Autechre: Classic or Dud?

the last music analysis / "deep dive" thing i actually enjoyed was this drukqs review. i think she does a good job of both formal analysis and gesturing at the affects of the music. it helps that the sound sources and track styles in druqks are so varied and electro-acoustic. someone doing this for autechre would probably have to share their screen a lot lol.

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

that's a great video, one of the best i've seen of the "musician reacts!" genre, thanks!

about 13:30 in, she says something that sums up most of what i could say: "that Richard is thinking of things like scales and chords...I doubt it, I think a lot of us aren't, actually, this is just one way to name what i'm hearing, he's just doing what sounds good, or sounds weird, or whatever he likes, whatever he's trying to do"

i don't, personally, get anything at all out of music "analysis". i think it is very helpful for people who are making or thinking of music in formal ways. i don't. there's a comparison to be made to painting analysis. i didn't care at all, before i started painting. now that i do, it greatly interests me HOW painters made what they did. for god's sake, please tell me that they used a rag to smear some paint, or that they applied some glossy medium at the very beginning, or that they let the whole thing dry for a month and then scraped back down to what was underneath. i need to know that stuff and want to know it. but none of that was interesting or useful to me before i started trying to do it myself. at that time, i only cared about what i was seeing, not about the how. now i care about both the what and the how.

i understand that's not how everyone listens to music or approaches more analytic pieces. some people who have never touched an instrument have a deeply felt need to understand how it happened, mechanically. but i think, for a lot of people, the analysis is aimed at people in the field

also, no joke about wanting to see the max/msp patch - i think doing the musical analysis of, oh, those notes are A – C – A – Bb – Eb – C – Bb – Bb – Gb – C – Bb – A – C – Bb – Eb – C – Bb – Bb – Gb – C – Bb is kind of completely missing the point with autechre. i really do think the art is in the patch

*giant "IMO" and "we all enjoy music and enjoy reading about it in different ways, i get that" sign behind a plane flying over a beach*

there are times where I feel like autechre has ruined all other music for me

it's certainly difficult to find other music with this much depth

yeah, honestly i just want to see a screenshot of their max/msp patch

― President of Destiny Encounters International (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 14 February 2023 20:36 (one month ago) link

you're in luck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgMArRJswIQ

I don't think there's been any discussion of Hanalgig - nothing in the search under that anyway. A mix tape by sean, exai era, demos & gescom stuff. Tracks 5 and 6 are great, classic late period ae imo, most of the rest is novelty/historical value but it's worth at least one listen and some of the gescom stuff might appeal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4OGY3awVeg

Huh, didn't know about this. Thanks!

I think I delved into this when it was mentioned during the most recent Sean AMA Twitch sesh. Last three or four tracks are where it's at with this imho but nothing is super memorable. There's a reason they're all cutting room floor tracks.

Stakker cover is pretty solid for me

It’s time for new Autechre, isn’t it

Yeah just about. It's been nice to go back to some of the older release and do some rediscovering

No idea what they'd do. I'd be really happy with just 12 really good tracks like with SIGN and then an adjoining EP

Yeah just about. It's been nice to go back to some of the older release and do some rediscovering

yeah today is cichlisuite

I would love to see a remix compilation. Most of theirs from 93-2000 are pretty incredible. Def some stinkers like that infamous Skinny Puppy remix, but so many gems, like the Dominique Dalcan and Beaumont Hannant remixes!

Here's the latter for reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN3K-nqPSOc

I listened to confield today, still a fantastic experience. last week i tried dublin from the 16-18 live sets, the last 20 mins is solid wow but up till then it just doesn't hold my interest, maybe headphones would make a difference. can't wait for last year's sets to come out.

*plays NTS Sessions at half speed to fulfil fantasy of 16 hour album*

Is this the longest we've gone between autechre releases?

