Autechre: Classic or Dud?

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

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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

o god pls someone affirm it's better than Hecker

Is Hecker bad? Anyway, the Ae is good, so fine, it's "better than Hecker."

personal distaste, it's all fine

wow finally something i agree with imago on

i like his early stuff tho

i love tim hecker, lol

i'm also listening to "all end" right now and this is my shit

towards the latter half of "all end" it strongly recalls one of the later-period Tim Hecker albums.. Ravedeath, I think. Otherwise, the bulk (the surface, at least) of it, is from the outro to "bladelores" (Exai)

the timbre / quality of it, even - kinda glassy, maybe it's Virgins

mirrage, column thirteen, shimripl casual are gorgeous ae

column thirteen harks back to Oversteps in a lovely way.. it brings back that sort of buttery, humid quality of pt2ph8 (et al)

There is definitely some sort of melody in "All End." Maybe just a few notes or huge chords hanging there, but it's there, in the background, spooky and menacing and cycling around.

The title makes me worry that "all end" is their swan song... hopefully it's the all end for just NTS and not Autechre as a band.

After attending a show a week ago where William Basinski's Disintegration Loops were played in their entirety over the course of an evening (with the audience encouraged to bring beddings and sleep over while listening), now I kinda want to experience the NTS sessions unedited during an 8 hour sit in at a venue.

Do their catalog numbers all mean something? They're certainly not in order anymore.

Untilted = WARP180 (something to do with 180 degrees = no angles?)
Oversteps = WARP210 (10th album)
Elseq = WARP512 (5 volumes, 12th album?)
NTS = WARP364 (36 tracks, 4 sessions?)

Thanks to insomnia, I just woke up and started Session 4 over again.

Man, I tried with Session 4 and about 30 minutes into I was feeling crazy anxious and like a headache was coming on. I've tried over and over with late Autechre, but I don't think I can do it.

Maybe I need to buy a ton of w33d to spend some time with these jamz.

I slept to v4 on a loop all night and had a full 8 hours sleep for the first time in weeks. off to he gym! lalalalala

if somebody can edit this down to the best 12 minutes i'll listen

I had to turn off Session 3 this morning and put on All End instead. That track is not necessarily indicative of the rest of the set(s), but it's what I keep coming back to. And it's an hour long, so ...

http://www.namesdir.net/s/gonk

i listened to all the NTS sets today. WOW.

'column thirteen' is just astonishing, so psychedelic and transporting, it kind of reminds me of harold budd.

there's so much great stuff here. i already like it more than elseq