is there any good writing about autechre from someone with knowledge of how they make these tracks (largely idk shit about the praxis) but that isnt just arcane technical stuff
― nakhchivan, Monday, September 29, 2014 8:00 PM (Yesterday)
no, i think there is largely nothing good written about their music
i think in that they have been the victims of their own experimentalism, which not only challenges listeners/writers (who are already usually disinclined to really get at the heart of a piece of music, or how it works) but is given so much misleading cover by their music's character (o bioluminescent robots dancing etc., o cold techno aspergers lab employees) and by their praxis (o dark DSP secrets, o automatic tuneification beatlets) that all that junk has to be cleared away or firmly situated somehow before anything meaningful can be said about the music, what its experiments are and how they work, etc. no one seems to have bothered. a shame, because ae also create the suspicion, from time to time, that they are charlatans / savants / fringe weirdo hobbyists / incapable of or uninterested in quality control / mired in a DSP bizarroworld they know not how to extricate themselves from, and seem like they would really benefit from a better understanding among their audience of their work.
― j., Tuesday, 30 September 2014 12:28 (nine years ago) link
I think that's a little harsh on ae ;-)
If anyone hasn't seen it before, they did an 'ask me anything' last year with the WATMM forum:
http://forum.watmm.com/topic/81109-aaa-ask-autechre-anything-sean-and-rob-on-watmm/
There's a fair bit of fanboy nonsense to sift through, but there are also some genuinely interesting contributions from Sean & Rob.
― Steve Reich In The Afternoon (Against The 80s), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 12:35 (nine years ago) link
yeah music = speech - text at least roughly - i reckon it's a kind of super-developed version of the pitch and intonation parts of speech (the aural bit that doesn't contain textual info)
sean is obv some ridic super-level synaesthete genius - this is brilliant
― Ƹ༑Ʒ (imago), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 12:45 (nine years ago) link
xp i think a little harshness would be useful! but partly to figure out how critical one ought to be, neither to the fannish degree (barely, enjoying what one likes, passing over the rest) nor to the judicious record reviewer's degree (safely, at a distance, 'very remarkable sounds and production techniques but…').
the other day i shuffled the new aphex, the xx's debut, and 'move of ten', my favorite recent ae, together and especially up close, on headphones, there were passages in the ae of such delicacy and conception that they just made aphex seem like a plodding wanker. (and i am enjoying that record!) i just think conditions are not ideal, in terms of audiences and critical culture, for ae to be appreciated and understood as well as that comparison suggests they deserve.
― j., Tuesday, 30 September 2014 12:47 (nine years ago) link
At the end of Dog Latin's interview with Rob Booth (link upthread), RB talks about the making of "L-Event" in a really accessible way -- no gearhead talk, just a peek behind the curtain into the general concepts behind the tracks.
The faceless techno/electronic persona has been around forever, Autechre don't really cultivate that image more than anyone else. But it's true that their experimentalism makes it hard for people to write about their music using the typical song structure reference points, i.e. talking about "the intro" or "the melody that comes in at point ___" doesn't really work with Autechre. But instead of trying to break down the structure of the piece, I've always been more interested in hearing how the music makes people feel. I'm much more interested in hearing descriptions on this thread like "Rettic AC is like trampling through the snow and trying to climb over an iron wall" or thereabouts than any attempt to really describe how the music works.
