Autechre, NTS Residency

pattycakes_

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
Idk I'm not knowledgeable enough about the chronology. But while I used to dig the sonic abrasion, now I really prefer their stuff when it had beats

Uviol is one of my faves which has a lovely beat/hook but is also pretty trippy in that abstrakt digiscape way.

But I really love the early, much more obviously inspired by electro stuff. Amber etc
 
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version

Well-known member
I love it when they just fuck it off and come out with a banger.

 
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mvuent

Void Dweller
maybe an unpopular opinion but the newer stuff bangs more. the early stuff is formally closer to other dance music but often the newer stuff better captures and even intensifies the excitement of the best hip hop, techno, jungle, etc. of course that's only apparent after you've listened to it 10000 times though.

also don't think they got less melodic over time, as is commonly repeated. in interviews they always seem a bit bemused by that idea.
 
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Well-known member
Yeah. Oversteps was a very melodic album and that was, what? 2010? Exai has its melodic moments too.

 
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Well-known member
third, mvuent and anyone else who's listened to the recent stuff; what would you say are the major distinctions between elseq and the nts sessions and which do you prefer?
 
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pattycakes_

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
Must admit that I haven't checked exai, oversteps and any other stuff from that era enough to have an opinion. My point about the hooks is they were writing more memorable tunes in the early days. The following algo-y stuff lacked the human feel, obviously, which I don't respond to even half as much. Need to check the 2010 and onwards stuff asap
 
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mvuent

Void Dweller
pattycakes_ said:
The following algo-y stuff lacked the human feel, obviously, which I don't respond to even half as much.
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interestingly they seem to feel otherwise

https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/2756

Sean Booth: Yeah! I don't want to call that AI, because that's a really loose definition. But there is this slight element of personalities being split up and lost into the world. And that is interesting. I'm not about legacy or anything, but it's cool when I switch my computer on and it can just be me... even if it's just a little bit.

Rob Brown: Yeah, it is just a kind of mimicry, but even if it is just traits, people do see personality, like you say. And if they see bit of a person in it, then that's as far as you need to go sometimes.

Sean Booth: It's fun, I use Rob's patches in tracks, he uses mine, so we're 50/50 on a track even if the other one weren't there, because there's a bunch of his decisions getting made during the track. With this kind of algorithmic music, because the algorithms are made by people, it is people music! You get that thing of, "Eww, it's not human!" But that's so far off how I think of it. I think of it as being more human, because there's all these decisions in there, and they're human decisions. They're what people chose to do.
 
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mvuent

Void Dweller
idk if that makes sense out of context, but it's interesting that they almost seem to think of the algo "decision-making" as being like a clone of themselves making further decisions beyond what they do "by hand" in a more literal sense
 
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Well-known member
There's an older interview where he says something similar, something along the lines of "the machine makes the music, but I make the machine."


 
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Well-known member
"what you mean like a guitar or something where you select the notes or whatever? no, no no no, fuck all that."

 
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thirdform

pass the sick bucket
chava said:
It is exactly this clumsiness/naivité that sets Aphew clearly above Autechre, who are merely hucksters of sentimental show off algo-noodling. Whether they are influenced by black music is missing the point.
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naivete leads to anthem trance and jump up though, true story.


revolting jump up: he did not learn the serious lesson from 93 darkside. he should have shot people in the rave.

 
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thirdform

pass the sick bucket
pattycakes_ said:
Must admit that I haven't checked exai, oversteps and any other stuff from that era enough to have an opinion. My point about the hooks is they were writing more memorable tunes in the early days. The following algo-y stuff lacked the human feel, obviously, which I don't respond to even half as much. Need to check the 2010 and onwards stuff asap
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stop being an aristocratic nostalgic red tory! some of us nearly starved to death on the dole in this existing society, you know. do you really want to go back to a society where art is restricted to people who understand human feel and not any old johnny come lately prole who discovered a computer to make weird noises with? shocking, i tell you!

you need to listen to jungle when it was good in 93 and then autechre will not come across to you as very complicated or lacking human feel or whatever:

 
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thirdform

pass the sick bucket
mvuent said:
imo yes!


was listening to early aphex around when the first set was on, and it reminded me of what third was saying in his list. that they grew up around black music in a way that aphex didn't. to me the new 89-93 material supports that idea. shows how autechre had a much better grasp of techno and electro rhythms at this point. (and now, but that's beside the point.) stuff like this, as much as I like it, sounds a bit clumsily executed rhythmically by comparison:

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it also sounds like a trueskool undergr00nd version of blank and jones cream. take from that what you will.

a dollop of 00s british mdma naivete for chava with an accompanying post:

"i still have no idea why you petty-bourgeois dilettantes are moaning about the overload of online mixes and wanna go back to the dj mix cd. if anything is good about the mix overload its that we're constantly excavating pirate radio tapes!
like do u lot seriously want to go back to the days of ministry of sound club classics and james zabiela back to mine comps with Atticus and Cassandra doing nose bag and ket in ur living room whilst debating whether world war I started in 1914 or 1918 and whether Wilhelmian Germany was an ally?
Then leftover condom, cum stains on the sofa and bits of ripped tight when you wake up, only to find that they were doing the nookie to an interminable loop of spiller feat. Sophie Ellis Bexter - groovejet?
Sort it out!"


weirdly enough the guy who made awesome darkside classics such as nightstalker b2 and until the night is morning. he was better when he was serious. look what drugs did to him! a travesty that patty should learn from!
 
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thirdform

pass the sick bucket
pattycakes_ said:
Idk I'm not knowledgeable enough about the chronology. But while I used to dig the sonic abrasion, now I really prefer their stuff when it had beats

Uviol is one of my faves which has a lovely beat/hook but is also pretty trippy in that abstrakt digiscape way.

But I really love the early, much more obviously inspired by electro stuff. Amber etc
Click to expand...


the new stuff is even more electro though, just in a spectral way, without the trappings of modern electro or ambient techno. this sounds like the type of music miles davis would be making today.

and i repeat, its not *that dazzlingly inhumanly complex*

if you really want unapproachable algo for the sake of algo listen to richard devine. hard work to make it through a full album though.

 
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