XI year old Autechre Album Released: Exai (WARP234)

[eclipsis]

 

Still my most favourite ae release.

^^

This mother fucker has his balls safely secured in a nice, loving, nurturing environment...

Ready to explode everywhere with the power of Thor and Zeus and Jesus and the FSM and Buddah - all rolled into one - all over the face of some cum loving CD case... While EXAI is playing in the background.

And I'm right behind him, egging him on... Just hoping he'll whip it out, stick it in and hit 'play'...

 

=P

 

I love this album.

 

Haha, yeah, that sums it up pretty nicely :).

 

But seriously, I find Exai to be their most colourful album to date. It has everything I love about Autechre, there's not a single track I don't enjoy, it works great as a whole, the track lengths are optimal to properly capture the idea behind each track. The sound design here is very inspiring and somehow less clinical than on their other records, maybe because of the more apparent hint of nostalgia (some 808/909-esque percussion here and there), yet it doesn't sound retro at all. Also it's very melodic in a sense yet still very beat oriented. I just can't say anything bad about this record. Exai + L-event is my favourite Autechre era.

[hello spiral]

Remember when it came out and people were saying it was too long? LOL

[jules]

lol

[mushroom]

lol

[auxien]

Remember when it came out and people were saying it was too long? LOL

It is. Works much better if chunked as a series of EPs like they mentioned was kind of the idea with it + L-Event. I can't 'deep listen' to anything for two hours (plus there's just a decent number of tracks that I don't much dig, but they're the exception, not the rule here). Even NTS sessions individually, though they 'work' chunked up as they are, are just a bit too much for me. Personal issue and take on it all, of course.

 

imhfo 

[mushroom]

you don't have to listen to it all at once

[hello spiral]

I do though

[xox]

Remember when it came out and people were saying it was too long? LOL

 

 

lol

 

 

 

lol

 

 

 

[Zephyr_Nova]

Remember when it came out and people were saying it was too long? 

 

Story of my life.

[oscillik]

lol

[hello spiral]

lol

[Roo]

Was top 5 for me until NTS Sessions came along. A top 5 release of the 2010s.

 

That was such a fun AE release period, great memories, sooo many listens. Except my computer blue screening a couple days after download, which was suss and required a week of specialist repair.

Edited August 1, 2018 by Roo

[digit]

this album is such a beast. dense. detailed. sam & rod were definitely not short of ideas here.

 

i still regard this as their last actual 'album'. since then we've gotten live recordings (AE LIVE), extended jams of their tour material (ELSEQ), and the long evolving radio session jams (NTS), but we haven't gotten an actual "album", with all the WARP promotion, round of interviews, artwork, etc that that entails.

 

is there a difference? there is to me. there's something different about an "album" release. more work on the production, editing, mastering.

 

the stuff the've done since then has been cool and i've liked it but i still feel that something is missing. an extra level of polish or production, or depth to the sounds. it's hard to describe but if you put on exai now & listen to it you will immediately hear the difference. i feel like their current max-based system generates so much stuff that they are kind of letting all that output take the lead. lots of extended jams and sketches but not things that feel like finished works somehow.

[eclipsis]

this album is such a beast. dense. detailed. sam & rod were definitely not short of ideas here.

 

i still regard this as their last actual 'album'. since then we've gotten live recordings (AE LIVE), extended jams of their tour material (ELSEQ), and the long evolving radio session jams (NTS), but we haven't gotten an actual "album", with all the WARP promotion, round of interviews, artwork, etc that that entails.

 

is there a difference? there is to me. there's something different about an "album" release. more work on the production, editing, mastering.

 

the stuff the've done since then has been cool and i've liked it but i still feel that something is missing. an extra level of polish or production, or depth to the sounds. it's hard to describe but if you put on exai now & listen to it you will immediately hear the difference. i feel like their current max-based system generates so much stuff that they are kind of letting all that output take the lead. lots of extended jams and sketches but not things that feel like finished works somehow.