xposts
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Tuesday, 30 September 2014 12:48 (nine years ago) link
also his answers are p zingy. he'd be a brilliant ilx poster (sean i mean)
MastaN8, on 02 Nov 2013 - 5:03 PM, said:Sure. How do you feel your music has been received over the years by fans/critics?in various ways
in various ways
― Ƹ༑Ʒ (imago), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 12:49 (nine years ago) link
yeah it was really muddy, like insanely muddy, and i was already somehow covered in mud, and i was really beyond drunk at that point cos we didn't have to play (our tent was flooded and cancelled) and i had already downed a couple of bottles of champagne - i thought it would be a really good idea to try and push mike paradinas into the mud (he seemed to be really concerned about getting any mud on him at all). anyway it failed and i ended up face down in a load of mud next to him, but he got pissed off about getting some mud on his wrist, so I WIN
someone stop me, I cd do this all day :D
― Ƹ༑Ʒ (imago), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 13:11 (nine years ago) link
half asleep and playing confield quite loud rn
― nakhchivan, Tuesday, 30 September 2014 13:12 (nine years ago) link
some sick low end gently rattling the place
some coruscating synth motifs also
chef d'oeuvre
― nakhchivan, Tuesday, 30 September 2014 13:13 (nine years ago) link
http://www.openculture.com/2014/09/jacques-derrida-interviews-ornette-coleman.html
As one example of this “democratic relationship,” Coleman cites the relationship between the jazz musician and the composer—or his text: “the jazz musician is probably the only person for whom the composer is not a very interesting individual, in the sense that he prefers to destroy what the composer writes or says.” Coleman goes on later in the interview to clarify his ideas about improvisation as democratic communication: [ T ]he idea is that two or three people can have a conversation with sounds, without trying to dominate or lead it. What I mean is that you have to be… intelligent, I suppose that’s the word. In improvised music I think the musicians are trying to reassemble an emotional or intellectual puzzle in which the instruments give the tone. It’s primarily the piano that has served at all times as the framework in music, but it’s no longer indispensable and, in fact, the commercial aspect of music is very uncertain. Commercial music is not necessarily more accessible, but it is limited.
[ T ]he idea is that two or three people can have a conversation with sounds, without trying to dominate or lead it. What I mean is that you have to be… intelligent, I suppose that’s the word. In improvised music I think the musicians are trying to reassemble an emotional or intellectual puzzle in which the instruments give the tone. It’s primarily the piano that has served at all times as the framework in music, but it’s no longer indispensable and, in fact, the commercial aspect of music is very uncertain. Commercial music is not necessarily more accessible, but it is limited.
― j., Tuesday, 30 September 2014 13:18 (nine years ago) link
the end of pen expers is a sort of jig
― nakhchivan, Tuesday, 30 September 2014 13:18 (nine years ago) link
i like the idea of ae as jazz musicians, in the sense of
When I attempt to describe Autechre's post-Chiastic output to someone I tell them they're an electronic jazz band. Jazz in the sense of intense improvisation, but along with melody, timbre, sonics, percussion, rhythm are improvised. In addition to this they often transition these attributes into each other (timbre becomes rhythm, melody becomes sonics, percussion becomes melody - at times all at once). There's even traditional melodic jazz elements, seen early on in Acroyear2 off of LP5, Stop Look Listen off of WAP100 (a fantastic and overlooked track, btw) and more recently on Irlite (get 0) off of Exai.
Exai to me feels more fluid in this respect and is by far and away my favorite "jazz" record of theirs in that it is so wonderfully balanced in its improvisations.
― octobeard, Tuesday, September 30, 2014 3:28 AM (4 hours ago)
but i would think about it not so much with an emphasis on improvisation (somehow in there yes) but in terms of vernaculars and conversations. i think it's interesting that for a group with two producers, working in such a traditionally auteurless/concealed-human-auteur medium, the tendency in talk about ae's music is toward emphasizing their total control, stage managery start-up-the-robots direction, or all the way to responding to the music (in very pathetic fallacy-ish ways?) as if it were humanized/alienized nature, behaving and transpiring as it were of its own accord. because a lot of ae's developments of the last ten years seem to me to have tried to make even more room for the elements of their music to be more responsive to each other in that jazz manner, of parts in a conversation (which is very traditionally musical - cf. the late-beethoven feel mentioned above, for vienna-school 'string quartet as a free but constrained development of a theme by partners in a conversation' -style thinking about music), voices. maybe it could be said more that ae withdraw / seem absent from their music, in that sense that encourages 'total control' narratives, because they're looking for new ways to allow these conversations among, and developed by, their distinctive musical elements (tone, rhythm, etc.) to take place.
