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

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

went for the more pretty/melodic stuff with a few curveballs thrown in.

Perfect opener imo, good set!

I started with Tri Repeatae, didn't really like it. felt it was way cold and the super high-pitched tones on "Stud" annoyed the hell out of me. it's still probably my least favorite album of theirs. which I think speaks to how great their catalogue is.

Fwiw, one reason I always lean to Tri Repetae as a recommendation is, no surprise, strictly personal, in that after the first two albums and especially them being clumped in with the IDM scene (specifically on those two Artificial Intelligence comps), "Clipper" specifically was something that clicked with me as totally new and mysterious. Made me a fan for life, tbh.

Which is the first Autechre album/track to really embrace that "ball bearings spilling out onto the floor" sound? I can't remember the chronology offhand. Is that LP5?

Chiastic Slide is where they fully formed into the Autechre we know today imo

Hmm, just googling around and found this dude, who ... seems to do a pretty good job summing things up?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea3FP5NqUqM

my impression is Tri Rep gets recommended the most because of "Garbage" on the bonus disc, which is probably the best way to convert the uninitiated (you like that, do you? well here's 30 hours of Autechre music, none of which sounds like this)

dl, I like your list but would definitely have included "VI Scose Poise" (first track from Confield) on it; I think it's one of the most beautiful pieces in their catalog.

Have to admit Tri Repetae too me a while to grow into as well. It's a very textural, granular and tone-free album; so depending on your tolerance for industrial sturm und drang it may or may not float your boat. I listen to it mainly for Leterel and Eutow, with Overand and C/Pach being pleasant surprises.
But it's quite a different album from Amber's pretty ambience.
Chiastic Slide is when they really started sounding like alien music as opposed to 'what humans think alien music sounds like'. 'Rettic AC' as the second track is like a statement of intent. 'Hub' is as far from a 'dance' tune as it gets. And even 'Cichli', for all its melodic wonder, is really a five-limbed thing

dl, I like your list but would definitely have included "VI Scose Poise" (first track from Confield) on it; I think it's one of the most beautiful pieces in their catalog.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Friday, October 16, 2020 5:24 PM (twenty-one seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

It is very nice indeed, especially as a delicate opener to Confield (an album I still struggle with); but somehow I've always heard it as a retread of things like Drane2 off LP5, Krib off Cichli Suite and possibly Aphex Twin's Nannou.

something i just noticed when playing back VI Scose Poise is that it's a shame it doesn't somehow segue into Cfern in a more pleasing way. it sounds like the two tunes almost have the same chord structure and should somehow blend together more satisfactorily

Tri Repetae++ was my introduction to Autechre, which I decided to check out after falling in love with Boards of Canada's Music Has the Right to Children. It didn't quite do it for me at first – it felt too harsh, too industrial – and I likewise found 'Stud' especially hard-going, but repeated (heh) spins dispelled my reservations. So I suppose whichever one you decide to start with, don't forget that it's unlikely to click straight away.

Whenever they release a new album I realize I spend so much time moving forward with them that I don't spend nearly as much time as I'd like listening back. To be fair, when you do things like release 8 hour albums it is a lot to ask to just put that in rotation with your other stuff. In some ways I think of each one as its own little island and don't necessarily consider how they connect as the Autechre archipelago, because it's just easier that way.

Was so looking forward to listening to this but I'm in meetings all day ;_;

My first exposure to Ae was Chris Cunningham's video for "Second Bad Vilbel," which I thought was some pretty uniquely damaged posthuman electronic music. Cunningham's own feeling that the video was inadequate, apparently shared by Booth and Brown, made them seem like artists with an impossibly high standard (I thought the video was cool). So I tracked down a copy of the 2CD Tri Repetae, then out of print, and basically found it too cold and austere for me to take over the length of a (long) album. I had read about Confield's notorious difficulty and was curious about it but probably figured that if I didn't like TR I probably wouldn't like Confield either. Then when Quaristice came out the novelty of shorter tracks sounded appealing, so I tried it, but it didn't leave much of an impression.

Then in 2018 everyone was abuzz about NTS Sessions, and I was looking for something difficult and decided to try Confield after all. I did, finding it "makes me smile" funny, both in terms of the zany sounds and so-dark-it-comes-out-the-other-side senses. From there I headed straight into NTS Sessions, which was a proper listening adventure. I continue to enjoy not really knowing quite how to evaluate Ae — I don't seem to get inside their music as much as some of you here but I keep coming back to it nonetheless.

half the fun is that they're an enigma,a puzzle to be toyed with in the hope of unlocking it

Really enjoying SIGN right now (on my second listen). I can't tell if autechre has become more accessible or if I've become better at listening to them but I feel like over the last several albums I've been enjoying them almost immediately whereas before that it would take me months or years to appreciate them.

half the fun is that they're an enigma,a puzzle to be toyed with in the hope of unlocking it

This is definitely a big part of the appeal for me, especially 00s autechre.

This is their first release in 20 years (jeez) that I enjoy!

PHRASING

https://diskunion.net/DU-X1_audio_player.html?id=1008189907&disc=1&track=12

Audio snippet of n Cur. Sounds lovely! They always send quality bonus tracks for the Japanese releases

yeah I remember Sean in the AMA thing they did answering a question about why they put such great exclusive tracks on Japanese CDs and he said something about the price of CDs in Japan being much higher so the bonus is extra enticement (paraphrasing here), but also about how people used to say their bonus tracks were shit, so they decided at some point to up their bonus track game (paraphrasing again)

I guess I'm the only sad bastard who read all 87 pages of that AMA huh

nope

grabbed this from WATMM, a poster known as alco. made me laugh:

alco review by alco:

this is the new "autechre" album by them, the brothers. it's called "sign" which is short for "signs." i believe this is an m night shaymalan (or whatever) reference and i believe the "liquid" and "aquatic" aesthetic is a direct reference to this film. iirc the film is about aliens who visit earth but the water is too wet for them and they freak out. hence the autechre album "sign," in other words the wet one by the brothers.

this album was given to me in strictest confidence by sean, one of the two brothers who go by "the 'chre." no one has heard it. he did a pre-release with fake tracks that rob sent him but the actual album is a solo album by sean himself. i asked if he was mad at rob and that's why he did this but he just said "nah" and "do you even know what you're talking about." rude, but typical. i believe this is "mancunian" but i'm from usa so i'm not sure.

track 1 "m4 diffain." this one is pretty cool, seriously. it starts off with your typical ae bullshit - little goofy fart type sounds and "dsp." but not so fast, this isn't your typical ae, this is new parameters ae. which means the first song abruptly changes to really fast vocal arpeggios and it is by "oneohtrix magix whatever" and everyone loves it. my mom called me from arizona and asked me what i was listening to and i told her but she didn't believe me. the end result of this conversation is that i am removed for her will and all of her vast fortune will be inherited by my brother who died several years ago. very strange stuff but this is what autechre is all about. this is "beat fuckery" of the highest order.

second track "Fruity Loops" version 7. sean sent me a post it in the mail saying this title is misleading and that he used version 8. i don't believe him. this clearly has version 7 vibes. for instance, there are synths on here with 2 oscillators and i know FL8 doesn't do this. this track is one of the "pads" tracks where he's copying rob. this means it's "lush" rather than "mental" and i feel a lot of emotions as a result. this causes me to feel like i am underwater but the water is made up of dreams instead of wetness. i'm swimming in my dreams and all around me are fish which are my different memories that are all sad and exquisite. there is a shark and that is my father. i'm scared but i miss him too. that's just how it works when you hear an "feels" track by sean (one of the brothers).

ok on to the next track which is called "sign" but the "gn" is replaced by "00" bc sean can't type (cf the name "autechre" - lol idiot). so this is the title track. it's also known as "the bubble track" or the "bubstep track" by the "bubble brothers." i came up with these names, i think they're pretty funny and i'm sending them off to warp records to see if they can be included in the promotional material for the record "sign" by autechre. i know one of the warp guys passed away (RIP) but i don't know which one so i will address my email "to whom it may concern." this track is obviously an hommage (mancunian: "piss take") to "analog bubblebath" by that one guy who told madonna to squeal like a pig. i appreciate that but the song has no tempo bc sean forgot to set it in "max" which is stupid bc it seems like he should know how to do that by now. this is where having rob in the studio would really come in handy but you gotta appreciate sean's effort. A for effort on this one, m9.

"esc desc" is weird bc it made me press "esc" which is one of the buttons on my keyboard (not sure if universal, as a creative/continental i am on "macintosh"). so anyway one of the new "features' of apple's new os is that when you press escape you can't use your iphone bc it's updated to the new ios which won't work on your phone bc it's now immediately obsolete. so, i wasn't using my phone and i didn't notice this but it's one of those things where everytime i use my phone i associate it with this track so i think this one sucks pretty bad bc it fucked up my phone. very "ambient" i guess.

