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

3. Gescom - Keynell (Mix 1) - 91 points | 3 votes
http://youtu.be/bMxj75WvOWg

Pitchfork: If you compare the collaborative EPs with Hafler Trio to your new remix of "Earth" [on the Earth remixes CD on No Quarter records], it seems like lately you are really careful and respectful with other people's material.

Autechre: The "Earth" remix is something we've wanted to do for ages.

Pitchfork: I listened to it and I could barely tell it was you-- it's like you've disappeared into it.

Autechre: We wanted it to just sound like an alternative recording of the same song. We did the mix, we went in there and we did, well, I wouldn't call it a dub-- I mean I'm sure there's people that feel that it's not a dub unless you
do a wild parametric sweep or something...

Pitchfork: Yeah, but they don't read Pitchfork.

Autechre: Okay, well anyway. There's what I think of as dub as a genre and then there's the actual process.

Pitchfork: That snare was the only part that sounded like you.

Autechre: Yeah. It's their snare but it's been gated and compressed and mixed differently, and messed around with. We almost could have done all of "Phase III", which would have been amazing. Having the opportunity to do that is just killer basically. I mean, I don't care about how it's viewed as an operation. It's something I've wanted to do for ages.

from the WATMM forums

They fade in the bass and 2nd guitar later in the track, and then cut out the main distorted guitar before the solo at the end. Bringing back the main riff in the middle of the solo really adds some punch to the climax of the song, I think. I also like how they emphasize the grit in the main riff, even bringing out that little mistake a few measures in.

Then there's the bit of background noise in the beginning ... and the end is a little more coherent. The harmonic feedback in the original fade-out sounds a bit out of tune to me, and they EQ'd it out of the mix.

I've always wanted to hear them produce someone else's work.

Interesting! Thanks for the contexts.

2. Lexis - Hypnotise (Autechre Slow Mix) - 103 points | 3 votes | 1 #1 vote
http://youtu.be/xVY1mqCeKvg

1. Saint Etienne - Like a Motorway (Skin up You're Already Dead mix) - 110 points | 3 votes | 2 #1 votes
http://youtu.be/u5spbpRZnl0

14T. Lego Feet - Side B - 28 points | 1 vote
http://youtu.be/PLNsKZzSzg4
14T. Gescom - Go Sumo - 28 points | 1 vote
http://youtu.be/bVyXFzwhMtE

12T. Lego Feet - Keyop - 30 points | 1 vote
http://youtu.be/-WoeJPbe1Mg
12T. Gescom - Stoop - 30 points | 1 vote

11. Gescom - Mag - 33 points | 1 vote
http://youtu.be/I7G0WDrCC9o

8T. Gescom - Viral Rival (Rmxd By Ae) - 36 points | 1 vote
http://youtu.be/TTc9zYFi4Kw
8T. Gescom - Skfl2 - 36 points | 1 vote
http://youtu.be/T8GHDdMPwdU
8T. Gescom - Sciew Spoc - 36 points | 1 vote
http://youtu.be/pG9kEw6TGOI

7. Gescom - Two Of - 40 points | 1 vote | 1 #1 vote
http://youtu.be/1pSJmnxCdjo

6. Gescom - Keynell 1 - 58 points | 2 votes
http://youtu.be/5srVPfWo99A

5. Lego Feet - Leaves on the Line - 61 points | 2 votes
http://youtu.be/MMG1SAxV__o

4. Gescom - Puzl - 63 points | 2 votes
http://youtu.be/wQxE7Kg2LWQ

3. Gescom - Keynell 3 - 66 points | 2 votes
http://youtu.be/nW4UUfiP1Xk
[

2. Gescom - Go Sheep - 112 points | 3 votes | 1 #1 vote
http://youtu.be/qSapf8_mE1w

1. Gescom - Keynell 4 - 120 points | 3 votes | 3 #1 votes
http://youtu.be/Qam7mKlc21Q

aw man, i'm the only vote for "two of"?

autechre at their detroit-est!

I was casting around a bit for gescom votes, never properly absorbed a lot of their stuff. Sure I've got those lego feet tracks at 12 and 5 but they didn't show up in itunes, probably because itunes is shit. Keynell 4 is no question the winner for me though, absolutely classic ae style slow build up and fade out of all the different elements.

I mean I'm sure there's people that feel that it's not a dub unless you do a wild parametric sweep or something...

