Are you telling me this is AE: SIGN? (Autechre LP 14)

i definitely felt some of that on my first few listens but it has come into its own for me. i think even though it's more tonal and emotionally direct, the instability and complexity are still there. i'm predisposed to like emotionally direct autechre though. just as an aside, 'schmefd 2' is very wrecked/difficult imo, up there with the weirdest stuff on nts. i think there may be a mangled vocal sample buried in there but if i try to identify it i feel like i'm aurally hallucinating.

Gotta admit, was not expecting a Jon Pareles interview in the New York Times.

this hit pretty immediately for me and i wonder if it's because i've been gradually making my way through their catalog and just hit untilted. i am sort of thinking about it in the context of nts (again, the opener and "schmefd 2" are pretty clearly extensions of that stuff) but also not really at all, its beauty and space and its economy are striking to me against the whole of their discography as well

Link for posterity:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/arts/music/autechre-sign-interview.html

this is my submission for whatever whiney poll harvests the most embarrassing posts on this thread but: imo elseq and nts are them rocketing through alien spaces, and this record feels like the return to earth, but earth has changed dramatically in the intervening years. it feels like there is an awful lot of longing and yearning in these tracks; of course that and anything i put on top of it is a projection, but what i get from it is the grief for something long gone xp

I think Brad is on to something, or at least brings something up that's useful to me. I think of this new album (which was sounding pretty good on another listen tonight) in the context of their catalog as a whole: following the epic NTS Sessions, or a sparer, slightly more melodic return to an earlier style, or even just album number x in a long line of albums I've loved or liked or appreciated. But I wonder what I would think if this was the first album I heard, or if I did listen to it, like Brad, after progressing through all of their stuff chronologically. One of the greatest tricks Autechre (or any challenging music, really) plays is making music that reveals itself over time, whether the duration of a track, or over the course of an album, or even years later after several other albums have been released. That is to say, I've got my favorite Autechre tracks, albums and moments, but in some ways when I listen to them it's always like hearing them for the first time, depending on my mood, or whatever else I've been listening to, or thinking back, as I listen, to music they have made before. I don't know, maybe that's not unique to Autechre, probably not, but it really does feel like one long evolution. Weren't there people tin-hatting that "All End" would be the last thing they ever did, because it felt like some sort of abstract apotheosis? In some ways it might have felt that way because it came at the end of a particularly long release which itself came at the end of a long, winding, fascinating catalog. Certainly the new album in the context of that specific track feels like a fresh branch, and NTS Sessions (or "All End") some sort of breaking point or culmination, with the new one a subtly fresh start from a familiar root.

> I think Brad is on to something

Nah, that's just the plot of Planet of the Apes.

This quote from the NYT article seems to be a common theme with some here:

How do you feel about the album when you listen to it now?

SEAN BOOTH It’s strangely jarring. It’s sort of too real. All this Covid stuff has put me in a really different place from where I was when we were just compiling it. Back then we were saying, “This is totally right.” But now I’m wondering if it’s too right. And I’m really feeling a bit self-conscious if I’m being totally honest. It’s difficult to listen to because it’s too emotionally resonant. I was going for making something pure and new and sort of surprising, and now I’ve ended up with something that’s almost predictable. So I’m reluctant to play it too much because I feel like that place it puts me in is perhaps a little bit too cathartic.

Nah, that's just the plot of Planet of the Apes.

― koogs, Tuesday, October 13, 2020 7:49 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

i hate every ape i see

^^^ I'm reading that as sung by Justin Timberlake

The capitalized album title, Brown said, is “an initialization, but we don’t want to tell anybody what it stands for.”

I think Brad is on to something

Def! And the quote octobeard pasted really resonates. It will find its place and be 'totally right', maybe just not now, or not as fast, as previous releases.

I held out on listening to this too much, with the vinyl on the way.

These are edited excerpts from a far-ranging two-hour conversation with Autechre.

edited from two hours down to five minutes!

yeah srsly

I've felt a vague irritation with myself for not buying the NTS sessions. It wasn't even hideously expensive, was it? I was probably in a bad mood.

Are there links to tracks from the new album? I'm still in a bad mood so only want to buy if there's a chance I will play.

It's streamable on https://autechre.warp.net/ now

Oh, cool, ta.

Here's what I think anyway: https://thequietus.com/articles/29078-autechre-sign-review

That was good! It's ironic that Autechre is ultimately one of the easier and more fun acts to write about, imo. (Not that writing about them doesn't take work, as I'm sure your review did!)

Thanks Josh. I deliberately tried to keep as much 'sounds like a mechanical Jonah tapping out rhythms on the inside of a whale made of silly putty' descriptions to a minimum, as it's way too easy and obvious to do that. Plus much as it's fun to describe these things, everyone seems to hear these things quite differently. Am I the only one who immediately thought 'motorcycle' when 'M4 Lema' came on?

(not that the piece doesn't fall into this trap - it's almost impossible not to project strange imagery into these things)

Am I the only one who immediately thought 'motorcycle' when 'M4 Lema' came on?

― Specific Ocean Blue (dog latin), Thursday, October 15, 2020 8:48 AM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Nope!

Great review btw

imo elseq and nts are them rocketing through alien spaces, and this record feels like the return to earth, but earth has changed dramatically in the intervening years. it feels like there is an awful lot of longing and yearning in these tracks

I reviewed this for Stereogum, and came to a lot of the same conclusions as Brad.

Great piece!

cheers Paul and Tim. it means a lot that you guys liked it

Yes, both of these reviews were great. I like that Phil mentions both Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream, because I absolutely hear this now. I'm sure those people influenced Ae from the jump, but on this record those influences seem just as explicit as the electro, hip hop, and musique concrete influences have been on Ae albums past

Nice piece, dl. I'm interested that what you heard as a motorcycle I heard as them trying repeatedly to boot up their machines - so, basically a hard drive grinding.

Tangerine Dream

It's funny, the first time I listened to the album I absolutely thought it sounded like a soundtrack, or at least more than the group usually does.

alright this made me laugh

https://i.redd.it/hyiiw4b597t51.jpg

they do look a bit like grizzled mobsters in their recent photos

Xps enjoyed your take too unperson, and as I think I mentioned elsewhere, it’s uncanny that so many reviews address the “human” element of their music on this one.

Looking forward to the vinyl hitting my doormat so I can enjoy this with less critical ears

Good review DL! And unperson's too, I think Schulze is a good call.

I've a feeling SIGN won't end up being a lot of people's fave AE album. It is a sort of return to the basics, but it's extremely good and lush to ease into right now.

Yeah good reviews - better than this short & ambivalent one: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/oct/16/autechre-sign-review-warp

It's on spotify now so i can stream it around the house \o/

Typically excellent Philip Sherburne review on Pitchfork today

Here's an excerpt of the Japanese bonus track n Cur. Sounds a lot like Gas Königsforst 5 to me:
https://diskunion.net/DU-X1_audio_player.html?id=1008189907&disc=1&track=12

that Sherburne review is so good. he's summarised Ae so well in those opening paragraphs

Also for posterity:

https://i.imgur.com/8F5J1vd.jpg

This really seems to be hitting a critical mass, good for them. I do feel like a poser though, they've long been on my list to check out and I'd feel weird starting now because of all of this attention. I watched all the NTS Sessions discourse from afar but that seemed like a lot to start with.

Physical copy arrived in this morning's mail, as promised. I like when preorders actually work as designed. (I remember preordering the last Mastodon album and it came something like 10 days after street date.)

Another excellent piece on SIGN, from a slightly more musicological perspective:

http://5against4.com/2020/10/16/autechre-sign/

This really seems to be hitting a critical mass, good for them. I do feel like a poser though, they've long been on my list to check out and I'd feel weird starting now because of all of this attention. I watched all the NTS Sessions discourse from afar but that seemed like a lot to start with.

Start with Tri Repetae.

start with LP5! ;-)

i got my physical copy today too and it's so nice to listen to on vinyl without a screen and a tracklisting in front of me, and without having to use my critical listening brain

I started with LP5 and that worked perfectly--to me it's their most even balance of futuristic experimentation and melodic accessibility. But I don't think you can go wrong starting with any of their 90s stuff

start with LP5! ;-)

I agree.

Start with Tri Repetae, then go LP5, and if you like what you hear, move about at will.

really agree with starting with lp5

tri repetae is the apotheosis of their early sound but it def took me a while to figure that out, lp5 was way more immediate and one of their most beautiful tracks ever is in the opening run

My boss was intrigued by Autechre and asked for some select tracks. I put together a playlist, but it was really difficult. How does one put together a short sample of a 30 year+ career like theirs? Those LP5 tracks which once sounded so cold and clinical to me are more like chill hip hop rhythms. What would an uninitiated person think of Cichli? And how do I contextualise the post-Confield material? Have to admit, it wasn't easy at all to come up with anything comprehensive.

I’d really like to see the tracklist you put together!

FWIW this is what I ended up with: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5zFEsaK4t8cbDNM7VrEdWX?si=omrSJr6jSe6NSPyvvBqnRg

Arch Carrier
Cichli
Eutow
Pir
Garbagemx
d-sho qub
Fold4, Wrap5
Maphive6.1
Rae
gr4
6IE.CR
Krib
Slip
M4 Lema
violvoic