How did you get into Ae?

[t yst r]

True. That's the Ae way. I spent so long listening to Confield and when Draft came out I wasn't into it at all at first apart from V-Proc even though I was listening to it constantly trying to ''get it'', months later Sudden Roundabout and Surripere clicked completely then Untitled and I was bewildered again. But yeah, Surripere as an entry point is mind blowing, given all that I got through to get to it. Ae rock.

*listens to Draft all the way through on headphones*

 

It is indeed a strange one to start with, but I fell in love with it right from the start.

 

To me, Draft sounds like Confield grown up. More focused and concrete. I even see it as the apotheosis of their sonic development as a band, something they worked towards. Untilted took it in a different direction. More horizontal than vertical (if that makes any sense).

[auxien]

 

True. That's the Ae way. I spent so long listening to Confield and when Draft came out I wasn't into it at all at first apart from V-Proc even though I was listening to it constantly trying to ''get it'', months later Sudden Roundabout and Surripere clicked completely then Untitled and I was bewildered again. But yeah, Surripere as an entry point is mind blowing, given all that I got through to get to it. Ae rock.

*listens to Draft all the way through on headphones*

It is indeed a strange one to start with, but I fell in love with it right from the start.

 

To me, Draft sounds like Confield grown up. More focused and concrete. I even see it as the apotheosis of their sonic development as a band, something they worked towards. Untilted took it in a different direction. More horizontal than vertical (if that makes any sense).

Agreed. IMO Draft is still their absolute best album for those reasons and plenty of others.

 

sent using magic space waves

[Soloman Tump]

Dang I need to listen to Draft again.

 

Vinyl session tonight I reckon.

[mcbpete]

This CD:

 

 

However I thought the track (777) was unlistenable garbage - my mate bought LP5 after hearing it, lent it to me and I feared I'd have to put up with an hour of shite. However my brain slowly reprogrammed into Ae's FM clonky goodness of that era and it all started to fall into place.

 

Funnily enough I had heard their track Silversub (a remix Of Silverside) several years earlier (also on a Future Music CD) but I didn't realise it was the same people as it sounded so different.

[nerver]

i heard rpeg way messed up on bong rips. and then i realized relistening at home that this song makes my chihuahua howl like a mother fucker. its great. the beat just falls apart so perfectly after the "intro"

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQDbk_nY_48

[- unwatmm -]

How different it all used to be . .. "really?" you ask, in the modern hyper-cynical brogue. How different? I had a recurring dream, in the nineties, of wandering around an unpinnable english city, an amalgamation of shop fronts, ancient victorian curved glass, bad lighting, shoddy shelves and crates smothered in white stickers and black marker. I'd root around the shop and find a small bundle of amazing cds... . I'd try and memorise their names for when I woke up.

 

"Well - that's not much of a dream is it?" you say, internetted up to the gills with forums, search engines, online stores, fan pages, links, information, information, information. It's hard, I expect, for a lot of people to understand buying things because the word 'instrumental' was mentioned, or buying things because the artwork suggested the contents might be electronic, futuristic, modern. It was such a gamble then - you couldn't listen to samples, you couldn't download it for free then buy it, nobody else you knew liked anything anywhere NEAR what you liked. It was all so rare, you were alone, nobody else knew, you had to hunt, you had to travel, you had to buy, you just had to keep going - surely we all dreamed the dream of magical finds in record shops.

 

For me - it all started in the aquarium underneath the Blackpool Tower & Ballroom - they were playing Tomita "Snowflakes are Dancing" - late seventies, dim light, big fish, the most incredible electronic sounds - so otherworldly, so never-existed-before, so beyond new, so future. . . . the fish mouthed at me, the iron tower above trembled with the pure electronically generated sound waves.

 

Here was music that talked without words, that brought images to your mind without forcing them down your throat, and here started a journey into instrumental electronic future music - that opened doors for the imagination to step into a world not yet created and of landscapes not yet scorched by fierce inventions. Then followed a difficult period of random discoveries, jumping from isolated island to isolated island - jarre, tangerine dream, vangelis, mike oldfield - then some electronic pop - but not really - it just didn't have that distance - that open-ness. . . . art of noise, cabaret voltaire, brian eno, harold budd, front 242, frontline assembly. . .

 

Then - University - Sheffield - 1989.

 

The WARP shop. . it was always there as far as I can remember.. . didn't feel special, just a record shop. .. and of course the staff were friendly/aloof/unapproachable. .. more because I was a mortal and they were cool/different. The world went 'bleep' - but it was all idiotic dance music - for drugged up ravers. I bought a giant slab of purple - sweet exorcist - clonk 12" - that was different. Bought Selected Ambient Works CD from the WARP shop - mustn't have been out long.

 

It was a recession - so back home to Mum in Liverpool I went - on the dole - spending my money on cds. . . most things on WARP were instabuys (as the kids say these days) - Polygon Window, Black Dog Bytes, B12. .. . all so incredibly different to each other.. . like entire genres to themselves, flying ever outward - away from the slushy dull noise of what the radio played.