Pitchfork: Yeah, but they don't read Pitchfork.

Autechre: Okay, well anyway.

possibly the most revealing three lines of dialogue in any pfork interview ever

the Coda Maestoso remix is exquisite but it was also the only one I knew, so I didn't vote

I didn't vote in the non-AE poll but voted for the Keynell EP in the other polls. Glad to see it getting so much love here, I've always thought it was way underrated even by hardcore fans.

I'm listening to some of the remixes I didn't have time to hear when I put together my ballot. I forgot how good the Slowly remix is! I'm not sure why I didn't vote for the HIA remix either -- I played that EP to death when it came out.

I like the poll title. Not tempted by Kalpoll Introll then? ;)

Or Polled4,Wrap5

Keynell 4 the win! That track is an absolute epic. Glad I wasn't the only one who thought so.

glad "go sheep" got love

Go sheep was my #2 non-Ae track

Kapoll Intro would've been a good one!

IncunaPOLLa -- Autechre :: LP1 :: Incunabula
POLL4, Wrap5 -- Autechre :: LP5 :: LP5

~* ALBUMS + EPS *~

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/25/Autechre_untilted_cover.jpg

10. Untilted - 208 points | 7 votes | 1 #1 vote

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8b/Autechre.garbage.jpg

9. Garbage - 218 points | 7 votes | 1 #1 vote

http://cdn.albumoftheyear.org/album/draft-730.jpg

8. Draft 7.30 - 228 points | 7 votes | 2 #1 votes

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/93253207/Anvil+Vapre+AnvilVapre+PNG.png

7. Anvil Vapre - 231 points | 9 votes

albums by autechre ✓

eps by autechre ✓

I'm the #1 voter for Garbage. I remember back in 1995 when music was expensive it was great getting a 40 minute album for the price of a single. Even if the music wasn't that great. However that wasn't the case here, two tracks on this still ones that kill me every time.

It's probably my least favourite cover though

only 7 votes for Draft? ah well. my #1, obviously

also it has the best cover maybe in popular music history

Love Garbage, when I was putting my ballot together, its ambient vibe just hit me in the right spot: mournful and beautiful.

draft my #1 album

Checking my list I actually had Garbage at number 2. Oops.
Imago, agreed about the draft artwork. Wish I had that on vinyl.

not so much thats its their best or even my favourite just that it best represents their most valuable qualities

http://31.media.tumblr.com/c22525e00724386aa4866f72a74d7cff/tumblr_mihlhlqhQi1qb4lmho1_500.gif

6. Exai - 233 points | 8 votes

I realized when listening to albums in order to put together a ballot that I never completed that in fact, the recent Autechre is the band I love most. Didn't expect that.

Exai is great imo!

http://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4050/4294107444_ea92ef6bca.jpg

5. Amber - 342 points | 11 votes | 2 #1 votes

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41l94unr%2B%2BL.jpg

4. Chiastic Slide - 385 points | 12 votes | 2 #1 votes

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/75/21/ef4b71a88da0dd363266e110.L.jpg

3. Confield - 395 points | 13 votes | 2 #1 votes

https://38.media.tumblr.com/d86a16bb49ba0109a86ded26dd6dd2ce/tumblr_mxygjjRgJq1qkj39po1_500.jpg

2. Tri Repetae - 455 points | 14 votes | 4 #1 votes

c16 deep tread would be in there too i'd hope

LP5 sounded like the most complicated, futuristic, impossible music ever at the time and now it sounds relatively flat-pan, poppy even.

hah I know exactly what you mean. I still think their pre-Confield material holds up quite well (Amber still sounds great to me), but yea LP5 sounds a bit gimmicky now, though my opinion there is probably colored by the fact that I too thought that was probably the pinnacle of IDM and maybe electronic music in general at some point

would be interesting to run this again, especially given that Ae's stuff generally tends to run through a three-year cycle of "This is hardly music!" -> "It's actually pretty good, just different" -> "Absolutely classic". As great as they were in the past, every time I want to listen to them I wind up playing something from the last 10 years. "d sho qub" would be my #1 if I were to take it again.

a three-year cycle of "This is hardly music!" -> "It's actually pretty good, just different" -> "Absolutely classic"

Or even 15 years in some cases (fuck, how did Draft come out FIFTEEN YEARS AGO???)