Anyway, I guess this is finally giving me time to really dig into the live stuff they released (both the 14-15 live sets and the 16-18 ones, listening to Toronto_011015 right now). Kind of fun to lisen to these and notice the subtle changes from one set to the next, it's like listening to a slightly different version of the same album every time.

for most artists I like "this is the longest they've gone without an album" makes me go "uh oh hope everything's ok with them" but for Autechre it's "uh oh hope the next thing isn't 16 hours long"

Exai > elseq - three years two months (lp5 > confield and untilted > quaristice were almost three years)

Feels like the gap between Untilted and Quaristice was significant but maybe not

Two and a half years since Plus, so not an abnormal amount of time I suppose

I kind of hope the gap signals a shift towards a different direction for them, it's time to mix it up a bit

Two and a half years since Plus

how is this possible

Moodles OTM. It would be nice if SIGN/PLUS turned out to be transitional albums

I liked them a lot because they felt more focused and refined than the various sprawling releases that preceded them, they could be a nice cap on that era.

xxxposts - there's a 7CD "autechre remixes" compilation by someone called Laxir but it's not official obv

Live date in Dublin in October. Maybe new tunes?

huh. silence from the warp & ae mailing lists.

nothing from songkick either even though i'm tracking them ffs. how did you hear about it?

https://thethinair.net/2023/05/autechre-set-for-dublin-return/

https://www.songkick.com/artists/49992-autechre has it too?

yeah, it's not local to me so they didn't notify me, fair enough I guess. I don't know if there's a setting to widen the search, I'm not going to visit a different country to see them so it doesn't matter.

Nearest concert to you (in Mechelen, Belgium) : Dublin

(ok ok, I suppose in the USA that would be kinda 1 state away but us Europeans aren't used to that kind of distance)

i honestly don't know what "direction" they could go in that would be more interesting than what they did on PLUS other than .. deeper into the wilderness i guess, whatever that means, they always seem to realize what that is pretty convincingly. like i don't see them backing out of just making things really unstable in a hundred ways plus some strong emotional undercurrents.

I mean that video Sean shared of a Max patch sounded sick as hell and some interesting directions separate from PLUS/SIGN

I recently posted in the SIGN thread I think that album is more interesting than I gave it credit for, in fact i think a lot of it could be given orchestral arrangements the same way people have tried with Aphex Twin. if it was a new Boards of Canada album I think people would be really fascinated by it

Yeah I can see that. In retrospect I'm not as keen on those "orchestral" tracks, but they would work really well played on live instruments

Imagine F7 being played as a violin concerto

Man, listening back to this album is giving me... there must be a weird German word for the type of trauma-nostalgia that comes with being suddenly reminded of living in the lockdown era

It looks like there’s …. Something out on August 10?!?

But I can’t tell if it’s a new live album or tickets to new tour dates or what

I think it's 2022 live recordings

It’s live albums

Apologies for formatting

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fuyc8s0j1zwgb1.jpg

Thanks. The link in the AE email I received didn’t offer any clarity.

(By which I mean, probably ridiculously, resolving for me that maybe, just maybe, CD versions of these live sets might be available instead of digital files)

*feverishly hits refresh*

i actually dreamt last night that this was out, alongside an announcement of a new album called nononononono, and a remix of a pavement live concert!

this came this morning. but i'm not quite sure what it is. the track listing includes "autechre - jnsn code gl16 - remixed by YAGE"

https://touched.bandcamp.com/merch/fsoldigital-presents-mind-maps-4-limited-cd

touched are interesting - they did those three cancer charity compilations on consecutive christmasses, the last of which had ~256 tracks in it. there were also a few compilations of anonymous tracks some of which are probably autechre (the track titles are a clue). the mind maps thing though, is physical only, no digital.

(by "i'm not quite sure what it is" i mean is it a compilation of YAGE remixes (although 3 aren't marked as remixes) or a mix cd or somewhere between the two. it also features humanoid, isan, fsol, scanner...)

here's the original of that ae track - https://touched.bandcamp.com/album/jnsn-code-gl16-spl47