 

Then - there it is - like my recurring dream - the graphics, the warp label, the magical amazing cd - all future and shiny.

 

Probe Records - Button Street - Liverpool - 1993.

It was winter and cold - the steps were wet and slippy - it might have been out a week.

 

 

Then - each release as it came out - in the early days, in Bristol, hunting up and down Park Street, randomly finding them - not knowing they were being released - usually in november - or so my memory tells me, always in november. Wondering where the first Beaumont Hannant mix was. ANTI ep - how dare they stop people dancing. . . subversive black sticker over blank aqua.

 

Wonderful to listen to the changes over time - the advances - the development - the unstoppable development.

 

Being so infatuated with the bleeding tip of new music - not caring for 95% of music after a few months, there's more there - there's always more - you follow that cusp of the wave - you are the music - you are the here and now boys. From that cusp - I look about - there's not much music now that has the future HIDDEN within it - so much of it settles for small parts of what the future was once seen as possibly becoming - it all sounds very present - very now - but not plucked from the distantly heard echoes of future possibility. That is Autechre.

 

M.

[saltykraut]

YouTube, suggested videos. 7 years ago ish.

[Guest WNS000]

YouTube, suggested videos. 7 years ago ish.

 

Nice.

[mcbpete]

Cracking post marcjday

[phudoshin]

This...

 

[LemanRuss]

Was into Aphex since I was about 12 years old. Used to buy Select magazine, and the other dance magazines around at the time, and was into going to raves.

 

Had never heard Autechre at that time though. There was no internet or Youtube back then, so I would often just read the names of producers in the magazines, and just imagine what they might sound like, based on the descriptions and their names.

 

I bought Tri Repetae when I was 18, and found it really cold. I was used to the warmer, more alive sounds of Aphex, and the whole music scene at the time, but ae was something totally different. I found it odd, and left a weird taste in my mouth. I persevered though, and after a while I started to get it. I was not until I got to about 20 though, that I really started to understand it. Got some Sennheiser HD580s, an MD player, a Marantz CD player and Amp, and some Tannoy speakers, and just went mental on ae. Listened to all of their stuff (was up to about Chiastic Slide by this point in time), and carried on. Confield threw me though, as I was expecting more stuff like they had been releasing before. EP7 was the last one I vibed to before I put them to one side and started listening to other stuff (was also starting to make my own music at the time, so that took a lot of my music listening effort and emotions up.)

 

Got back into them fairly recently, and relistened to it all. The vastness of Exai is still haunting me.

[nizzleone]

Around 2005 when I was just moving from metalish stuff to more electronic stuff my friend played me Untilted and was like "hmmm, this is more different".

[richhipster]

I guess my story's cool because it can be relived right now. You'll see what I mean.

 

This was 2002/2003. I was mad about Aphex Twin's Druqks at the time (that's still my favourite of his) and I wanted to find more music like that.

 

I found a website called 'Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music' (http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/)

 

While exploring it, I clicked 'Jungle' -- clicked 'IDM' (lower left corner) -- in the IDM section, I encountered Autechre in loop number 2, which is a loop from Acroyear2. The same loop is still there in the same place.

 

I was instantly crazy for it because I couldn't quite work it out - whether it had a start or end, or where those things were, or where the upbeats or downbeats were.

 

I went to Red Eye records here in Sydney, went to the electronic section, found a tab for Autechre and picked up the front CD to buy, which was the just-released Draft 7:30. That's probably still my favourite Autechre record today.

 

 

Draft 7.30 was the first Autechre album I bought.

 

I was introduced to Aphex Twin & Infected Mushroom in 2001 which sparked my interest in electronic music. I saw Autechre's name pop up in a few places whilst searching the net so I grabbed the first CD I saw with their name on it.

 

Metal head here too. \m/

[Chabraendeky]

I've found this old topic... I'm quite new here, so let me introduce myself:

 

I've first listened to Autechre back in spring 1998 as a friend of mine chose Rettic Ac and Tewe as soundtrack for a school-project film. I fell immediately in love with this music, and the same summer I bought Chiastic Slide and some months later LP5 too.

I listened to many Warp artists and other electronic music for the following couple of years, but my favs were Autechre and Squarepusher.

Some years later I joined some kind of cult, and I was kinda forced to abandonned this music and sell all my CDs.

After that I listened only to early classical music, which I still love.

I got out from this cult luckily and tried to find back my way to the things I love.

The time to rediscover Autechre come a few months ago, I pirated some albums down, and listened to it on my phone sometimes. After some time I knew that I still love this music, so I've decided to buy them all. At this time only Exai is still missing, but should arrive this week.

And there was a strange coincidence: end of March I bought my first Autechre CDs, Chiastic Slide (again) and Oversteps. In April I bought several other Ae CDs, and just a week later NTS Sessions were announced on the Ae-store! The same time I find back to Autechre a new album is released!

[dingformung]

I've found this old topic... I'm quite new here, so let me introduce myself:

 

I've first listened to Autechre back in spring 1998 as a friend of mine chose Rettic Ac and Tewe as soundtrack for a school-project film. I fell immediately in love with this music, and the same summer I bought Chiastic Slide and some months later LP5 too.

