Autechre - classic or dud

OK Ijust heard a "leak" and if what I heard is real... heck who cares... the last two tracks are pretty damn amazing.

Ambient as all fuck.

yeah? where you hear this "leak?"

Dunno, tbh sorry.

Slsk or something i think.

Yeah, it's not them. It's this guy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ompcBQvK65I

( /ese guys )

Yeah Rob mentioned that earlier today. In all honesty it was ok though; I can see why an artist would piggyback on this shit. Bit lame, but eh. I liked the last 2 tracks!

The rest is quite good as well - too bad we've now heard it in an Autechre context. It would have reminded me of Ae without this hoax thing, but now this A:C album will never be a legitimate thing in its own right anymore :-/

that youtube track ain't bad and I understand why the dude did this. (not likely that I would ever have listened to the track otherwise.) but man, promoting yourself this way really is lame. it's like, are you begging for people to just write you off as one of the hundreds of autechre clones before they even hear one note?

autechre leaks are nevvverrr real

Yeah, this isn't the first time that we've had masquerade Autechre leaks before -- it's happened since Draft, and probably with Confield too. And I think other Warpers/IDM dickfaces have had this happen to them too.

yeah, there have def been fake afx leaks too

It happened with Confield - there, the leaked version was significantly better than the actual version. If anybody happens to have a tracklisting of that fake version . . .

Wait is this Autechre putting out fake leaks to protect their album or is this dudes, with no relation to them, distributing their own stuff under Autechre's name?

Confield was the last autechre album I really liked.. well there was one really cool track on the ep that came right after confield. The song sounded like a roller coaster going up a hill...

Pen Expers on Confield sounds like it could be an audio equivalent to rape

And the Lentic Catacrecis (sp?) Was probably the most brilliant track on Confield imo

The WATTM forum crowd are working on a deliberate fake at the moment too, but its more along the lines of the "no line on the horizon" one we did here ie just for fun.

WATMM, rather.

I like pretty much all autechre but confield is my fave from the last couple of years as well.

still, "sublimit" off of untilted is dooooope. the 2005 live sets too.

Pen Expers on Confield sounds like it could be an audio equivalent to rape surprise sex

Did you know Pen Expers and Kate Bush's "running up that hill" play together perfectly? Theres a YT doubler clip ouf it somewhere.

yeah, there have def been fake afx leaks too

to be fair half the fake afx leaks were rdj tho

Oh actually no, watmm arent doing anything.

that youtube track ain't bad and I understand why the dude did this. but man, promoting yourself this way really is lame.

(Precedent on both sides in the IDM scene I guess. napster was full of Marumari tracks with name acts in the filenames. Meanwhile, a few years back there was a Boards of Canada fake which was actually part of a CiM album which some guy had downloaded and decided to rename; nothing to do with CiM himself and I hope nobody ever held that against him.)

Back when I made IDM stuff, one of my tracks "Litter Duty" made it onto a Boards of Canada bootleg comp. I can't remember any more whether this was a mislabelling error, or some prank I thought I'd pull as a student.

Did Altered Carbon himself wrap up his stuff as a fake Autechre, or was it just some bored internet type as a prank?

yeah, this occurred to me after I had posted that... I have no idea, actually.

lot of chime-y interludes on the new leak. sounds legit.

i reckon i could spot an ae fake at fifty paces. is it leaked in the usual places?

Autechre FACT mix - no tracklisting avail, tho.

http://www.factmag.com/2010/02/08/fact-mix-122-autechre/

The last AE album was really good after spending several years in the wilderness. I'm looking forward to this one.

http://www.antilicense.com/ilovetheriaa/oversteps_preview-ilanders.mp3

http://www.antilicense.com/ilovetheriaa/oversteps_preview-see_on_see.mp3

these were broadcast on a German radio show, this past saturday?

i hope they're better than the first 30 minutes of that mix 8)

(also the tags don't correspond to the filenames)

those german broadcast clips sound cool. I'm excited.

Is the Autechre concept still relevant for people any more? I used to be amazed by what they used to do - the hyper-complex gymnastic beats and uncanny beauty of their melodies were awe-inspiring at the time of LP5 and EP7. How quickly though, have innovations in music technology moved on since the days when artists would have to rip their machines to bits or invent infinitesimally mindbending trigger sequences to create these sounds? We've now got programs that can, at a click, reach into an audio chord and alter the individual notes within them; applications that can warp, stretch and mould beats like putty; commercial plugins that can artificially mimic the randomness of human-like musicianship - and all this is being done throughout the musical spectrum from glo-fi to dubstep to pure pop. So what I'm wondering is - is the music of the future now so current that Autechre are being beaten at their own game? Have they hit a glass ceiling? If not, what are they now doing to push things further? And what am I gaining by listening to this band whose appeal was once that they were doing things that no one else could even imagine?

this band whose appeal was once that they were doing things that no one else could even imagine?

What if the appeal was more simple than that? What if the appeal was (and remains) "whatever they're doing, it sounds good and I like it"?

yeah - now i take that absolutely 100% into account.

autechre, being certainly up until confield, one of my favourite bands. but i couldn't play someone, for example, Chiastic Slide anymore and expect them to be impressed by it. Music in general is now capable of making these sounds and doing them better and more effortlessly. Tim Exile's "Listening Tree" from last year basically takes the Autechre model, adds David Gahan-esque vocals and runs with it, filling it with a dark pop brilliance that leaves them sounding like a clunky old robot. But it's not just Warp stuff that does this of course.

there has always been more to autechre's work than mere artisanship, but it did play a large part in what they did. Int he same way that technical brilliance can be the reason for listening to a lot of metal etc.

I've actually been thinking about this listening to old harmonia, cluster, early kraftwerk, etc...

now, I wasn't around but at the time but I imagine that the electronic/psychedelic hybrid probably sounded quite unique then. that doesn't really factor into my enjoyment these days and I think that the music holds up as more than just a tech demo. way more. plus, the vintage instruments sound cool!

ymmv but I could see the same being said for autechre. the tech aspect to their sound is certainly less impressive but "whatever they're doing, it sounds good and I like it"

autechre, being certainly up until confield, one of my favourite bands. but i couldn't play someone, for example, Chiastic Slide anymore and expect them to be impressed by it.

Impressed due to it being highly technical, or because it's good music? I could picture someone being still impressed because it's a good tune.

Music in general is now capable of making these sounds and doing them better and more effortlessly. Tim Exile's "Listening Tree" from last year basically takes the Autechre model, adds David Gahan-esque vocals and runs with it, filling it with a dark pop brilliance that leaves them sounding like a clunky old robot.

The greatness of clunky old robot sounds aside, is music that sounds like its of an era or dated a bad thing? You just made me want to check out this Tim Exile album, but I am not sure this sounds like an indictment of Autechre.

But it's not just Warp stuff that does this of course.

o rly

fact mix is good morning listening. beatmatching Roedelius' 'Übern Fluss' with that hip hop track made me crack up.

which Cabaret Voltaire is that an hour in again? & if anyone can trainspot the dubby tracks that start in @ 1:09:00 (Flying Lizards?), I'd be obliged. or man, this thing at 1:16:00 is Cabs solo stuff, like Mallender's solo ep? some of this is pretty familiar but it's been years, and it's sounding a lot better than I remember

Tim Exile's a bit cheesy compared to Autechre. A bit barroque, a bit Glass Spider, Bowie.

Remember that Autechre started off making really simple music and they were great then. If anything they took the envelope pushing thing slightly too far. It became too abstract and fell apart. For people who don't like to have to count along to records like myself, what they're doing now is an improvement.

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.