Most ridiculous post about 'NTS Sessions 1-4' album on the Autechre thread

two votes for mine, must try harder.

It's obviously also apt that the one who won this Autechre poll would be the one who is worst at spelling and grammar 8)

totally takes the album into an unexpected early-nineties acid jazz realm

― brand new universal harvester (dog latin), Thursday, May 3, 2018 1:50 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i disagree that it’s unexpected but agree that all of these things are good

I'm just gonna say it, "dummy casual pt2" is fucking deranged. Splintered synth in agony, cokehead teeth-grinding, yawping into the void and message-sent accents.

The dubstep trudger. Very much makes me think of something Digital Mystikz or Skream might have played circa 2006 that on somehow.

*one

I don't really buy the political listening angle but this is an ok read: https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/pavn49/autechre-nts-session-review-mike-shiflet-tetracosa?utm_source=nt

Classic case of projection there xpost (article)

fucking "four of seven" guys, it's like essence of Amber stretching to infinity and the most beautiful coda

You know, I don't think I have had this much sustained joy and gut thrills from any Ae release since Confield. I've listened to it to death and know most of the tracks thoroughly.

Good interview on pitchfork today, they consider themselves to be kindred spirits with David Lynch.

Also NTS 1 is now on spotify

Good interview on pitchfork today, they consider themselves to be kindred spirits with David Lynch.

― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Thursday, August 9, 2018 8:58 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh shit we gotta add autechre themselves to the poll options j/k

You know, I don't think I have had this much sustained joy and gut thrills from any Ae release since Confield ever. I've listened to it to death and know most of the tracks thoroughly.

Seriously, nothing has even come close to bumping this from aoty #1 with a bullet for me

It never occurred to me that, per that interview, any of these tracks might be more one of the guys than the other, it's fascinating to hear that's how they breakdown. Thinking specifically of this:

SB: We’ve never had specific roles in the band. It’s not like one of us is a bass player. We both have always done tracks on our own. All the albums, I don’t know what the proportion is exactly, but there are more solo tracks than there are tracks that we both worked on at the same time. Or we’d swap projects, you’d end up with a half-finished track and hand it over to the other guy. It’s just when you’re doing it with patches, it’s way more interesting, because you’re not stepping on the other guy’s toes by erasing or changing things because—

RB: The timeline’s still alive, isn’t it?

SB: Nothing’s frozen. It’s a lot more flexible, so there’s quite a lot of room for fuckery.

So I guess one guy works on something for a while then stops and hands it off to the other, who either finishes it or fools with it. But because they are so likeminded they basically trust the other guy to if not improve it then certainly hand it back in the same condition? Also always interested to read about their shorthand tracks taxonomy. I like how they recognize how explaining things that might in the end be rather mundane might actually make things seem more mysterious or confusing if the audience doesn't share Autechre's established working shorthand (which obviously only Rob and Sean do!).

The talk about building a sequencer that plays a specific pattern is probably the most specific I've seen them get to describing what their programs do.

So "all end" is a full ambient album on its own?

"elyc9 7hres" is a pretty slammin' groove

Currently obsessing over "north spiral" with its refracted-note melody never quite slipping into place, then BOOM IMMENSE DUB SECTION which is over and done in about 20 seconds after 10 minutes of rising anxiety.
Surprisingly great review - maybe the most sussed Ae review I have ever read - from p4k back in May: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/autechre-nts-sessions-1-4/

"north spiral" is a stand-out for me too. I'm slowing digesting this mass, but by bit.

So "all end" is a full ambient album on its own?

that's a good way of thinking about it! "generous" seems like it's bound to end up in a thread about adjectives that are used too frequently in recent music criticism, but i skipped ahead to the conclusion of the backlash to the backlash backlash on this word, and think it's a good description of all end. all end is "generous". thank you, ae

"north spiral" is lethal

i think my absolute favorite is still "13 ctrl". it's like the soundtrack to this picture:

Cassini's last image before entering Saturn's atmosphere and burning up. pic.twitter.com/94wnlM9zJk

— Bill Wanatosky 8(a) (@DCMDVABroker) August 31, 2018

Another slow digester, here. Been managing to loop through the whole 8 hours about once per week. My current pet fave is violvoic, just a long slow succession of earth-shaking drops. Haven't played it *really* loud yet, we've just moved and I don't want to make a bad impression with the new neighbours...

