A Guide to AUTECHRE

waftlord · February 19, 2021, 2:41pm

i remember a good interview where they likened their music to the style of graffiti that started around 80s hiphop culture, , taking a word/tag and totally abstracting it beyond the realms of known perception.
they said this is what they were trying to achieve in their music and i think it holds up pretty well as an analogy throughout all their releases.
you can’t quantify, explain or dissect it, it just is.

phaelam · February 19, 2021, 4:35pm

1995

Castor · February 19, 2021, 5:35pm

Wrong thread/planet

phaelam · February 19, 2021, 8:15pm

phaelam · February 19, 2021, 8:20pm

awesome

estragon · February 20, 2021, 6:07am

Fin25:

Anyway, back to Autechre. They often use the tools and methods of the academic, but they use them to make music of such emotional and instinctive depth that the average academic doesn’t really know what to do with it. They struggle to frame it within the references that they understand, such as the likes of Xenakis and his UPIC machine or John Cage and his silence, when Autechre’s references are a little more proletarian, such as the dancefloors and raves of the late 80’s and early 90’s or early hip-hop records.
Also, academic music isn’t really for dancing to, on the whole, but I’ve busted out some of my best moves in the darkness of an Autechre gig. That shit is groovy and, say what you like about Xenakis/Stockhausen and the like (who are all obviously awesome too), but you’d struggle to call any of it groovy.
There’s so much academic focus on how or why autechre make the sounds they do that people sometimes forget to fully appreciate the actual music itself.

Hip-hop and rave music are far more frequent and longstanding subjects of scholarship than Autechre. You seem to be doubling down on a bizarre gripe that has very little basis in reality considering the small amount of academic writing on Autechre that has actually been published.

Fin25 · February 20, 2021, 8:27am

Yeah, you’re probably right.

I was in a pretty bad mood yesterday, reading it back, it is a bit silly.

ronsun · February 20, 2021, 9:51am

User408 says:

“Someone suggested that SIGN and PLUS might be two parts of the same album. Here both albums are played alongside each other.”

Castor · February 21, 2021, 12:41pm

Someone that’s deaf?

Adelock · February 21, 2021, 4:22pm

I watched a documentary on the Beatles music once and the guy said something along the lines of ‘ they created atmosphere on this track by playing a diminished d major 7th chord going into A minor which when combined with the f# melody created a … blah blah blah’ and I’m thinking well that’s interesting because none of the Beatles could actually read music.

Transferring this to autechre ‘ the algorithm is creating a d major 7th lead line that when combined with the multi Modulation of filter cut off, release time and ring modulation creates a pseudo echoing timeline of infinite modulation which generates a feeling of increased depth and incredible articulation of the base timbre which when combined with the 3/4 time signature etc etc… ‘

If you need any help with the thesis let me know

pseen · February 22, 2021, 9:14am

Analysis works perfectly well on every conceivable phenomenon, even those where there is no human intention.

IanEye · February 22, 2021, 12:31pm

“The Akai (Z8) is great too. though just for the file system and the way that you can work with the machine. I don’t care what people say about software samplers as the Z8 just shits all over them! I’ve done tighter stuff with the Z8 that I ever have with any soft sampler. It’s a shame that Akai stuff’s getting pushed out because of the soft samplers, although they’re still going to be trading in Japan and releasing updates for their software.” - Sean Booth

It was around 2002 when a friend of mine bought an MPC4000, and it really blew me away. So cool how powerful it was, and the sound engine was basically a Z8. It was a giant tank though, as I remember helping him lug it around for various music gigs in Cambridge, MA.

So, a couple of years later when I read in a music magazine that there was going to be an Akai MPC1000, I got really excited.

I foolishly made the assumption that it was going to be just like the MPC4000, but with only 4 analog outs, and maybe only 2 banks of sounds and less polyphony. But even that would be awesome! Especially if it had a much smaller footprint. I imagined in my head the MPC4000 as a sort of MotherShip that lived in the studio, and the MPC1000 could just decouple from the MotherShip for live gigs.

But then I soon discovered that the MPC1000 wasn’t going to be that at all. The sound engine seemed to be based on the MPC2000 and not the Z8.
And of course, JJOS didn’t exist yet either. I was very sad.

phaelam · February 23, 2021, 4:13pm

waftlord · March 22, 2021, 9:38am

forgot about this

remember them saying this was one of their first jams messing with the presets on MDUW and MnM
really great one.

phaelam · April 20, 2021, 3:16am

Heads up Ae fans…

Japanese release tracks.

Dava · April 20, 2021, 7:13am

I remember stumbling across and enjoying Thomas Brett’s musings on Autechre some years ago.

Including this strange “ventroli-dialogue”

phaelam · April 20, 2021, 4:45pm

The interviewers questions are too long and self indulgent. Interest lost almost immediately.

DonovanDwyer · April 20, 2021, 5:26pm

These were posted earlier in the thread, but thanks for the reminder. Both are fantastic.

Bonus tip: try starting “p1p2” at 4 minutes into “ncur”… mix together nicely.

Dava · April 20, 2021, 6:46pm

Fair do’s, they must have washed over me, caught up in the odd format and pondering whether it was actually a dialogue from an interview (he did another one with Rhianna…)

I liked the notion posed of the “possibility space” though.

phaelam · April 20, 2021, 7:04pm

WHAT THE…I scrolled back.

Anyways…good shit.