Autechre

[version]

I read the interview they did with Sherburne around the NTS Sessions last night. Think I missed it at the time,

Autechre on Their Epic NTS Sessions, David Lynch, and Where Code Meets Music

Getting in the middle of the mind-meld between Sean Booth and Rob Brown, as the IDM masters’ four-part radio sessions see a proper release

pitchfork.com

I don’t see those two things as being separate. I said this before about how I think scratching records is essentially musique concrète. It’s all about context and how people perceive something. They’re the same thing. I think quite often there’s this tendency to want to separate these worlds out, and if we do a weird sound, it’ll be, “Well, that must have come from electro-acoustic music.” A lot of the time it’s come from hip-hop. I think people have a tendency to think culturally a lot of the time rather than aesthetically, whereas we always think aesthetically first; the cultural part almost doesn’t matter.

 

[woops]

one of reynold's memorable lines is that in white music weird noises = avant and in black music weird noises = sex

 

[line b]

The opening track of this Ae album sounds like a creaking pirate ship in a storm with the odd ray of sun breaking through the cloud. Amazing.

getting nautical imagery from si00 aswell. Almost sounds like a Drexciya song

 

[mvuent]

getting nautical imagery from si00 aswell. Almost sounds like a Drexciya song

yeah a lot of their music is like that. they've always been fond of the aquatic as a diegetic space in a similar way to how stockhausen was fond of the aerial as a diegetic space.

 

[version]

Have they said that? The only instance where I've ever encountered them being asked about setting or anything like that they completely shut it down and said they have no imagery or anything like that in mind. It's just sounds in space that have a kind of physical form.

 

[mvuent]

Have they said that? The only instance where I've ever encountered them being asked about setting or anything like that they completely shut it down and said they have no imagery or anything like that in mind. It's just shapes in space that have a kind of physical form.

what quotes are you talking about?

 

[version]

You mean in my example or which quotes am I responding to?

 

[mvuent]

You mean in my example or which quotes am I responding to?

the instances you mentioned

 

[version]

4:23

 

[mvuent]

i think they do some of what luka was talking about somewhere recently, arguing different sides depending on what you think the other person needs to hear. in the AAA sean says that to him draft 7.30 feels "skeletal" and "hollow" and "like a ruined city in the distant future" and says that parhelic triangle reminds him of "some kind of lumbering deep thing" that's "ancient and sleeping." so to me that seems like exactly the kind of engagement he denies having in the above interview lol. there's a lot of other stuff in that vein that i'm too lazy to find.

 

[mvuent]

rob in the vid above: "you can play certain sound effects and musical events . . . and arrange them in such a way to taste that just sort of evokes a sense of scale or dynamics or even a surface texture of a space your in . . . you can sort of dynamically evolve all these shapes and sounds to actually evoke internal spaces"

rob also says in the AAA that his favorite place irl is "deep water below clear skies sunshine/moonlight/stars" so i think it makes sense that he would want to evoke aquatic spaces

 

[version]

rob in the vid above: "you can play certain sound effects and musical events . . . and arrange them in such a way to taste that just sort of evokes a sense of scale or dynamics or even a surface texture of a space your in . . . you can sort of dynamically evolve all these shapes and sounds to actually evoke internal spaces"

Yeah, but he doesn't specify any actual settings. He just talks about it in purely technical terms.

 

[version]

It's quite an old interview though, 2008 apparently. The examples you've mentioned sound like they've changed their thinking over time. The AAA wasn't too long ago.

 

[mvuent]

Yeah, but he doesn't specify any actual settings. He just talks about it in purely technical terms.

i mean, i'm not saying that "r cazt" definitively takes place in Gary, Indiana or anything. just that i think they often intentionally evoke vaguely aquatic spaces in their music.

 

[version]

The impression I'm getting is they just make stuff then once it's wrapped up and they go back to it, they start to make associations like that.

 

[version]

What do you think of SIGN btw? You listened much?

 

[mvuent]

i like it, although it's hard to say how much at this point, since their albums always grow on me. you should do a review of it for your blog.

 

[version]

I've only listened to the first two tracks. I liked them. It's very bright for an Autechre album. I can see why they chose the orange and grey colour scheme for the sleeve.

 

[linee]

i mean, i'm not saying that "r cazt" definitively takes place in Gary, Indiana or anything. just that i think they often intentionally evoke vaguely aquatic spaces in their music.

iirc gr4 is the one they've said takes place in Gary, Indiana

 

[mvuent]

yeah a lot of their music is like that. they've always been fond of the aquatic as a diegetic space in a similar way to how stockhausen was fond of the aerial as a diegetic space.

a few examples IMO



(^ the track "dives underwater" at ~6:40)