I've thought about this album/collection/whatever it is a lot, and describing "All End" as an album in itself (which is pretty accurate) made me wonder how I/we would think of this set or any of its installments if they hadn't been released as volumes of an 8-hour opus but as stand alone albums. Like, say a couple of years had gone by and then, here you go, NTS Sessions 2, this is our new album (with none of the other volumes). Or say "All End" *was* the new Autechre album. Would I/we love it as much? Certainly the length and division of the whole NTS Sessions span affected how I approached it and how I listen to it, so getting all of that music at once must have had some bearing on my reaction and opinion as well.

I don't think they could've released 'All End' as a single "here's our new album" album, without the whole world thinking it was indeed their end. The joy of the NTS Sessions is that they've branched out what Autechre can be: they can be ambient now, too. For me the many shades of NTS1-4 means I'll def listen to Autechre even more.

Perhaps what I mean is they've gone beyond being Autechre; at least the 'singular' (if you could say that about them, you probably can't but) Autechre. The flavors on offer have multiplied.

And here's me thinking they'd released many, many ambient tracks already through their career! (They even did an hour-long ambient track once before already, a decade ago ...)

Haha no you're right! Just not in the hour long arch, Basinski-type way.

What ambient track are you referring to btw?

(That was meant in jest!)

Perlence subrange 6-36 from the Quaristice.Quadrange.ep.ae e.p.

Ah yes, thanks!

its a weird one because you'd swear it was just a loop but something changes every time your mind starts to wander

I think "all end" is cool and all but if it disappeared I wouldn't miss it

I know we're talking about NTS now but it just sort of dawned on me that a lot of the tracks on elseq are like extensions of the sort of experimental synthesizer stuff that Conrad Schnitzler did? I'm listening to "elyc6 0nset" now and if I didn't know better I'd think this was a lost Schnitzler album....perhaps more technical and complex than anything he was capable of but the ideas and the *sounds* are sort of the same aren't they?

The sounds absolutely are. Take 'Consequenz' or 'Con', to name just two. (I've not been able to keep up with the huge flow of CS albums after his death tbf)

"elyc6 0nset" always makes me think of the nightmarish scene towards the end of Kill List and the main character's being chased through those tunnels by screaming demi-creatures

there's also the whole field of computer music, electro-acoustic music...

Some very nice movement in "glos ceramic".

I'm quickly coming around to the opinion that NTS is quite a bit stronger than elseq. The tracks mostly feel more intentional and groove-friendly, which are good things for me.

Maybe the same amount of information and ideas as elseq, but given space and allowed to unfold more accessibly. I’m finding it really difficult to listen to other artists for more than half a day at a time, it just keeps reeling me back in.

I've had the same experience. Of course, it doesn't hurt that 2018 has been an unbelievably shit year for music afaic

totally distracting how often one has to change discs with this as an 8 CD set. at the same time, the slow-evolving pace of the music seems not to fit with the old paradigms of putting a disc in and pressing play. I usually only dig into an album once I have the physical disc, and I love everything about this album & the statement, the way it debuted as streams & files, going through it first hearing bits of it off laptop speakers as it looped through the two hour cycle, then later playing it off a USB keydrive with four folders on it plugged into my car stereo, just having the music pick up wherever it left off whenever I got back behind the wheel. but this physical version of it feels like... like it's not the real version. happened to me with that Kayn 16 CD box as well, that was music that made the most sense on its first release as two seven-hour long files. all pretty modern & has me appreciating this new album even more.

Hmm. I've got the 18 sides of vinyl and I don't really feel the same. I feel it makes it more manageable to methodically (and excitedly) work my way through it. I didn't hear it before I got the records though, so that maybe different.

How's 'All End' divided up on vinyl? Do the sides end with a harsh cut-to-quiet in the middle of it? (i've the cd set)

actually it's 24 sides of vinyl! Pretty sure "All End" gets 3 sides. In a recent Japan interview Sean says it's a piece taken from the end of "bladelores" but the entire track is "end", hence the title.
I used to play CDs a lot because I had a player with a really nice DAC and output preamp, but then I bought a nice standalone DAC with similar components and I run lossless USB 44/16 to it - equally great sound, no need to change discs.

nineFLY bangs too hard, I get a little jolt of anxiety knowing what's coming when it comes on

when are we polling this sumbitch

I'm so ready for the poll

will it be a single track pick? because, no.

We could poll the 4 sessions, I guess

Ballot poll of all the tracks. Could just do it all on this thread.

i am so not ready to poll this and probably never will be

I know this has turned into an Autechre fan thread which is great and all but I'd never seen this Whiney poll before and it's the same needlessly cruel vein as the Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith poll a couple years back. I respect the guy tremendously as a writer, so my question is this: was he always this much of a sociopath (on ILX)?