Gescom set yesterday - announcement was: https://www.facebook.com/amkslive/posts/354631809319654
+ they uploaded the wav too:https://autechre.wetransfer.com/downloads/060ed6ed78020802587bcef0306ca13220210102215750/403ba0
― StanM, Sunday, 3 January 2021 09:55 (three years ago) link
Well, I certainly know what I'm listening to during breakfast today.
― Everything's Blue In This Whorl (Raymond Cummings), Sunday, 3 January 2021 12:56 (three years ago) link
it's not really breakfast music imho but I hope you enjoy it anyway :-)
― StanM, Sunday, 3 January 2021 14:04 (three years ago) link
Lol
― Everything's Blue In This Whorl (Raymond Cummings), Sunday, 3 January 2021 14:06 (three years ago) link
I had fun.
This is very “chopping up classic hip-hop beats for our own distended beat tape” isn’t it? I enjoyed it but it’s definitely not the kind of thing I’d revisit as often as, say, Elseq
― Everything's Blue In This Whorl (Raymond Cummings), Sunday, 3 January 2021 14:07 (three years ago) link
yeah, Gescom isn't necessarily = Autechre either, I just put it here
― StanM, Sunday, 3 January 2021 14:15 (three years ago) link
Revisiting this album is so strange. I cant believe it was released just over a year ago
― Urbandn hope all ye who enter here (dog latin), Tuesday, 16 November 2021 11:53 (two years ago) link
I know they made noises about their frustration of this being seen as their "lockdown album", but there's something so intrinsically wrapped up in this album's sound and the conflicting sense of hyper-connected isolation everyone was feeling at the time. I think this has to be by far their most iconic album, at least since Confield
― Urbandn hope all ye who enter here (dog latin), Tuesday, 16 November 2021 11:58 (two years ago) link
In retrospect, I think releasing the two albums separately was a mistake. I never really absorbed PLUS the way I've historically devoured a new Ae album because I was still listening (a lot) to SIGN when it finally arrived in the mail. Kind of a Kid A / Amnesiac situation
― Paul Ponzi, Tuesday, 16 November 2021 12:44 (two years ago) link
I'm cool with it although I know it was frustrating for US listeners who had to shell out twice on P&P for vinyl.I really like PLUS even if it is a more "traditional" Ae album in every sense of the word: It's the album I'd been wanting them to make for a while, in that it's a concise suite of beat-based leftfield techno in the classic era vein. I'd rank at least two of the tracks here in among my all-time fave Ae tracks and there's enough character and diversity on there to make it a strong record on its own. That said, I don't know if as an album it has a unifying, definitive sound or style in the way, say Untilted might
― Urbandn hope all ye who enter here (dog latin), Tuesday, 16 November 2021 12:53 (two years ago) link
Might have a listen to the Gonkcast about these
I'm cool with it although I know it was frustrating for US listeners who had to shell out twice on P&P for vinyl.
yes, that too!
I'd rank at least two of the tracks here in among my all-time fave Ae tracks
Which two?? I ask as someone eager to revisit this album soon
― Paul Ponzi, Tuesday, 16 November 2021 13:20 (two years ago) link
lol every Autechre album is their "lockdown" album.
I agree I didn't give either of these albums, but particularly the second one, the attention they deserved, not just because there were two of them and the second distracted from the release of the first, but also because "NTS Sessions 1–4" sort of ... burnt me out. Not that I'm burnt out on Autechre, those recordings just took so much energy and time on my part, and was so rewarding, and felt like such a defining statement, that "Sign" and "Plus" sounded to me almost like reunion albums.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 16 November 2021 14:08 (two years ago) link
feel like there's a misprint on my memory because I do not remember PLUS coming out only two weeks after SIGN. I thought it was like, 3 months!
on RYM, PLUS has less than half the ratings of SIGN. I wonder if that would have happened had they just been released at the same time.
anyway, I agree with DL's take - PLUS is more what I was hoping for after they truly went off the deep end, but I think SIGN is probably more special, and in retrospect was really the album I was waiting for them to make
― frogbs, Tuesday, 16 November 2021 14:11 (two years ago) link
It's weird how I still think of SIGN and PLUS as second tier autechre albums, but I listen to them constantly. I just put them on late at night when doing the dishes or cleaning or whatever and it just sets this nice mellow vibe. Been listening to them a lot lately in particular since they are such great fall/early winter albums.
― silverfish, Tuesday, 16 November 2021 14:27 (two years ago) link
SIGN/PLUS are just okay, but in fairness I should spend more time with them.
Elseq and NTS Sessions were both home runs for me.
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 16 November 2021 15:14 (two years ago) link
plus ended up being the one i connected with the most. sign is gorgeous but i need to be in a specific mood to enjoy its combination of sedateness and restlessness. plus is classic weird rugged autechre i.e. the heart music.
