Autechre: Classic or Dud?

(can someone let me know how big the files are please?)

I paid for the wavs but have only downloaded the mp3s, they're 140-190mb each.

flacs are 330-460 mb. don't think you can download individually actually so 700mb for all mp3s, 2.7gb for flacs.

doesn't releasing these things usually signal they're gonna drop new material soon

I sure hope so

My order for the 2022 sets arrived with a link to download the 2016/8 sets, which I have previously bought. I don't think I could have put that in my cart by accident because I didn't visit the release page for that set. Hoping they will sort it out for me.

Starting with Milan (eventually I will buy the set but for now just luxuriating in a stream)

London B is amazing, I find it hard not to just listen to it on repeat for hours.

got a ticket for the Sydney show on late release, row 3 so in the pitch dark I will be able to hear them move sliders and clear their throats

I need some time alone in a dark room to fully appreciate these.

couldn't get into it myself, but i don't think techno is really for me

I don't know why but I cannot get myself excited about live Ae recordings... Maybe I should change that

I don't know why but I cannot get myself excited about live Ae recordings... Maybe I should change that

― Stomp Jomperson (dog latin), Tuesday, August 15, 2023 7:04 AM (twenty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Same, and I love Ae more than life itself

maybe try the Athens one, they seemed to shake off the abstract urge a little there.

Same, I've never checked out an AE live recording.

Thought this was an interesting comment:

Also, I've noticed less interaction between elements in these sets. I can hear separate machines/layers running more or less independently of each other.

I feel like their older material had more cross-modulation and interaction between sounds. (Which I prefer.)

— William Fields (@williamfieldsy) August 14, 2023

I love Ae, but I think they broke my brain with the NTS Sessions. That was like my capacity point; anything else that gets poured into the full bucket just spills right back out again.

Yeah, I haven't really been able to get excited about being tasked to find the August 27, 1972 Veneta, Oregon "Dark Star" in 42 different versions of "c16 deep tread"

or whatever

I'm sure if Ae released like 3 live albums instead of 3 FLAC datadumps I would at least have listened to even one of them by now

Well I've listened to them all. Because I am a grown adult.

if you've listened to 42 Autechre live albums instead of just trying to do an ad hom dunk, please tell us about it

why so you can put every sentence into a poll that gets 3 votes

Quit attempting to zing me and go back to posting about how you have to wrestle with racially coded microaggressions on Cake albums or whatever the fuck

aaanyway for those who’ve not listened to live sets, they can be hard work to listen to in bulk, but for $20 it’s great to have several versions of 2 types of set, so you can listen again and it’s fresh.
For those who haven’t heard any live Ae, the Glasgow Arts School 2005 and Coachella 1999 are fairly easily found and rank with their released albums for me. The live dumps are also enjoyable but not as much, I find, probably 2015 more appealing?

I'm sure if Ae released like 3 live albums instead of 3 FLAC datadumps I would at least have listened to even one of them by now

― sean paul akerman (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, August 15, 2023 1:43 PM (forty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

big same

would have bought 'em too, without a moment's hesitation

he's going the distance
he's going for FPs

thread is great stuff thx all for cementing my decision to stop at exai

arrrgh I'm going to be in Sydney the week after the Autechre show there. Boo

thread is great stuff thx all for cementing my decision to stop at exai

― the late great, Tuesday, August 15, 2023 2:30 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

even if you're a fan I can't fault you for getting exhausted with Exai/elseq/NTS/AE_LIVE but I do think these people should check out SIGN and PLUS

love the breathless "analysis" of autechre's live "evolution" one gets from the headz

"on their last album they were interweaving amelodic fragments into a rhythmic whole, here it's more of a leavening of noise into a puffy rising yeast of beats"

"autechre always toyed with removing all constraint, here instead they flirt capaciously with the possibility of radical freedom"

"interesting to hear autechre step back toward more pattern-based algorithms after so many years challenging the hegemony of grid-based music input"

tbh i did check out SIGN and PLUS, they were decent and i sensed progression and accomplishment (right now my favorite autechre jawn is probably "crystel") and i specifically recall that the second one ("plus", i think? it was green on grey art?) had some beatless (near beatless? symphonic?) pieces that i found deeply engaging

tbh i did check out SIGN and PLUS, they were decent and i sensed progression and accomplishment (right now my favorite autechre jawn is probably "crystel") and i specifically recall that the second one ("plus", i think? it was green on grey art?) had some beatless (near beatless? symphonic?) pieces that i found deeply engaging

Listening to the live sets for the first time (started with Athens), enjoying it so far.