Anyone else think of Autechre in terms of 'eras' above albums, a bit like console generations? For fear of starting yet another Ae poll, this is how it's organised in my head:

1st era - Incunabula, Amber, Tri Repetae
This is the trickiest to define really since each album sounds quite different from the last, but it's kind of them starting out, finding their sound etc. Incunabula and Amber were groundbreaking and full of great ideas, but in retrospect slot nicely in with the Warp/Artificial Intelligence roster. Tri Repetae certainly points to the granular, mechanoid sound that would come to define them.

2nd era - Chiastic Slide, LP5, EP7
This is the 'classical' period for me. They've worked out who they are and are making a completely unique sound away from most. I still go back to these albums all the time. Chiastic Slide still sounds challenging. LP5 is actually a little more accessible and has fantastic flatplan melodies for days. EP7 is just a chocolate box of great ideas.

3rd era - Confield, Draft7.30, Untilted
I guess I'd call this a 'wilderness' era. Confield was so hyped at the time but compared to the (relatively) accessible sounds of LP5, I always found it an abstruse and awkward listen. I treid and tried with that one, but I felt like there was something I wasn't getting, and that any attempt to 'enjoy' it felt a bit like I was eating my greens. I've come around to Draft and Untilted in recent years, but at first I was disappointed by the focus on pure beats and lack of pretty hooks. It also felt like this kind of music was losing its cachet around this time - Aphex was to all but stop releasing new music in the 2000s, Plaid were in a creative dead-end, and dubstep and minimal house stepped in to fill the 'home listening electronica' hole (except you could dance to it).

4th era - Quaristice, Oversteps
I'm not sure what you'd call this period, maybe the 'First Data Era'? Often overlooked, I see it as a creative (if not commercial) bounce-back. A bigger focus on melodies and the kind of playfulness heard on LP5 and EP7 rather than the po-faced hyper-intelligent rhythmic overdrive of Untilted. Quaristice is an outlier in that it seems to be made up of short vignettes that keep things moving along. Oversteps is a really enjoyable 12-track album you can listen to in one sitting without getting a headache. But conversely, it's also the start of Autechre proliferating multiple accompanying albums which bulked-out their output considerably. No longer was it about a handy collection of tracks but a huge sprawl of sounds that would only multiply as the years went on.

5th era - Exai, elseq, NTS Sessions
I remember reviewing Exai and wondering at the time whether a double album of Autechre was really necessary, expecially when I was struggling to catch up with quaristice.quadrange and Move of Ten. Were I to know exactly how much material they'd go on to release in the 2010s, I would have kept quiet. The Second Data Era is defined as much by the medium as the message: the format being one of the most remarkable things about it. The fact they were able to release the whole of the NTS Sessions on vinyl (whereas they'd stipulated that MP3 was the preferred format on previous releases), was interesting but not surprising. Autechre have always stayed firm about being a breaks-based act and it would make sense that their music is playable on a vinyl format.

Good post. I like the 3rd era far more than you seem to, and I'm one of those people often ridiculed here for thinking that NTS is not only Ae's masterpiece but one of the greatest collections of music of the past ten or fifteen years, but I think this is a pretty reasonable breakdown of the distinct eras

yep. this is exactly how I break it down too. good observation about how that 3rd era was just an all-around downtime for IDM - 2001 really felt like the last hurrah for this sort of music. of course Autechre are truly a peerless group - you don't really think of them in terms of a particular scene anymore. in retrospect they were really the only one of those groups still pushing forward in the 21st century. I wasn't into them back then but I remember a lot of grouching about those albums. Same people who loved Ae for being so futuristic and advanced were now turning on them getting a bit too abstract. There was a lot of straight-up questioning about whether or not they really knew what they were doing anymore.

Confield was really polarising at the time.
Lifelong fans were denouncing it as garbage (no pun intended), and there was a feeling of Emperor's New Clothes.

And yeah, 2001 was like the 'New Jersey' year for that kind of music: Druqks was a big, hyped album that gave mixed results; Double Figure had some incredible songs on but was inconsistent. There was lots of other great stuff out around that time: Chris Clark, Prefuse73. But it did feel like most creative avenues had been explored.

There was a point where I became really disenchanted by the increasingly spoofy aspect of it - all that Tigerbeat stuff that aped Aphex's irreverent humour but without the steez. I felt like I was wasting my time - what is the point of experimental music if it leads nowhere? If you're constantly doodling and never painting?

