Autechre: Classic or Dud?

pete swanson from yellow swans has a really good monthly show.

so this has been like AE doing SAWII...very nice

Yeah this is gorgeous

lee gamble's NTS sets are superb

sorta curious what Autechre fans think of his last album

i didn't know he had one after 'koch', which i liked

so this has been like AE doing SAWII...very nice

Which "this" do you mean?

i didn't know he had one after 'koch', which i liked

― j., Thursday, April 26, 2018 9:45 AM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's a lot more frenetic than 'koch', takes a bit to warm up to but it's fun as hell. it's on HyperDub and it does kind sound like a "HyperDub album" if you know what i mean.

the live set they're playing on https://nts.live RIGHT NOW

(which will be available for replay when it finishes in sixty seconds so don't sweat)

xp

listening to set 4 now. This is pretty amazing and unlike anything I've heard from them before.

1.frane casual - 13:42
2.mirrage - 6:21
3.column thirteen - 17:02
4.shimripl casual - 24:32
5.all end - 58:21

Jesus Christ

really hope that last track title isn't a sign or anything

they're still touring + all end = ae ?

not their longest track either, Perlence subrange 3-36 is fifteen seconds longer :-)

so that was just the end of bladelords x30

pretty cool

so that was just the end of bladelords x30

Yup... exactly what I was thinking as I heard it.

Sooo this is going to be released on vinyl? They just going to fade out/fade in all end for the last disc?

and at 58 minutes you're looking at A Wizard, A True Star levels of audio degradation trying to fit 30 minutes of music on a side...

Three sides, for sure. It's 3 x LP per session.

column thirteen is gorgeous.

"all end" is fucking killing me, it's like a sea of emotion

yes!

1.frane casual - 13:42
2.mirrage - 6:21
3.column thirteen - 17:02
4.shimripl casual - 24:32
5.all end - 58:21

What is this the tracklist of? Set 4?

Yes

ty

It's low on dynamics and bottom end with barely any sharp transients so I think 30 minutes a side wouldn't actually be too much of a stretch. You'd get high end loss towards the centre and surface noise but I can see that working with the audio.

I mean if stuff like Calypso Frelimo or half of E2-E4 can go on a side that will really be no problem.

Maybe so, but they won't put the other four tracks on a side each. For one thing the levels would be way off between a well cut six minute side and a workable 30 minute side.
It'll be

NTS 1
A1. t1a1
B1. bqbqbq
B2. debris_funk

C1. l3 ctrl
D1. carefree counter dronal
D2. north spiral

E1. gonk steady one
F1. four of seven
F2. 32a_reflected

NTS 2
G1. elyc9 7hres
G2. six of eight (midst)
H1. xflood
H2. gonk tuf hi

I1. dummy casual pt2
I2. violvoic
J1. sinistrailAB air
J2. wetgelis casual interval
J3. e0

K1. peal MA
K2. 9 chr0
L1. turbile epic casual, stpl idle

NTS 3
M1. clustro casual
M2. splesh
N1. tt1pd

O1. acid mwan idle
O2. fLh
P1. glos ceramic
P2. g 1 e 1

Q1. nineFly
Q2. shimripl air
R1. icari

NTS 4
S1. frane casual
S2. mirrage
T1. column thirteen

U1. shimripl casual
V1. all end 1

W1. all end 2
X1. all end 3

Whatever it is that's playing right now, it is absolutely mesmerizing.

If title matters you can play track samples here: https://autechre.bleepstores.com/release/98672-autechre-nts-session-4

It's a killer, killer two hours of Ae overload.

Thank you! And like you said, it's unexpectedly emotional. I feel like I'm warmly floating in a glacier.

End all. Holy shit does that one live up to its name.

This happens sometimes with Autechre, but listening to this this morning sounds like listening to a living creature, crawling around, developing broader consciousness ...

Apt! It certainly does at the beginning of set 4. At the end of it, it's wholly enlightened.

'Mirrage' could be an alternative soundtrack to Dave Bowman shooting through space in 2001.

Man, have they done anything quite like "all end" before? It's pretty incredible. There are all these gorgeous melodies I may or may not be hearing. Reminds me a bit of Gas at times, maybe?

yea scanning r/autechre and watmm I'm seeing a lot of comments to the effect of "there was this really cool melody there but I relistened this morning and now it's gone"

I've always thought of Ae as the aural equivalent of a Magic Eye poster. I guess that's never been more true

On this epic track, for sure.

Hmm, I never thought to go down the reddit Ae-hole, it's always interesting to learn what people who know all the tracks by name think.

idk why anyone would want to listen to autechre on vinyl

These guys use generative programs, right? Which they sort of micro-manage and direct? So, sort of semi-improvised and then, sometimes, refined?

listening to the fourth set now. :)

a favorable review of NTS Sessions 1-4: https://www.residentadvisor.net/reviews/22429

xpost they used to use max/msp, a long time ago. not sure what they're using now!

think they're still using that and have hinted that they're probably gonna stay with it till the end of time

from the of that RA review:

...If you've been skeptical of Autechre, you'd best check the fourth session. Once we course through "frane casual" we're hit by "mirrage," one of the most concise and beautiful ambient pieces Autechre have ever produced. It seeps perfectly into "column thirteen," which is sublimely bizarre, warm and enveloping. There's something strangely suggestive here. Perhaps it's the melodic synth arps that seem to so faintly echo Amber's inquisitive hues. "shimripl casual" deserves paragraph for itself, but "all end" manages to outstrip it. Almost an hour long yet somehow brisk, it's like a cathedral filled with billions of vibrating light particles, ebbing and convulsing in great waves.

Despite the overload of material, listening to each of the sessions front to back reveals a narrative arc as compelling as in any of their 2015 live recordings. For music that's so detailed on the micro scale, the most arresting moments are the macro-structural pay-offs. Additionally, premiering the pieces live on NTS provided a semblance of a shared experience. It's been great watching fans' commentary online as each episode has been broadcast.

The majority of artists in Autechre's cohort either dropped off in quality or entered the extended victory lap period of their careers. Partly because their music doesn't contain the melody and repetition of, say, an Aphex Twin, critics haven't been especially vocal about how unusual it is that Autechre, an already insanely overdeveloped act, are still developing. NTS Sessions 1-4 will elicit the same critiques as any Autechre album in the last decade, but it's their best record in many years.

OTM. This final volume, for sure, at least.

"gonk tuf hi" definitely needed the word "gonk" in the title.

lol if you play any stretch of this for 99.999% of listeners the first thing they will complain about is how repetitive it is

I'm not sure "repetitive" is the first word 99.999% would use.

IMO Exai marked a shift in how critics covered these guys. A lot of them seemed annoyed at having to review an incredibly dense 2 hour album on a deadline, and that came through in the writing. I remember thinking it was kinda funny when L-Event came out right after, it's like in cartoons when a character gets pelted with an avalanche of objects and sits there dazed for a few seconds, then a teacup falls on their head. In hindsight a lot of those Exai reviews were pretty off the mark (outside of dog latin's, of course) and I think both fans and critics just handled them differently after that. They're entering a sort of inscrutable phase of their career - like how many people in this thread have a good handle on all the elseq stuff yet?

I started struggling a bit wth Autechre around "Untilted" and lost track a bit, up to and including "Exai." But I really liked elseq, iirc, and that super epic live stream they did a couple of years back, even if I never listened to them again, tbh. But this new stuff, I'm really digging it.

Hmm, so "All End," it finally hit me what this is reminding me of: Tim Hecker. Stuff like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EE9mT4JaW_0