― j., Tuesday, 30 September 2014 13:31 (nine years ago) link
1) lolii) slight worry you've ruined the track for me butc) yeah i love reading descriptions & reactions like this too. obviously reaction to all music is highly personal, don't wanna make like ae are in any way exclusive in that regard, but they are kind of ploughing their own path and maybe the lack of conceptual (lyrical, historical, whatever) baggage makes it easier for the brain to free associate.
― If a job's worth doing it's worth doing, Horatio (ledge), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 13:35 (nine years ago) link
not it is like a jig, it is a jig
― nakhchivan, Tuesday, 30 September 2014 13:37 (nine years ago) link
yerright
jigs in experimental music: a poll (see also: mbv - soon)
― Ƹ༑Ʒ (imago), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 13:41 (nine years ago) link
Thought this was interesting in that AAA, from Booth:
tbh i think everything has some emotional element, but we're not really thinking about that when we do stuffit's not that we don't feel like emotions are important, more that it's hard for me to imagine a sound that doesn't convey some sense of something, and quite often when people discuss emotions in music they only think of happy or sad as being emotions, when imo emotions are a lot more than thate.g. if we put out a really angry track, then people rarely describe it that way. they would more likely say it was unlistenable or difficult, the emphasis moves from expression to design, maybe they just fail to recognise it as expressive if they think it's very technical
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 30 September 2014 13:56 (nine years ago) link
btw
Overand - [...] Just these minute squelches of radio-like interference spinning off into the galaxy. Transmissions being sent off into the vacuum
this is more or less how i picture uviol off confield.
― If a job's worth doing it's worth doing, Horatio (ledge), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 15:58 (nine years ago) link
i get eidetic casein and lentic catachresis mixed up. tend to really like their last tracks don't know if it's just because i'm paying more attention. "teartear" is probably my favorite on amber. rsdio brings to mind "metronomic underground" by stereolab probably because i was listening to both these albums heavily around the same time in the late 90s being motivated by post-rock and i guess the basslines and tempos are sort of similar.
― mattresslessness, Tuesday, 30 September 2014 16:06 (nine years ago) link
HI DERE.
― cichleee suite (Leee), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 16:54 (nine years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/oQ3etLp.jpg
39T. Vose In - 80 points | 4 votes
― cichleee suite (Leee), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 16:57 (nine years ago) link
39T. Bladelores - 80 points | 4 votes
http://i.imgur.com/2ppgAFS.jpg
― cichleee suite (Leee), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 17:39 (nine years ago) link
didn't vote for that but it's great
wish I had the technical knowledge to respond to j.'s posts properly :(
― Ƹ༑Ʒ (imago), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 17:53 (nine years ago) link
bladelores is modern polished autechre at its best. Ended up at #14 on my ballot.
― Larminard Darzingargle (silverfish), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 18:59 (nine years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/zvtGRr2.jpg
― cichleee suite (Leee), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 19:50 (nine years ago) link
Copy paste disaster!
Bladelores pic = Wesley snipes. Vose in = vosene. I'm not one to shy away from the obvious. Goz is Turkish for eye and the only thing that shows up in an image search.
― If a job's worth doing it's worth doing, Horatio (ledge), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 19:56 (nine years ago) link
Vosene shampoo, I should say.
― If a job's worth doing it's worth doing, Horatio (ledge), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 19:57 (nine years ago) link
B'oh!
37T. Goz Quarter - 81 points | 3 votes | 1 #1 vote
― cichleee suite (Leee), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 19:58 (nine years ago) link
Goz quarter is great but still only the third best on envane.
― If a job's worth doing it's worth doing, Horatio (ledge), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 19:59 (nine years ago) link
I was looking for images of gauze to use!
― cichleee suite (Leee), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 20:00 (nine years ago) link
I.e. thank dog you found something better.