― Linda and Jodie Rocco (map), Tuesday, 16 November 2021 15:21 (two years ago) link
I love SIGN but the whiplash effect of alternating between ambient track and beat-based track for most of the album has always felt a bit disconcerting to me. I think it would have been cool if they had fully committed to a percussionless sonic palette, but I can pretty much assemble that album by playlisting the beatless tracks from SIGN and PLUS
― J. Sam, Tuesday, 16 November 2021 15:27 (two years ago) link
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, November 16, 2021 9:08 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink
could not have put this better myself. Exactly my experience, and not just because I view NTS Sessions as their absolute pinnacle. I got way too obsessed with that box when it came out. It's one of my favorite albums (if you could even call it that) of all time.
That said, I really do love SIGN
― Paul Ponzi, Tuesday, 16 November 2021 18:47 (two years ago) link
J. Sam OTM
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 16 November 2021 18:48 (two years ago) link
yea Autechre really answered the question "is it possible for an artist to put out too *much* great music at once?" it was just overwhelming. Underworld did it too the following year but Autechre's music hits way more of a niche spot
idk how even to compare these two to NTS & elseq. obviously the latter albums contain more "good stuff" and have some insane highs but if I just wanna pop some Ae on both SIGN and PLUS hit the spot
in fact SIGN strikes me as the kind of album that would be getting a lot of excited buzz if a new artist had done it. not to say Autechre is overlooked but I do wonder how it would be received if it was just made by some guy on Orange Milk Records
― frogbs, Tuesday, 16 November 2021 18:53 (two years ago) link
Heck, I could still listen to "All End" on repeat and be happy.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 16 November 2021 18:59 (two years ago) link
Nothing against the NTS Sessions, they're great and they contain some lovely stuff, but yeah they're not exactly the most immediate of accessible things Ae have released by any stretch, and that's in terms of sonics and sheer volume of material. SIGN/PLUS you can just put on and vibe out to without it having to be an epic intense listening session.
― Urbandn hope all ye who enter here (dog latin), Tuesday, 16 November 2021 19:00 (two years ago) link
Or basically what frogbs said. I wouldn't say NTS is all gold at all
― Urbandn hope all ye who enter here (dog latin), Tuesday, 16 November 2021 19:01 (two years ago) link
I wouldn't claim to love every individual track on NTS but, when I view it holistically, it's clearly a masterpiece. I guess you could say its more than the sum of its parts, but that's not quite right, either, since a lot of those parts represent some of the most astonishing music I have ever heard
― Paul Ponzi, Tuesday, 16 November 2021 20:18 (two years ago) link
when I view it holistically, it's clearly a masterpiece
I think 4 really helps it out here, it seems like as a whole it has an order to it that I don't get from Elseq, which to me is just a big grab bag of long (and really good) Ae tracks
― lukas, Tuesday, 16 November 2021 20:21 (two years ago) link
NTS is one of the few Ae releases where I know every track by name and can recall how it sounds when I read the title. It felt like the apex of their achievement and I would have been fine with it as a "last word". I've probably listened to SIGN/PLUS least of all their releases in the year following, every now and then I remember it and put it on, but after NTS most of the tracks just feel like the start of something. I say this as an Ae obsessive since about 1997.
― assert (matttkkkk), Tuesday, 16 November 2021 22:47 (two years ago) link
It felt like the apex of their achievement and I would have been fine with it as a "last word".
yeah
― lukas, Tuesday, 16 November 2021 22:56 (two years ago) link
This is all very surprising to me. NTS is enjoyable but on the whole I find it largely an impenetrable murky affair. Save for maybe a couple of tracks like violvoic, I couldn't tell you what each track is like from memory. All End is hugely hugely overrated and it surprises me that people hold it up as being remarkable. OTOH SIGN/PLUS is very memorable to me, with each track having a defining characteristic that makes it sound unique.
― Urbandn hope all ye who enter here (dog latin), Tuesday, 16 November 2021 23:28 (two years ago) link
Honestly, while NTS etc is remarkable for its achievement as a sheer monolithic work of artisanship, SIGN/PLUS to me is their most enjoyable and their most listenable since before Confield.
Revisiting SIGN today though, I was brought right back to October 2020, and the emotions I was feeling then. There's an ache, an emptiness to tracks like gr4 which will forever be synonymous with that lockdown interim period in the UK where we could just about start mingling again, and then just a few weeks later were plunged back into it. What a dark, melancholy time it was.
