CDs will come back, bring on retro-futurism

FFS Autechre. I can't afford this to happen to me this year

Man, Ae change attitudes towards formats a fair bit. I love these albums. I want them on a plastic slab

LP5 has so much bass it causes the needle to jump around if your turntable’s cheap

lp5 is also so crisp and clear that it feels like it should be listened to on CD

xp but would you like the plastic to be vinyl or polycarbonate?

I tried listening to Gonkcast, and it's decent enough (I certainly can't imagine trying to talk about Autechre out loud for this long), but I kinda feel like they're not nerdy *enough* about music and production for the task? Like, I want to listen to someone who really has hands-on experience with Max/MSP and can dig into what's going on in some of the tracks (like I think they were saying Cichli is in 4/4, I WOULD NEVER).

Anyway it's just making me want to go back and listen to the records, which is good. Confirmed once again that I don't get as much out of Tri Repetae as others seem to, and that Chiastic Slide is a big time classic for me.

Also listening to the recent NTS influences mix in chunks, so much good ahead-of-its-time stuff.

"I want to listen to someone who really has hands-on experience with Max/MSP and can dig into what's going on in some of the tracks (like I think they were saying Cichli is in 4/4, I WOULD NEVER)."

If you are looking for detailed commentary on Autechre, I recommend the description of "Gantz Graf" at the 5:4 blog:

https://5against4.com/2022/08/05/20-years-on-autechre-gantz-graf/

Now that's what I'm talking about, thanks!

the "embarrassing" review linked in the NME is a lot more entertaining than that blog post, even though the cliches in it about intellectual european idm listeners were already 10 years old 20 years ago

that blog post is funny because it tries to pass itself off as a very technical explanation of the track, but when you really get down to it, the writer is just saying "this part is noisy" / "this part is less noisy" / "this part sounds more like beats", with a lot of around those ideas

a lot of *padding around those ideas

yeah, honestly i just want to see a screenshot of their max/msp patch

there's a useful and simple test i like to apply to bullshit music criticism like this, and it's to replace any of the meaningless details with a different meaningless detail and then ask myself whether the meaning would be altered in any way. if not, then bingo, i was right, it really IS meaningless detail

example: when author says "the way that the five pitches are used throws emphasis onto the intervals, strengthening their connectivity." imagine the author had said FOUR pitches, or THREE pitches, or SIX or NINETEEN. would it make any difference?

here's another: "Throughout this sequence, the underlying beats, though complex, don’t meaningfully change at all, working to support this melody. Though low in the mix, Autechre tease it out slightly by putting just a touch of reverb onto each note"

what if the author had said ECHO or COMPRESSION or PHASER or DISTORTION instead of "reverb"? would we care?

haha, good points tlg.

i mean okay, if autechre use reverb and not delay it would be silly to say "putting a small delay onto each note". but assuming they did use delay, would it now "undermine the melody" instead of "support" it?

or would that depend less on the production technique and more on whether the listener chooses to hear autechre as intellectual wank or high grade experimental art?

i make this point with confidence only because i also "danced about architecture" in my youth as a detroit techno blogger.

eventually i realized it was better just to post yt links and that it's more fun to criticize dj's living rooms and haircuts than it is do music criticism

You might not have got much out of the linked blog post, tlg, but it is certainly not bullshit or meaningless detail. It's also not an exercise in music criticism but analysis. When Mr. Cummings speaks about the way those five pitches are used, emphasizing those particular intervals, yes, writing “four” or “three” would completely change the point (because the resulting track would have been completely different in terms of tonal centre).

so would three or four vs five have weakened the connectivity between the intervals? strengthened it to a lesser degree? strengthened it to a greater degree?

Close listening is cool. Reading other people's musical analysis can help. Yeah there were details I glossed over, but I enjoyed reading + listening along. Not every track would benefit from that, but this one is so dense that a map is useful.

yes, i definitely can see how one might have missed the Development (1:39) and Transition (3:11) without a helpful explainer!

Have you tried reading the blog post and connecting the words in it to the sounds you hear in the track? Just a thought.

I get what you're saying but I think if you're compelled to listen to podcasts or read articles like this when the band already has 100 hours of material out then maybe those details really do matter to you. Personally it gave me a few things to think about, given the track itself is total chaos. Now when sites run reviews of their albums that sound like this then yeah I think it's a bit wanky. But I guess that's the point of "gonkcast"

Someone on twitter pointed out this sick unofficial video that someone made in '08:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsNbUlyERV0

Have you tried reading the blog post and connecting the words in it to the sounds you hear in the track? Just a thought.

