Autechre - classic or dud

the ATP curatorship thing generally - it all falls down if the curators have narrow musical tastes. The Mogwai year really suffered in that regard, presenting the punter with a seemingly endless sequence of dullards. But who knows, maybe Autechre have a great love of Northern Soul, Norwegian Black Metal, and Sarah Records bands, leading to the most eclectic bill yet.

Or maybe it'll just be Plaid, Plone, Plonk, Plop, Plurp, Plup, Plipplop etc.

I think it was Ethan that was saying that he liked Funkstorung better, a statement I agree with ONLY if you are referring to their respective remixes. For some reason Autechre's style transposed onto other music sounds less interesting than Funkstorung's similar but slightly more palatable in a song setting stylings.

and the best: the remix they did on the dj food remix album

incunabula if you want early proto-IDM ala artificial intelligence series, which they appeared on anyway.

amber if you want ambient-ish type stuff with some nice beats thrown in on occasion

tri repetae if you want a nearly perfect mix of melody and industrial influenced beats

lp5 if you want the most accessible of the abstract- try out song one and song ten on that disc (arch carrier is one of the song names, i believe.)

confield if you want to hear an audial equivelant to a math equation (which is nice in doses, but i don't recommend listening to the whole album unless you have other stimulus keeping you interested ie weed, maaaan)

Somehow along the years, like every band in history, they got to the point where instead of just churning out quality tunes in the "heat of the moment", the momentum you get when you go "hey, we're on to something here", they sat down and began to *think* about their music and where the development should lead to - and that's the point where a band loses the plot. I feel that Autechre started to go down a path where each successive album/EP *had* to be more dissonant, harsher, less aesthetically pleasing - just for the sake of it. The balance between the sublime abstract weirdness and the charisma of the "listenable" warm synths and coherency has been tipping too much in the direction of "what can we do to fuck as much with the sound just to make it barely listenable". Somehow they're trapped in what people expect from them: to deliver the most abstract and mathematically precise form of music on the planet. And paradoxally, this expectation has made them turn into both extremely unlistenable (yet still worthwile, because the gratification of spending hours to "get" it is still a lovely experience) and extremely predictable music.

Dare = time-travelling prodigy!

I bet Confield will make sense in 2006.

If you were to hear Second Bad Vibel or Viral(as Gescom) on a loud club system you would get autechre. Autechre rules because they were a UK IDM act that you can actually dance to.

This is one of those cases where, even if you don't like the group, you have to admit that they're pretty much classic.

(just posting here for a special troll in my heart who i see didn't bother to air his own opinions.)

Indeed!

I'll say it again (I really remember discussing this before): pure soul music for the 21th century. Maybe forbidding at times. Cold? Inhuman? Never.

Jess, this isn't a Felix da Housecat thread!

I am no jess

i think this is a joke or a taking of my piss. i hope to god it is.

(and gareth, if you must know, it's sometimes lurker/poster/troll dr. funk - my first critic! - who apparently (to read his blog) thinks i'm dumber than pigshit, although he's yet to have the guts to say it on the board.)

but when it comes out, the press (Wire specifically) will be heralding it as the new-sound... blah blah blah blah...

all signs point to a new ep, as they need to keep their name out here after their tour, i guess.

http://www.absorb.org/reviews/eps_10.html

i've listened to it a few times through already. it's ok enough i suppose. i can't tell if it's supposed to be a joke or not.

was just reminded that in 1997 they produced a track for an artpop album by some Japanese singer named Mari Hamada

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB0BY0EqijM

which I think is the only time you get to hear what Ae would sound like with vocals. it's really nice. they aren't on the rest of the album obviously but it's really worth checking out

Never heard (of) that before, thanks.