― Urbandn hope all ye who enter here (dog latin), Tuesday, 16 November 2021 23:34 (two years ago) link
never forget that when you don't have the time for "all end" you can always listen to "bladelores"
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Tuesday, 16 November 2021 23:36 (two years ago) link
I love bladelores
― Urbandn hope all ye who enter here (dog latin), Tuesday, 16 November 2021 23:38 (two years ago) link
This isn't an original opinion or anything but All End just feels redundant when you've got... the entire genre of drone music to compare it to, as well as the rest of Ae's catalogue - I don't see what makes it remarkable other than it's length and that it's by Ae
― Urbandn hope all ye who enter here (dog latin), Tuesday, 16 November 2021 23:40 (two years ago) link
NTS has tracks like gonk steady one and column thirteen that take the late-period Ae exploratory vibe and add massive hooks, just exhilarating stuff. And I like the sound of the record - super clear and widescreen without being brittle or harsh - much more than sign/plus.
― lukas, Tuesday, 16 November 2021 23:46 (two years ago) link
I dunno what to tell you about All End. I've listened to plenty of drone and that track doing what it does, sounding like it does, coming where it does in the album just does it for me. There's some sort of aural illusion happening with that track, my brain keeps hearing melodies and harmonies that aren't there.
― lukas, Tuesday, 16 November 2021 23:48 (two years ago) link
Yeah, I liked it to watching Derek Jarman's "Blue."
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 00:29 (two years ago) link
Comparing NTS to SIGN is like comparing Trans Europe Express to Radioactivity. I strongly prefer Radioactivity but I know a lot of people would disagree
― Urbandn hope all ye who enter here (dog latin), Wednesday, 17 November 2021 00:47 (two years ago) link
And ohmigod some of the tracks on NTS go on for sooo loooong without really doing anything. I don't know how they can justify something like bqbqbq being 11 minutes. It's interesting for all of the first minute
― Urbandn hope all ye who enter here (dog latin), Wednesday, 17 November 2021 00:55 (two years ago) link
super disagree on that, it's a maximalist piece which asks "what if this, but played out to its fullest extent" and I could listen to that all day. So many tracks mutate, or splinter into tangents, and the length basically forces you to work past your first impressions and listen for other things.and re: all end, sure there are other works of similar magnitude and concept, sure it's just a timestretch of a simple noise piece, sure there's any number of ways you could criticise it, but lukas is right that it's a ganzfeld on which I hallucinate my soul. I listened to it cranked, a few times in full, during a phase of my life where my emotions were basically unbearable and unprocessable, and it felt like being suspended as a cloud of atoms and was immensely healing to me. So I don't really care if it's clever or original or whatever, it's just wonderful. This kind of art is equally about selection as creation, and putting that up as an hour-length block was clearly an aesthetic decision. Wouldn't matter if it was a field recording of an electric fan.
― assert (matttkkkk), Wednesday, 17 November 2021 01:23 (two years ago) link
I agree with dog latin - I get that the length and drawn out patterns are part of the appeal but certain tracks on here just don’t do anything for me and they just go on soooo long. I love a good 3/4 of it though. Including “bqbqbq” (which you gotta admit is pretty funny to have as the 2nd track)
― frogbs, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 01:40 (two years ago) link
I think we can all agree that … we want more AE in 2022, though, right? 🙂
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Wednesday, 17 November 2021 02:00 (two years ago) link
mattt otmfm
― lukas, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 02:02 (two years ago) link
I’d be down for more Autechre sure
― frogbs, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 02:05 (two years ago) link
Every time this thread comes to life I get a PTSD shock that the band might have dropped another 8 hours of music.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 02:08 (two years ago) link
I still want a physical 5CD box of Elseq. I know it’s never coming but I hold out hope.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Wednesday, 17 November 2021 03:27 (two years ago) link
fwiw the individual NTS Sessions on vinyl are actually pretty cheap, you can get them for like $25 + shipping even though they are 3xLPs. I guess too many people (correctly) decided this was ridiculous to have on wax. but they're wrong. it's awesome on vinyl even changing a record and flipping a side in "all end"
― frogbs, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 03:29 (two years ago) link
because of the activity on this thread I am listening to PLUS and honestly I think it's as good as anything they've released, at least on a per minute scale. and it's probably the most accessible thing they've done since LP5, outside of Oversteps/Move of Ten. pretty much all the things they do well are on it. and it's got "lux 106 mod" which is arguably prettier than anything on SIGN! can't help but wonder how it would've been received had it been released first.
― frogbs, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 03:47 (two years ago) link
also its nice to hear Autechre making music that sounds funny again. "TM1 open" is like Hobbit disco
― frogbs, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 04:02 (two years ago) link
because of the activity on this thread I am listening to PLUS and honestly I think it's as good as anything they've released
been meaning to make this exact post all day
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Wednesday, 17 November 2021 04:15 (two years ago) link
anyway now that I'm done I will be listening to Cluster, who in many ways were the original Autechre. no I will not elaborate on that
― frogbs, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 04:20 (two years ago) link