― what have I done to deserve you (lukas)

the problem is not that this is impossible, or even challenging, but that 75% of the adjectives and technical terms in that article could be arbitrarily replaced with other words and it would be just as easy to connect the words to the music

the parts that make the most sense to me are the parts where he goes "oh wow this part is chaotic!" or "oh wow this part is building tension!" or "oh wow i hear a pattern coming out of the chaos!" but you can do that just as easily without pointing out that the pattern is A – C – A – Bb – Eb – C – Bb – Bb – Gb – C – Bb – A – C – Bb – Eb – C – Bb – Bb – Gb – C – Bb and in fact i wonder whether it even matters that it's A – C – A – Bb – Eb – C – Bb – Bb – Gb – C – Bb – A – C – Bb – Eb – C – Bb – Bb – Gb – C – Bb and not some other sequence of notes

tlg, I'm led to wonder if you you any training in music. The reason it matters that it is that particular pattern of notes is, again, that pattern of notes (though the specific intervals between them) determines the overall harmony of the track. Which is a very different use of harmony from pop music, and different even from most of the Warp scene with which Autechre was first associated.

And this sort of analysis does capture why this era of Autechre’s work might appeal to those (like Mr. Cummings or myself) who were already fans of twentieth-century avant-garde composers like Boulez or Ferneyhough.

i did weekly classical piano theory lessons including annual exams for about 10 years (age 7-17), so yeah i’m familiar with all these terms

on the other hand i don’t have formal training in rhetoric, though i can spot when someone is questioning my ability to understand the text while also dodging my specific questions about the text

Like I said, there are details in that I don't care about, but it's so nice to read something that isn't just "it's like listening to robot bees!" on the one hand or "Autechre's music limns the lacunae of modernity" on the other.

It would be interesting to see something like that in video form where the writer tries to recreate the track (or get as close to it as they can)

Hey now what's wrong with robot bees already

the last music analysis / "deep dive" thing i actually enjoyed was this drukqs review. i think she does a good job of both formal analysis and gesturing at the affects of the music. it helps that the sound sources and track styles in druqks are so varied and electro-acoustic. someone doing this for autechre would probably have to share their screen a lot lol.

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

that's a great video, one of the best i've seen of the "musician reacts!" genre, thanks!

about 13:30 in, she says something that sums up most of what i could say: "that Richard is thinking of things like scales and chords...I doubt it, I think a lot of us aren't, actually, this is just one way to name what i'm hearing, he's just doing what sounds good, or sounds weird, or whatever he likes, whatever he's trying to do"

i don't, personally, get anything at all out of music "analysis". i think it is very helpful for people who are making or thinking of music in formal ways. i don't. there's a comparison to be made to painting analysis. i didn't care at all, before i started painting. now that i do, it greatly interests me HOW painters made what they did. for god's sake, please tell me that they used a rag to smear some paint, or that they applied some glossy medium at the very beginning, or that they let the whole thing dry for a month and then scraped back down to what was underneath. i need to know that stuff and want to know it. but none of that was interesting or useful to me before i started trying to do it myself. at that time, i only cared about what i was seeing, not about the how. now i care about both the what and the how.

i understand that's not how everyone listens to music or approaches more analytic pieces. some people who have never touched an instrument have a deeply felt need to understand how it happened, mechanically. but i think, for a lot of people, the analysis is aimed at people in the field

also, no joke about wanting to see the max/msp patch - i think doing the musical analysis of, oh, those notes are A – C – A – Bb – Eb – C – Bb – Bb – Gb – C – Bb – A – C – Bb – Eb – C – Bb – Bb – Gb – C – Bb is kind of completely missing the point with autechre. i really do think the art is in the patch

*giant "IMO" and "we all enjoy music and enjoy reading about it in different ways, i get that" sign behind a plane flying over a beach*

there are times where I feel like autechre has ruined all other music for me

it's certainly difficult to find other music with this much depth

yeah, honestly i just want to see a screenshot of their max/msp patch

― President of Destiny Encounters International (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 14 February 2023 20:36 (one month ago) link

you're in luck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgMArRJswIQ