Autechre

linebaugh

linebaugh

Well-known member
I think because of the specter of conceptronica, and their interest in delivering jams rather than proper songs, late career Autechre gets improperly labeled. I think it can appropriately be called wankery, but calling it graphic design adjacent feels off. Reading in mvuents post I felt justified in finding theyre looking to deliver that just wait for this next part here moment:
I see some post like ‘that bit at 5.06 just kills me’ that’s where it’s at for me.
Click to expand...
This is exactly how one enjoys good improvisational music, most of which I wouldn't call cold or sterile either. I don't know if they actually do deliver on the gambit, I think they get close from what I've heard on the NTS sessions, but it feels an entirely different project than what we might call museum music. I look at conceptronica as music to deliver an unmusical experience, but what is relayed back to me on NTS is an attempt at music for music's sake rather than any knowing attempt at deconstruction or subversion and etc.
 
Last edited:
M

mvuent

Void Dweller
tbf, any kind of music can have "that one part" i think. (even the kind of music autechre make, which is obviously dance music.)

but yeah exactly. doesn't matter if you love or hate them, it's the strawman aspect to how people talk about them that bugs me.
 
linebaugh

linebaugh

Well-known member
For sure but I think there's planning out some instance in a song to be 'that part' and theres releasing all elements within a song to orbit in hopes they triangulate for just a brief moment to deliver 'that part.' As they even say, these are things that 'happen' in their songs. I was trying to articulate that music that sets out to create conditions for spontaneity like that is rarely called cold/academic/sterile.
 
pattycakes_

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
Stone cold bangers



@lineborg the ravey, old school NTS session was easily the best one. And I was talking about turn of the millennium autechre with shit like the above 2 pieces. I see that stuff as very art school mixed multimedia project. Wankery, deconstruction.. All the same to me
 
T

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
@Linebaugh what does 'wankery' mean precisely in this context? a value judgment or the quality of expending with no return?

What was called a spendthrift in victorian times, of course...
 
version

version

Well-known member
Leo said:
Autechre Worked in Isolation for Decades. Now It’s Unintentionally Timely.
Click to expand...
It seems that programming your own software and designing your own sounds is a crucial part of Autechre’s music.

BOOTH I’ve heard people say, “I’ll just pay somebody to do it for me,” and I’ll think, well, surely you’re not going to have all the weird little sort of ideas or thoughts along the way. It’s almost taking the joy out of it for yourself. I don’t know where it was decided that that work is necessarily soulless work, and that you can’t be inspired while you’re doing it. I quite like to build things and then forget how it works and then use it later on, and not really be able to remember what I was thinking about when I built it. It’s a little bit like working with yourself in a way, but from a time when you’re not aware of what you were thinking. You can get reacquainted with it in a sense, like you would with a person.

BROWN One charge that people level at us is where’s the emotion? Where’s the notes? Where’s the tunes? It’s nonsense.

BOOTH The issue for me has always been that I can feel it. So I wonder sometimes whether our emotions are too subtle for people to pick up on. You can’t think that we’re not feeling it. I mean, what would be the point in doing music if you weren’t feeling it?
 
version

version

Well-known member
I like Rob's vase analogy,

As I understand it, your latest system allows you to use many more channels, many more layers, than your previous setup.

BOOTH But when you’re building stuff up incrementally, even though you have the ability to add lots and lots of layers, you’re reluctant to add too many. I’ve done a lot of work to disguise the amount of stuff there is in there.

BROWN Suppose you are looking at a turned acrylic vase on a lamp stand. You might see loads of different layers, but it’s been on a lathe and it’s been curved and you’ll see a silhouette, and you’ll see light travel through it. You’ll get ideas about what its construction is or what its materials are but you still see one surface, one curve.
 
M

mvuent

Void Dweller
the verdict is in: here’s what dissensus is saying about autechre’s new ambient album SIGN
luka said:
what's aggravating is the lack of aesthetic commitment. the musical language invoked is that of oceanic surrender, but they succumb to the retrograde idm nerd tendency of making everything fussily hyperactive. it’s bizarre and self defeating.
Click to expand...
sadmanbarty said:
the chord progressions are actually quite basic. the harmonic voicings on the fourth track are nearly identical to wannabe by the spice girls. but where they’re smoothly forthcoming in asserting sexual energy characteristic of the blair era, these blokes are hopelessly asexual and awkward. eyes fixed on the ground, stammering and fidgeting nervously because they’ve never talked to a girl before.
Click to expand...
thirdform said:
proper sheffield gangsta hard trance. i keep telling craner what anglos don’t get is that the microtonality in 92 chipmunk darkstyle stephousetech comes from binali selman not ian fucking levine. that’s why corpsey’s boys could never beat arsenal. for the full experience you want to crank it up to 114083u283 bpm and die from an adderall overdose.
Click to expand...
version said:
There are some bits I quite like and others I don’t like at all. Decent.
Click to expand...
blissblogger said:
someone sent me this the other day and it’s easily the best thing i’ve heard all year - possibly ever. it’s completely changed my opinion of an act whom i’ve dismissed for over 25 years.

in fact i’m drafting a feature for pitchfork called “IDM’s Redemption: Why Autechre Are The Greatest British Electronic Musicians of the Past 50 Years”
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
B

boxedjoy

Well-known member
version said:
It seems that programming your own software and designing your own sounds is a crucial part of Autechre’s music.