"au 14" which, i believe, means "autechre 14" which refers to how long the brothers have been making music. 14 years already, hard to believe! i got into them back in 2019 kind of before they were well known. trent reznor emailed me and asked me to check them out and let him know my thoughts. i was like whatever man. but i'm glad i did because i'm a huge fan of stupid music that's just a bunch of sounds like if 5 rooms away some one wearing a suit of armor was vigorously fucking his collection of shields. au 14 is kind of lame though bc the beat has no bass, it's just like a 606 snare with their typical boss rsd10 delay on it like dude i've already heard this a million times. i'm guessing sean took this one from the archives to celebrate ae's 14th bday. lame. nothing out of ten.

so at this point in the record i had to flip over the digitals. the other side was messed up so i can't really comment. all i can say is that very clearly sean was trying to do a bunch of vocals and i guess warp let him do this bc he's in his 60s and they feel bad for him bc all the cool music is made by young people who are fashionable and use social media. some of the lyrics are really interesting though, i'll grant that. for example "psin AM" is about waking about and taking a leak and it's just kind of a cool slice of life thing like this is just sean giving his fans a peak at what it's like to be one of the ae brothers. i respect that. it's fan service but it's honest. then, weirdly, there's one called "th red a" which is another dumbass sean typo for "thread" and it's about posting on reddit and getting into creepy pasta and stuff. he sings about "slenderman" and whatever that one corny thing is where it's just like a shitty room with yellow walls and people on reddit are like "omg wow this is the scariest thing i've ever seen" and there are multiple youtube videos all with millions of views that are like "the room on reddit that will haunt you." apparently sean is into this kind of trash. fucking wanker lol

ok final track bc i have to go. to be honest i was just kind of skipping through most of this record and not really paying attention. nothing against sean but i just don't really like autechre or respect the band. the last track is typically called like "r gantz toodeetoo" or some corny shit like come on dude just call your tracks cool stuff like "bong garden" or "mother amulets" or "give me back my bike ii" it's unbelieveable that they keep releasing music with names like they do. anyway, this one is actually really good. i actually played it at 1% speed bc i wanted to enjoy it more. as a listener i feel there is no "proper" way to hear music, whatever i feel like doing is what i'm gonna do. so i played this out of one speaker at one percent. on the other speaker i was listening to squarepusher bc i really love some 100 year old man making wacky spasmatic beats like he's 11. it's so cool to me. plus, gotta love slap bass dude, it's so wacky as well. anyway, on this one sean steps away from the max bullshit and writes a proper tune with lots of cool synth sounds. you can tell he has a jupiter 8 bc it sounds very good. i'm also hearing a neve channel on this one, definitely got that signature rupert style sound. the beat is interesting, it's all samples of sean saying "cummies" but he makes it sound actually pretty serious and solemn. as i listened to this i envisioned myself as an old man, sitting in a retirement home staring at the wall. i can't make sense of a goddamn thing bc my brain has deteriorated so badly. thus, i am listening to caretaker. as old ballroom music plays with some reverb on it i have all these fragmented memories. i'm a child and it's "tree of life" and brad pitt is playing with me. my wife comes to visit me but i'm really mean to her for no reason and she goes home and cries bc while my organic vessel persists there is no longer love between us. i am gone. a nurse comes in to medicate me and it's discovered i've shit myself. this is normal. they change me and it's like i am a baby once more and i see my mother poiring baby powder on my ass and dick and stuff and i feel embarassed. luckily she puts a diaper on and doesn't linger staring at my literal baby dick. but then i'm an old man but i have the features of a baby. for like 5 seconds i remember where i am and what's going on. i hear the autechre song playing and it's like i am underwater again. i see all my memories drifting by, the fish memories, but now they are all corpses, the scales of their rotting flesh glimmering in the light. the smell is toxic, the water cold and inhospitable. i hear "cummies" "cummies" but it's like a sick beat that's completely fucked up. i don't know who i am but i know i never lived the life i wanted. i failed, i was a failure. "cummies" "cummies" "cummies" the beat gets more dissonant and i can feel the end. the last "cummies" beat plays as i close my eyes and drift away, a half lived life lost forever.

many lols here. in a poll I'd be torn between

sean sent me a post it in the mail saying this title is misleading and that he used version 8. i don't believe him. this clearly has version 7 vibes.

this causes me to feel like i am underwater but the water is made up of dreams instead of wetness.

and

i'm a huge fan of stupid music that's just a bunch of sounds like if 5 rooms away some one wearing a suit of armor was vigorously fucking his collection of shields.

^lol. But surely “Trent Reznor emailed me and asked me to check them out” wins though?

Album is great by the way!

oh my god that post, bravo