― cichleee suite (Leee), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 20:06 (nine years ago) link
My #1 in this poll. Was sent this and Anvil Vapre on promo (vinyl), those were the days. Perhaps slightly arbitrary placing but it is a fave. I think it's the most well rounded of the tracks on Envane. Lots of nice elements that work together and I always really liked the dolorous "burning" string pad that comes in for the main slow melody for some reason. Works @33 as well IIRC. "Jam like Autechre"
― Noel Emits, Tuesday, 30 September 2014 20:34 (nine years ago) link
Playing Latent Quarter now and it is filth.
― Noel Emits, Tuesday, 30 September 2014 20:39 (nine years ago) link
That one's never stuck with me, can't recall it at all.
― If a job's worth doing it's worth doing, Horatio (ledge), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 20:58 (nine years ago) link
enjoying this thread. I only really know&love confield but having dug out the cd it sounds superb & I'd forgotten how fond I was of it even though I'd never got into anything else
― ogmor, Tuesday, 30 September 2014 21:30 (nine years ago) link
confield was my introduction too :)
obviously my advice would be to listen to the albums that came immediately afterwards before regressing but others may disagree
― Ƹ༑Ʒ (imago), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 21:33 (nine years ago) link
Jump straight to exai.
― If a job's worth doing it's worth doing, Horatio (ledge), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 21:37 (nine years ago) link
yeah I got tri repetae but it wasn't as immediately beguiling so I didn't spend much time with it. ganz/draft sound good though, autechre bring out audiophile tendencies in me
― ogmor, Tuesday, 30 September 2014 21:38 (nine years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/2RJCVDW.jpg
37T. Foil - 81 points | 4 votes
― cichleee suite (Leee), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 21:44 (nine years ago) link
cool. have a soft spot for their brutalist 4/4ish bangers
― mattresslessness, Tuesday, 30 September 2014 21:46 (nine years ago) link
goz was the quarter i voted for.
― Acting Crazy (Instrumental) (jed_), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 21:51 (nine years ago) link
Three-way tie coming up!
― cichleee suite (Leee), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 22:25 (nine years ago) link
Goz Quarter is the song, and Envane is the EP that got me into obsessing about Ae as much as (if not more than) RDJ. I also ended up meeting one of my best friends because of Envane. I had only heard Tri Repetae++ at the time, and he tossed Envane my way to borrow after only meeting me once (he later told me I was the first real life person he met who had discovered and listened to that style of music on their own), and I was blown away by Goz Quarter in particular because of how simply groovy it was, and how gorgeous the lead melody was toward the end. Very Cichli-esque. I couldn't quite ignore my nostalgic influences, otherwise I'd have put Draun Quarter up there instead.
And come on, who doesn't want to "Jam like Autechre"?
― octobeard, Tuesday, 30 September 2014 22:28 (nine years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/ZnrlqxH.jpg
34T. Corc - 83 points | 3 votes
― cichleee suite (Leee), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 22:29 (nine years ago) link
Sad I didn't vote for Vose In. Went for Fold4, Wrap5 instead. They complement each other so well on the LP5 album. Love how the synths sound like they're being turned up and down like that.
― Non-Stop Hongrotic Cabaret (dog latin), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 22:30 (nine years ago) link
yeah i love the way vose in sets up 4/5
― Acting Crazy (Instrumental) (jed_), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 22:32 (nine years ago) link
Corc is glorious. I didn't vote for it though.
― Acting Crazy (Instrumental) (jed_), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 22:33 (nine years ago) link
Oh wait I did vote for Vose In.could have sworn I also voted for Bladelores too but apparently not. Don't know why I didn't cos it's such a great standout on Exai.
― Non-Stop Hongrotic Cabaret (dog latin), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 22:33 (nine years ago) link
Corc always feels like the least memorable track on LP5 but I'm always pleasantly surprised when it comes on.
― Non-Stop Hongrotic Cabaret (dog latin), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 22:35 (nine years ago) link
Most overrated track on LP5. Possibly most overrated Ae track ever.
― octobeard, Tuesday, 30 September 2014 22:38 (nine years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/B3EfWfR.jpg
34T. Lentic Catachresis - 83 points | 4 votes
― cichleee suite (Leee), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 22:38 (nine years ago) link