Autechre - classic or dud

First thoughts: lots of ©æ™® textures. Harks back to Confield era somewhat. Dope.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExnKj30jYp4

I would bet the new record is a 'best bits from the past couple tours' thing (though what would be really cool if it drew from whatever soundboards they have from their entire career)

Always wanted a version of 444 with a sax solo so was very stoked to find this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6nz5aymN20

There's an hour-long all-AE show by those guys on YT too, this Cichli is from there

That is fantastic. Thanks for the link!

hey, this is about me

http://www.factmag.com/2016/05/14/hear-a-new-autechre-track-feed-1/

what the

https://www.reddit.com/r/autechre/comments/4jet2f/theory_a_new_autechre_album_comes_out_june_24/

obviously this song is glorious

the full 490

seventy sevens indeed sir

lol

ahhh hahh hah that number code/date on the cover, excellent. didn't they already do this with Exai though?

oasis_be-here-now.jpg

https://www.reddit.com/r/autechre/comments/4jet2f/theory_a_new_autechre_album_comes_out_june_24/

― StanM, Sunday, 15 May 2016 11:32 (4 days ago)

I'm starting to think that theory might be wrong.

I'm starting to think that I'll never listen to autechre ever again.

it wasn't a bad theory as these things go

xp: I don't know, it's like existential, man. (why am I listening to this? is it possible to like or dislike this? what's the meaning of life? is this music and does that even matter?) etc :)

new album out

has it leaked?

Is it washable?

has it leaked?

This is what happens when there are three Autechre threads on SNA that I had nothing to do with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqjbuQ_2UyY

Lentic Catacheesis

I randomly stumbled upon an autechre podcast called gonkcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gonkcast-an-autechre-podcast/id1533479657) and decided to listen a bit. Rather than start from the beginning I decided to start with the Confield episode. I enjoyed the episode.

A couple of remarks:
- These guys were under the impression that what they called autechre's "middle period" (confield to untilted) was the least popular era of autechre, which has not generally been the impression I had from the various message boards I've frequented where autechre was discussed
- I liked the discussion about why this sounds like completely random sounds to some people (something like how it's a bit like freeform jazz or something of the sort except that since the sounds are computer generated, people don't see the human hand that is guiding all of this and just assume that it is computer generated randomness)
- It was fun hearing these track names pronounced: one of the hosts wondering if he should say VEE Scose Poise or 6 Scose Poise, a mention of "el-sec" (in my mind it was always 'else-cue'), at some point one of the hosts starts talking about "drug use" and it took me about 30 seconds to realize he was talking about drukqs

Cool, will give it a try, as long as they don't have annoying podcast voices.

one of the hosts wondering if he should say VEE Scose Poise or 6 Scose Poise

Viscous pwaaz imo:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poise_%28unit%29?wprov=sfla1

listened to that Gonkcast a bit and while it's an interesting listen I don't always agree with them.
I would agree that that middle period was where they lost me a bit and my interest waned.
I recall the style of music they were making along with other Warp/IDM type stuff was falling out of fashion in general - "Why listen to these bedroom nerds when you can go out and listen to dubstep" was the mindset. Also, while Confield was a big release but it divided a lot of people, so the commercial response for Draft/Untilted was muted.

I agree that that middle period is one where they lost a lot of fans, but for many others (including me) they changed from being one of many Warp artists that they listen to the Warp artist that managed to take things to another level. I don't know, maybe that was just a vocal minority at the time.

How does the podcast handle pronouncing the song titles?

Yeah I feel with earlier fans of Autechre who were all in before Confield, that era was one of lower popularity, but they attracted a bunch of new fans who really appreciated their more experimental leanings to balance things out. Now I think nostalgia and increased experimentalism on numerous tracks that would come later have allowed people to return to this with more rosy fondness.

Seriously, Warp - when the heck are you guys repressing Chiastic -> Untilted already???!

Fun podcast, btw. Enjoying the nerdery.

silverfish OTM, I got on board around Tri Rep and when Confield hit it was just mindblowing, they went from one-among-many to one of the major pole stars of my musical universe. There are periods when I can only listen to Autechre despite a massive musical library.

the confield era was also around when idm/glitch/etc. started getting kinda unfashionable in general too. that was my impression, anyway. the disappointment with the golden boy of the scene when druqks came out (from others, I like the record myself) is the most prominent example I can think of.

had to hang in there for a little for idm to get old enough to be cool again, I guess.

I think I actually first heard of Autechre when Confield made Pitchfork's Top 20 Albums list in 2001.

I didn't start listening to them until like 2010 but I always knew them as a group where everyone complains about the new album then 2 years later said it's a classic and that it's the new one in fact that's just randomly generated garbage

it's not like that any more, seems like all the casuals have been shaken from the fanbase. hmmm wonder why that is

Confield had a remarkable amount of hype and press around it, possibly because it was the first one to come out in the established Pitchfork/blog/forum era. One of these albums where everyone had to have a take in it. I remember longterm fans calling it garbage while newer fans were often taken with it. I still don't know how to feel about that one

AMG gives it 3 stars and says "this experimental, rigidly academic work is a record to respect, not enjoy" which is wrong & seems out of step now but is prob one of the more polite contemporary reactions (I assume it's contemporary)- that album seemed to make some ppl genuinely angry

my first, i found it bizarre but v addictive, it's still the one i come back to most. I struggled a lot more with the earlier stuff it kept getting unfavourably compared to- I was never really into techno or IDM. the whole glut of later stuff is way too much for a lifetime but what i've heard is amazing & boring & impenetrable on different days

Experimental and leftfield music was less accessible at the time I guess, so for a lot of people - even Warp/Autechre fans - this would have been one of the most challenging things they'd heard. The UK music press could be strangely closed-off to experimental music, calling it pretentious or making out that it was beyond enjoyability

I remember The Wire reviewed it but not what they said, guardedly positive I think. https://reader.exacteditions.com/issues/35789/page/62?term=confield if anyone has a subscription...

Listening to Lego Feet now, damn this shit bangs.

Some reviews of Chiastic Slide said the boys had gone too far this time, if you stuck with them through that but were thrown by Confield, I weep 4 u.

Yeah Chiastic was a massive sea change, and they even stepped back ever so slightly on LP5. I might have been too young when it came out though, but I don't remember a lot of press about Ae at the time of Chiastic, whereas Confield got boosted a lot thanks to the internet

Chiastic didn't get a US release at the time, IIRC. Meanwhile LP5 was distributed through Trent Reznor's Nothing label, so there was a big wave of publicity.

I felt like I was holding a rare unicorn horn when a friend of mine lent me their CD copy of Chiastic Slide in 1998. I straight away made a copy of that thing

?? I bought Chiastic around '98 in the US in a store. Guess it could have been an import.

It was an import only then - $25-30 (in 1998 dollars) at places like Amoeba or Mod Lang in Berkeley at the time. No way you'd find it easily elsewhere in the bay area

I was in Boston, and I'm pretty sure I got it at Newbury Comics.

Maybe Tower

I def got the expanded 2cd tri repeatae++ at tower but (checks discogs...) looks like wax trax put that out in the US. strange, I coulda swore I had to go into the imports room for it...

It took me a long time to take a closer look at Autechre because I thought of them as that pleasant chill out music my raver friends would throw on back in my college days