It's not that people weren't doing new and interesting things - VSnares, for example, was taking up the mantle in ever-more extreme territory. But IDM seemed to have equivalently gone from DIY art-punk to bloated prog-rock, for want of a better analogy. Whereas the original Warp roster saw themselves as making rave and hip hop music, the newer artists were cribbing directly Aphex and Autechre, with no grounding or interest in the original scenes, and so you ended up with this quite limited, unimaginative, and very dorky, insular kind of music that stank like nerdy boys' bedrooms.

Really 'IDM', had won. It was seen as the future of music, and once you started hearing those sounds filtering back into pop and dance music, you knew it was true. There was no use for it any more when labels like Kompakt and Hyperdub were pushing things in newer and more interesting directions.

I'm not sure how and when the IDM revival sparked back in, but maybe around the time of Exai? Aphex releasing the Soundcloud dump definitely helped. But it was as though someone had clicked their fingers and suddenly you had Scintilli and Exai and Syro and a bunch of other things... Maybe a generational thing? Skrillex talking about how Flim is his favourite ever tune probably switched a bunch of millennials onto Aphex...

I think prog is a pretty good analogy. Same sort of idea...you started with people who wanted to take rock & jazz into new territory and expand outward in a way that had never really been done before. That produced some really great stuff, but once it became endless imitations of Yes and Genesis it got considerably less interesting, because they'd already defined what you can and can't do within the genre. IDM circa 2001 was maybe a bit like prog circa 1975 or so. And in both cases there was a revival about a decade later.

Feel like IDM and stuff like vaporwave are now intertwined - you hear a lot of today's vaporwave artists talk about BoC & Aphex the way 80's musicians would talk about the Beatles and the Stones. Artists like Oneohtrix & Vektroid are taking this sound in some pretty crazy new directions, in a way that I think is sort of consistent with the original aesthetic.

It's not that people weren't doing new and interesting things - VSnares, for example, was taking up the mantle in ever-more extreme territory.

I would agree with this but I would also point out that V/VM mined similar territory to the wacky Tigerbeat6 stuff you mention (and I agree that most of that stuff was tedious and uninteresting) and also managed the feat of being both irreverent and joyless. Though thinking about it now, V/VM (and the Caretaker to a lesser extent) was kinda vaporwave before vaporwave, no?

Yeah, it's not like all of a sudden there was a dearth of good avant-electronica, it's just that it felt less vital and the commercial and critical cachet had waned.

I remember, even on ILM, people saying things like 'I hate all that Aphex stuff - it's for nerds who just want the music to sound like video games' - which is totally true, and I felt very attacked by that at the time, lol

There was also this aloof, snobby attitude permeating that scene after a while. This whole 'this isn't dance music, it's intelligent'. Not only that, but a lot of stuff being released on labels like Rephlex, Planet-Mu and Tigerbeat etc seemed to quite like taking the piss out of 'regular' dance and pop culture.

Bit Meddler's 'Shitmix2000', Squarepusher's 'Red Hot Car', for example, even the video from Windowlicker which in retrospect comes off cringily racist. Different times, of course blahblah. I wasn't much of a popist back then either, but even I felt like the joke got stale quickly what with all these spotty geezers who couldn't dance making fun of music that you could dance to.

The eras thing definitely tracks for me, except I absolutely love Confield; "VI Scose Poise" may be my favorite Autechre track. I never need to hear Draft or Untilted again, though, or the first three albums.

Draft is amazing (and I didn't necessarily think so at the time)

or the first three albums.

― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Tuesday, October 8, 2019 9:42 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

gtfo

I like Tri Repetae a little better than Chiastic Slide, which I remember as basically just a series of crunching noises, but I can pretty much take or leave either. LP5 was where I came in, so it's always gonna be one of my favorites and a big part of how I define "good" Autechre.

LP5 was my first. That and EP7 will always be 'my' Autechre albums. I'd love to read some sort of 33 1/3 style longform thing about those.

I've come round to Draft and Untitled, mostly thanks to the enthusiasm for them in this poll.

Haha, Tri Rep is the crunchiest of all the Ae albums. i have to say that I'm more of a fan of them when there's some sort of hint of melodic emotional tug going on underneath the maths. I guess that's why tracks like Cichli and Arch Carrier do so well in polls like this

The first three albums are just lush though. I mean I originally wrote off Incunabula as being not really a proper Ae album as it's very much an ambient techno record compared to what came later, but buying the vinyl reissues it ended up being my most played.

I wish Warp would hurry up and release the next three 'classic era' LPs on vinyl. I'd snap them up so quick

The 5 star Amazon reviews of Draft 7.30 put the purple ponderings of the ILX Autechre Fan Cult (of which I am a member) to shame

Since Autechre has become a part of my life, I have become healthier, more physically toned, keener with my wits, and even more anxious to stay busy. Yes, I have increased and enhanced my longevity work performance as a result of improved health by my addiction to listening to Autechre over the years.

What I have done to make this IDM sound drug more potent is that I have put all my Autechre CD's on a CDR burned by a program called Sonic Stage. It comes with Sony CD players that play the ATRAC3plus CDR's that you make through the computer. You can put more than 30 hours of music on a single CDR. So, having about 15 hours of Autechre playing in a continuous shuffle for hours on end while I'm at work has caused me to work a projected 3 and a half hours worth of work in just under 2 hours. I'm actually quite disappointed when I run out of work to do because I am still on an Autechre high. Sometimes, I've even clocked out but went right back to work because I can't seem to get myself to break away from this sound euphoria. Their music helps me love my work.

So, in a nutshell, the music of Autechre turned me into a healthier, better physical shape, faster mental processor, higher self-esteemed, workaholic. And yet, this music drives my boss crazy. Thankfully, my fellow workers (the carriers anyway) don't seem to mind it, because they all benefit from my work performance as a result of this audio drug.

If anyone else has experienced this same kind of Autechre euphoria, please share your story.

Beautiful post DL <3

Can't fault your division into five eras, I see it exactly the same way.

can't possibly describe in feeble words what my experience was, but I can say that it was esoteric, practically Gnostic. It was an enlightening epiphany, like a vision-quest or a manifestation of Elohim himself. Yes that's hyperbole, but not entirely. For the first time since I heard Confield, my perspective was dramatically altered. Confield demonstrated to me that the most gorgeous beauty sprouts from the most hideous dirt. Draft 7.30 showed me that there's no such thing as abject chaos; something can be obliterated infinitely, but it will always be governed by order at some level. Once I discovered that order, Draft 7.30 began to sound like a pop album.

hmm.. sounds like the writer is 'doing a bit'

If I was ranking Ae albums I think Tri Rep would be somewhere near the very bottom

really a testament to how crazy good they are

Just put on the hour-long track from the NTS box.

God speed, safe travels and open your mind, my friend.

I sort of group Draft thru Exai together in 'the doldrums', since I've never warmed to any of them quite as much as the previous stuff. I'm so glad I stuck with them regardless, since after that they rocketed back to absolute peak form.

my short opinions of those are

Confield = really cool but it makes me feel like I have the flu
Draft = too abstract and backwards for me, still fascinating though
Untilted = fucking rules, especially the first 3 tracks which are straight up bricks in the washer
Quaristice = makes much more sense if you see it as a tribute to "computer music" as a whole. I don't like the whole "you have to curate this" aspect to it but the music is very good
Oversteps = tis all a bit plinky plonky (Sean's words) but it gets you in such a cool zone. "d sho qub" is my favorite Autechre track ever. Move of 10 EP is awesome. proper bangers the likes of which they'd never done.
Exai = the cure for not having a headache. I see the two discs as two separate albums, almost by necessity. I can't listen to it all at once. In retrospect kinda funny how they save stuff like "recks on" for the end
elseq = can't forget my first impression here, "feed1" sounding like the most terrifying thing ever and my mouth just going agape during "elyc6 0nset"; it's totally broken down and there's still like 12 minutes to go. amazing stuff but heading a bit into "how much is too much" territory
NTS Sessions = jesus christ

I think my regard for Oversteps is highly determined by d sho qub

I find it strange that someone could like Untitled and not Draft. But then Autechre has always been an aural magic eye picture so it's completely subjective

off topic but 'Untilted' is a bitch of a word to write w/ all this autocorrect etc.

Untilted's rhythms go way harder and it doesn't feel like each percussive sound is constantly tumbling down a halfpipe. "6IE.CR" is fucking great though.

I feel kind of like that about Confield. The kick drum sound on Cfern hurts my brain, and Pen Expers sounds like someone hoovering up screws. Eidetic Casein sounds like thousand toy ambulances running out of batteries. There are some moments of respite (Uviol is lovely) but on the whole I just don't like the sound choices.