As for the live sets in general, I kind of like having multiple slightly varying versions of the same album so I like that they just release it all. I wish they would split up each set into something like individual tracks though.

thread is great stuff thx all for cementing my decision to stop at exai

While I will confess I agree that Exai is their career peak, there's so much good music they released after, the only caveat is there's a higher quantity to quality ratio. If you are one not to edit custom playlists or modify track listings on these records, you are going to have a much worse time, imho.

IMHO there's a 2-3 hour album worth of absolute top shelf tracks from Elseq that nearly matches Exai. NTS is overwhelming but you can still find an album's worth of absolute bangers in that drop too! I adored Sign/Plus on release, have revisited, and found it startlingly primitive sounding compared to something from 20 years ago like Draft 7:30. Still, even with that in mind, there's tracks on Sign/Plus that are career highlights: X4, M4 Lema and Metaz form8, for example.

I wish they would split up each set into something like individual tracks though.

Like I am really liking this section at around 34 minutes, but in a week if I want to listen to it again I'm just going to spend 5-10 minutes trying to find where it starts

NTS is overwhelming but you can still find an album's worth of absolute bangers in that drop too!

realllly worth checking out gonk steady one and column thirteen, for example

NTS is still their peak for me, the longer tracks really draw you in in a way that isn't really possible on their shorter albums.

got a deal on all the NTS lps a few months ago and have basically been playing a disc every day since, it’s a fun way to live

I think you could probably lop a good 2 hours off the NTS sessions, even without cutting anything outright (though there are a few tracks I'd punt). I know it's sacreliege but I don't think "All End" needs to be 60 minutes

Yeah, it needs to be twice that.

NTS is just this incredibly dense, monolithic undertaking for me. It has its moments of course, but just approaching it can feel overwhelming.

I seriously think SIGN/PLUS is among their best work and EXACTLY what they needed to put out at that point in their careers. I hear them as a lot sparser and less serious. You can hear the sounds rather than try to disinter them from the audio soup of a thousand noises.

And each track has its own, I dunno, "hook" or "character" whereas the stuff on Elseq and NTS started to feel increasingly like 10 minute formless close-listening jams

The beautiful thing about discussing Autechre here is nearly everyone in the various threads knows these dudes are aces, and the nitpicking over our favorite tracks or albums is simply nitpicking. I love how the last few comments have people picking four different later career albums as their "peak". You could make a case for nearly every one of their albums as their "best".

It's funny, NTS is the album I feel most at home with, and SIGN/PLUS were quite disappointing - I enjoy them while they're on but I have to actively remember they exist, a bit like Oversteps. They've been my favourite music makers for 25 years tho, so this is highly relative as you say.

got a ticket for the Sydney show on late release, row 3 so in the pitch dark I will be able to hear them move sliders and clear their throats

can't believe the cowards are letting ppl sit down this time

dare we ask are they themselves

I know it's sacreliege but I don't think "All End" needs to be 60 minutes

yea, "all end" is nice and all, but I was actually a little disappointed with it on my first listen since the rest of that thing basically blew me away. for me NTS was like them finally realizing the dream of creating something on a massive roland kayn / pan sonic kesto scale and the length is definitely part of that.

It's funny, NTS is the album I feel most at home with, and SIGN/PLUS were quite disappointing - I enjoy them while they're on but I have to actively remember they exist, a bit like Oversteps. They've been my favourite music makers for 25 years tho, so this is highly relative as you say.

― assert (matttkkkk)

Co-sign

x-post

er, probably should have a carriage return between those two thoughts

anyway, I love the scope of NTS but "all end" was quite the blowout ending I was envisioning. for context, my two fave ae closers are the ones where they go a little bigger - "lentic catachresis" and "sublimit"

I wouldn't say I was severely disappointed with SIGN/PLUS myself but I was a little bummed that they stepped back from the abyss with those two

I'm listening to an obscene amount of 'techre this week so far