Exactly, man. That's pretty much how I feel about post-Exai releases as well. While I'm still very intrigued by what they're doing now I would love to see a "proper" album released eventually. Something tighter, more focused and detailed, more thought-through regarding sequencing and length. To limit oneself is the greatest production tool in my opinion.

[misuta Go]

this album is such a beast. dense. detailed. sam & rod were definitely not short of ideas here.

 

i still regard this as their last actual 'album'. since then we've gotten live recordings (AE LIVE), extended jams of their tour material (ELSEQ), and the long evolving radio session jams (NTS), but we haven't gotten an actual "album", with all the WARP promotion, round of interviews, artwork, etc that that entails.

 

is there a difference? there is to me. there's something different about an "album" release. more work on the production, editing, mastering.

 

the stuff the've done since then has been cool and i've liked it but i still feel that something is missing. an extra level of polish or production, or depth to the sounds. it's hard to describe but if you put on exai now & listen to it you will immediately hear the difference. i feel like their current max-based system generates so much stuff that they are kind of letting all that output take the lead. lots of extended jams and sketches but not things that feel like finished works somehow.

 

i mostly agree, but to me that is a good thing, this new direction. we've had way too much "proper" material from the boys,

with "clear" compositions and great ideas, right now i am hugely intrigued by the possibilities that lie ahead with the "live" setup.

 

the fact alone that the last gigs lasted half an hour longer has me pumped for the next european tour...

[AJW]

this album is such a beast. dense. detailed. sam & rod were definitely not short of ideas here.

 

i still regard this as their last actual 'album'. since then we've gotten live recordings (AE LIVE), extended jams of their tour material (ELSEQ), and the long evolving radio session jams (NTS), but we haven't gotten an actual "album", with all the WARP promotion, round of interviews, artwork, etc that that entails.

 

is there a difference? there is to me. there's something different about an "album" release. more work on the production, editing, mastering.

 

the stuff the've done since then has been cool and i've liked it but i still feel that something is missing. an extra level of polish or production, or depth to the sounds. it's hard to describe but if you put on exai now & listen to it you will immediately hear the difference. i feel like their current max-based system generates so much stuff that they are kind of letting all that output take the lead. lots of extended jams and sketches but not things that feel like finished works somehow.

That "lacking something" is indeed hard to pin down, yet it's evident everywhere on post Exai material. My theory is that on their older stuff, especially Confield, Untilted & Draft, Sean & Rob were grappling with this unruly monster of pure primal energy of sound they'd created, trying to mold it and keep it from escaping and running loose.

And as you mentioned, it's as if now the ideas are let to float around by their own accord more, seemingly with less emphasis on restructuring/editing.

Maybe they finally tamed the beast, or perhaps it's quite a peaceful beast now that it's roaming loose.

Of course this isn't indicative of every single track since Exai, but seems to be a general direction of their material since.

[jaderpansen]

i like (and love parts of) exai but pretty much everything they did after even better. i reckon it makes for a great introductory album tho.

[Guest]

^ Yeah.

 

"Their new stuff is just loose, unedited jams" is the 2010s equivalent of "their new stuff is just pressing play on a random note generator" in the 2000s. If you look back in this thread you'll see the exact same criticisms thrown at Exai--except that I guess now everyone's realized that it's actually ridiculously detailed/deliberate?

 

I do think their newer material tends to have fewer discrete layers than on Draft, Untilted, etc. though. Now the complexity is more embedded in the sound design itself. I think they said in the AAA that the boundary between sound design and sequencing was kind of gone for them. So you have tracks like c7b2 or mesh cinereal where it's hard to mentally divide things into separate layers sound, but where there's actually a ton of crazy shit going on--or c16 deep tread where there's seemingly very few layers but lot of richness and morphology in many of the sounds.

 

Anyways that's my longwinded way of saying that their newer works (at least elseq, I haven't listened to nts much yet tbh) very much feel like "legitimate" releases to me.