Sean was a bit down on that track in the recent chat - it was basically a demo that got taken for the final mix iirc - but I've always liked it.

i was shocked to find out it is a cover https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMYiRsoUKBw

I did not know that either. the whole Mari Hamada album is a mystery, would love to read a track by track breakdown on how it came to be. how did Autechre even get involved? I know they've done some remixes of stuff with vocals but nothing else like this

just scanning the credits of the album, some of the production team were members of soft ballet, who had recently done a remix album (soft ballet forms) with a number of warp artists

including autechre, actually

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63ztC74ODRI

another producer had been a member of nav katze who ALSO did a well known remix album feat a number of warp affiliates

mystery solved i’d say

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWury9zukkM

that soft ballet remix is in my top 5 ae remixes.

just scanning the credits of the album, some of the production team were members of soft ballet, who had recently done a remix album (soft ballet forms) with a number of warp artists

― the late great, Tuesday, June 28, 2022 12:52 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

okay yeah the dots are connecting a bit now, funny enough I had just recently listened to the Plaid remix they had done and wondered how the hell that came to be

always wondered if there were any Soft Ballet fans on here :)

Autechre really really really need a remix anthology

There was a big unofficial comp of their remixes that was doing the rounds online a few years ago - ‘Laxir’ or similar..

Ah someone’s been so good as to bung it on SoundCloud

…hmm maybe ignore that link, not the entire thing - but the Laxir comp covered up to about the last 5-10 years…

those nav katze comps with all those big 90s names rule. love the global communication one.

did sean talk about it on that twitch chat? kinda curious how the producer got in with all of those heavy hitters.

this record is a favorite as well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKqUQ9srNGk

frustratingly, the other records seem to be, uh, like alt rock? which makes this all even weirder

also frustratingly, the laxir fan comp, while absolutely filled with gems, is not everything. it actually leaves out a decent chunk of stuff, despite being long as hell. i think some completionists have compiled even longer ones…

Have they done any in the last 15 or so years?

yeah, tho they’ve slowed it down.

stuff like russell haswell one sounds like modern autechre.

the sophie one isn’t as far out as you might think (want?), kinda like the earth remix.

the earth remix is masterful and amazing

they took a near-perfect song, probably decided not to fuck with it too much because it's already near perfect, then tweaked the production just enough that i can't really listen to the original now if i have a choice because theirs sounds so much better. and i don't really know if i could put into words what they did to it, besides edit a bit to add a refrain, tweak the eq, and add a weird drum sample (brushed cymbal or hi hat played backward?)

actually i'm not even sure if they reversed the drum sample

oh yeah, it’s great! but the first time i put it on, i was def like “wait, huh? this is an autechre remix??”

my fave is the Neu! remix on the splitrmx promo - speed isn't marked so I prefer it at 45, but 33 is good too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xr1OT6u7oI

(that title should be "Autechre play Weissensee against Im Glück" btw)

oh and frogbs they did release a remic of SOPHIE's "bipp" last year

Would love to make a list of "surely this is mislabeled, can't be" Autechre remixes

Earth is on there
so is Anodyne

anything else?

https://autechre.mixlr.com/recordings/1977679

xp probably the Tortoise remixes too

xp was that streamed live today? how did you hear about it?

^^ mixlr link is "a dj set of some old stuff for a bit of streaming" said sean_ae on Mastodon

https://www.reddit.com/r/autechre/comments/zz2ub6/anybody_here_excited_about_this_link_below/

Well, that’s tonight’s listening sorted.

5pm GMT tomorrow, https://t.co/UW6sG0bGqg pic.twitter.com/F9YgsDq7lU

— NTS Radio (@NTSlive) February 4, 2023

I remember the shock of the first one … “I think this might be an unreleased track!” “wait this is another unreleased track!” ”oh my god”

Lol yeah and “surely the next 3 will be DJ sets”

I looked at the NTS schedule and it's programmed as "17:00 - 22:36 AUTECHRE - ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - 1992 CONTEXTUAL MIX"

those pals need to add more vocals on their composition to reach a new sonic dimension

I don't necessarily disagree. In my headcanon "Bryan Ferry Sings LP5" is an actual thing. It's never going to happen outside of remixes though. I 100% feel that Plaid ought to go back to doing more vocal collabs

autechre must follow the mouse on mars path: getting an mc like mark e smith

The NTS set is the same set as the Mixlr one from December, for anyone interested.

the description did seem familiar

aw