BOOTH I’ve heard people say, “I’ll just pay somebody to do it for me,” and I’ll think, well, surely you’re not going to have all the weird little sort of ideas or thoughts along the way. It’s almost taking the joy out of it for yourself. I don’t know where it was decided that that work is necessarily soulless work, and that you can’t be inspired while you’re doing it. I quite like to build things and then forget how it works and then use it later on, and not really be able to remember what I was thinking about when I built it. It’s a little bit like working with yourself in a way, but from a time when you’re not aware of what you were thinking. You can get reacquainted with it in a sense, like you would with a person.

BROWN One charge that people level at us is where’s the emotion? Where’s the notes? Where’s the tunes? It’s nonsense.

BOOTH The issue for me has always been that I can feel it. So I wonder sometimes whether our emotions are too subtle for people to pick up on. You can’t think that we’re not feeling it. I mean, what would be the point in doing music if you weren’t feeling it?
Click to expand...

Yes but sometimes a banger is a banger is a banger, emotions are over-rated
 
T

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
boxedjoy said:
Yes but sometimes a banger is a banger is a banger, emotions are over-rated
Click to expand...

you can't live life by bangers alone. eventually it becomes like a drug. That's what freaked out blackdown when he spoke to kode nine.

sometime you need long, drawn out or uneventful music.

B: 2006 was a mad year for dubstep, unlike any other. What do you guys hope for, for the next few years?

L: I still don’t think about the future.

M: Nah, not like that. I just want to finish some beats. You know when you’ll get a drink that you love? And you’ll just rinse that drink out for weeks. Every day you’ll go and buy it. Eventually you’ll get sick of it and I love music so much I don’t want to get sick of writing it.

L: At the same time I feel with writing music I’m just scratching the surface.

M: Blatantly.

L: It’s a rabbit hole.

B: Kode said something that’s haunted me for ages, that’s music’s like a drug, and like all drugs eventually its effects ware off. I don’t want to believe it.

L: I don’t believe it. I think if music’s a drug it’s an opiate. Heroin addicts say that once you’ve taken it once, the devil’s on your back for the rest of your life. That’s music isn’t it? Once you’ve got it, it’s there, in your ear, talking to you, telling you what to do.

B: It definitely feels like an addiction to me. But I’d rather be addicted to music than anything else.

L: It’s not an addiction, it’s just part of life.

M: Standard. It’s not even something I can think about: not having music.

L: It’s breakfast. It’s sitting up in bed, a cup of tea. It’s the standard things in the day. It’s always there. It’s birdsong.

B: Birdsong is a better way of putting it than an opiate, for me.

L: Can you imagine no music? I can’t. If I was in the desert I’d be beating on the sand. Or humming. Singing at the top of my voice because no one else is about.

M: It’s part of life, it always is, from when you’re in the womb, hearing certain frequencies and shit.

L: Kode9 told me that when you get that big bass, no gnarl to it, it makes you feel cool, feel nice, because it reminds you of the womb and your mum’s heartbeat.

M: This is why I think a lot of people like house, that four beat, is like a heartbeat. That shit is infectious mate.

L: 140bpm is supposed to be a good speed to write at because it’s double resting heartbeat. Benga told me that.

M: Benga’s deep.
Click to expand...

blackdownsoundboy.blogspot.com

Jus' B...

Early this year I headed down into south London. It was the Thursday before January’s DMZ: Mala and Loefah had been at Transition cutting fo...
blackdownsoundboy.blogspot.com blackdownsoundboy.blogspot.com
 
B

boxedjoy

Well-known member
Yeah but it's not an either/or binary. Just it seems a fallacy to judge something for not having ~depth and substance~ when that's not necessarily the point or goal
 
M

mvuent

Void Dweller
left it off for brevity but there was a statement from corpse too.
Corpsey said:
I suppose it’s my duty as an over-educated Wire contributer to hail this as a masterpiece. But the truth is, I don’t want to listen to something that’s dreary and unpleasant to the ear. I’m an unsophisticated soul who would much rather hear a choon with a wonderful melody like Carly Rae Jepsen’s I Really Like You. The best tunes always get everyone dancing.

I’m usually quite shy in public, but when I heard that song at my mate’s wedding last year, I charged to the dancefloor with the vigor of Usain Bolt and began performing what my coke-addled brain told me were martial arts moves, bellowing out accompanying vocal noises, and inadvertently struck a much younger and smaller wedding-goer in the face. It’s funny how drugs can completely change your personality isn’t it? Although I must be developing a keener sense of self-preservation in wizened old age, because strangely enough I didn’t feel any remorse at the time and still don’t.
Click to expand...
i really like how different the wild corpsey we hear about in these occasional irl anecdotes is from the thoughtful, composed, literary one we get on the forum recounting the exploits.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top