[Zephyr_Nova]

If every page in this thread represented one day from the release of Exai, Exai would be exactly one year old today.

           

[dingformung]

^ Yeah.

 

"Their new stuff is just loose, unedited jams" is the 2010s equivalent of "their new stuff is just pressing play on a random note generator" in the 2000s. If you look back in this thread you'll see the exact same criticisms thrown at Exai--except that I guess now everyone's realized that it's actually ridiculously detailed/deliberate?

 

I do think their newer material tends to have fewer discrete layers than on Draft, Untilted, etc. though. Now the complexity is more embedded in the sound design itself. I think they said in the AAA that the boundary between sound design and sequencing was kind of gone for them. So you have tracks like c7b2 or mesh cinereal where it's hard to mentally divide things into separate layers sound, but where there's actually a ton of crazy shit going on--or c16 deep tread where there's seemingly very few layers but lot of richness and morphology in many of the sounds.

 

Anyways that's my longwinded way of saying that their newer works (at least elseq, I haven't listened to nts much yet tbh) very much feel like "legitimate" releases to me.

That sounds pretty spot on

[auxien]

 

this album is such a beast. dense. detailed. sam & rod were definitely not short of ideas here.

 

i still regard this as their last actual 'album'. since then we've gotten live recordings (AE LIVE), extended jams of their tour material (ELSEQ), and the long evolving radio session jams (NTS), but we haven't gotten an actual "album", with all the WARP promotion, round of interviews, artwork, etc that that entails.

 

is there a difference? there is to me. there's something different about an "album" release. more work on the production, editing, mastering.

 

the stuff the've done since then has been cool and i've liked it but i still feel that something is missing. an extra level of polish or production, or depth to the sounds. it's hard to describe but if you put on exai now & listen to it you will immediately hear the difference. i feel like their current max-based system generates so much stuff that they are kind of letting all that output take the lead. lots of extended jams and sketches but not things that feel like finished works somehow.

That "lacking something" is indeed hard to pin down, yet it's evident everywhere on post Exai material. My theory is that on their older stuff, especially Confield, Untilted & Draft, Sean & Rob were grappling with this unruly monster of pure primal energy of sound they'd created, trying to mold it and keep it from escaping and running loose.

And as you mentioned, it's as if now the ideas are let to float around by their own accord more, seemingly with less emphasis on restructuring/editing.

Maybe they finally tamed the beast, or perhaps it's quite a peaceful beast now that it's roaming loose.

Of course this isn't indicative of every single track since Exai, but seems to be a general direction of their material since.

I agree with you both (and also misuta Go, that it's a good thing, with you on that as well). I'd personally exclude AE_LIVE for clarity, as it's really a different beast than elseq or NTS (and is certainly very succinct/edited/structured in many ways, though obviously not entirely). I think NTS is leaning away from the very meandering nature of elseq, though obviously not entirely, it perhaps does so more in a couple tracks. NTS is also seemingly much more 'constructed' and each track feels more complete to my ears. I definitely like it a lot more. Just the nature of NTS sort of constrains things, knowing they were fitting each session into a strict 2 hour time frame, there's by definition some editing involved. 

 

This is the Exai thread though. Exai is pretty good, but I just don't know what they were thinking on a couple tracks. I've warmed partly to some others, and then there's some true classics in there too. This and Oversteps was sort of the beginnings of this whole era it seems, going on ten years now...

[hello spiral]

 

but I just don't know what they were thinking on a couple tracks

 

I'm interested for you to name them

[auxien]

jatavee C

T ess xi

 

Both have a little bit of interesting /sound design/ lol elements but just pretty weak tracks imo. They've gotten worse to my ears since my original impressions of them, never a good thing.

[hello spiral]

I wish I hadn't asked now

 

[auxien]

:)

 

I warmed up some on runrepik and the one before it, used to skip them almost every time.