I listened to many Warp artists and other electronic music for the following couple of years, but my favs were Autechre and Squarepusher.

Some years later I joined some kind of cult, and I was kinda forced to abandonned this music and sell all my CDs.

After that I listened only to early classical music, which I still love.

I got out from this cult luckily and tried to find back my way to the things I love.

The time to rediscover Autechre come a few months ago, I pirated some albums down, and listened to it on my phone sometimes. After some time I knew that I still love this music, so I've decided to buy them all. At this time only Exai is still missing, but should arrive this week.

And there was a strange coincidence: end of March I bought my first Autechre CDs, Chiastic Slide (again) and Oversteps. In April I bought several other Ae CDs, and just a week later NTS Sessions were announced on the Ae-store! The same time I find back to Autechre a new album is released!

 

You joined a cult? What kind of cult was that if you don't mind explaining, sounds like an interesting story. Of course you don't have to say anything, but I'm curious

[Embers]

Around 2006, back when MSN Messenger was the chat client and you could have the now playing thing next to your name. A friend  of mine from Trinidad was playing BoC's In A Beautiful Place ep, in particular the track Zoetrope. "Boards of Canada - Zoetrope" caught me and that string of words spun around in my head for a few days. I had to listen just to find out what it all meant and I got instantly hooked on their music.

 

last.fm was also insanely popular at the time and after playing BoC for so long Autechre's Amber came up as a recommendation. I had a look, saw they were on the same label as BoC and that got me intrigued. The artwork alone gave me such an immense alien feeling. At one point I just spent an hour just looking over it, just feeling it. It gave me absolutely no indication of what Amber would sound like, but it gave me the feeling of the album. It was beautiful. 

 

Listening in, the first 3 tracks were pretty good but didn't get me hooked, but then SLIP came on and my whole musical world was shattered. It was bewildering, confusing, so smoothly crystalline and tonally vibrant all at once. The melody and background flutters are super lush. The modulations keep the whole things fresh for 6+ mins. At the time I couldn't believe it was made in the early/mid-90s, and it still sounds so futuristic today.

 

I dove headfirst into the discography deep end after that! I bought nearly everything on CD they had released up until that point.

Edited May 15, 2018 by Embers

[aencre]

I heard Kalpol Introl on Pi. 

[Chabraendeky]

 

I've found this old topic... I'm quite new here, so let me introduce myself:

 

I've first listened to Autechre back in spring 1998 as a friend of mine chose Rettic Ac and Tewe as soundtrack for a school-project film. I fell immediately in love with this music, and the same summer I bought Chiastic Slide and some months later LP5 too.

I listened to many Warp artists and other electronic music for the following couple of years, but my favs were Autechre and Squarepusher.

Some years later I joined some kind of cult, and I was kinda forced to abandonned this music and sell all my CDs.

After that I listened only to early classical music, which I still love.

I got out from this cult luckily and tried to find back my way to the things I love.

The time to rediscover Autechre come a few months ago, I pirated some albums down, and listened to it on my phone sometimes. After some time I knew that I still love this music, so I've decided to buy them all. At this time only Exai is still missing, but should arrive this week.

And there was a strange coincidence: end of March I bought my first Autechre CDs, Chiastic Slide (again) and Oversteps. In April I bought several other Ae CDs, and just a week later NTS Sessions were announced on the Ae-store! The same time I find back to Autechre a new album is released!

You joined a cult? What kind of cult was that if you don't mind explaining, sounds like an interesting story. Of course you don't have to say anything, but I'm curious

Not a 'real' cult, but kinda. I don't know if you ever heard about 'transcendential traditionalism' - is based on some books back from the 40s and 50s, written by these guys René Guénon and Julius Evola and that kind of stuff. So there was this little group of traditonalists and I got into it, found it interesting and so on.

And this Guénon guy had this theory that the world is getting far from a desired state of Tradition, and blamed renaissance for it. (Now it sounds ridicolous for me, but then I digged it.)

So to be consequent we tried to abbandon a lot of stuff that represented the "modern spirit" - inculding art, so music also.

I didn't really joined the group hereafter, was always more individual, but it took time for me to shook off the impact.

Edited May 15, 2018 by Chabraendeky

[dingformung]

 

 

I've found this old topic... I'm quite new here, so let me introduce myself:

 

I've first listened to Autechre back in spring 1998 as a friend of mine chose Rettic Ac and Tewe as soundtrack for a school-project film. I fell immediately in love with this music, and the same summer I bought Chiastic Slide and some months later LP5 too.

I listened to many Warp artists and other electronic music for the following couple of years, but my favs were Autechre and Squarepusher.

Some years later I joined some kind of cult, and I was kinda forced to abandonned this music and sell all my CDs.

After that I listened only to early classical music, which I still love.

I got out from this cult luckily and tried to find back my way to the things I love.

The time to rediscover Autechre come a few months ago, I pirated some albums down, and listened to it on my phone sometimes. After some time I knew that I still love this music, so I've decided to buy them all. At this time only Exai is still missing, but should arrive this week.

And there was a strange coincidence: end of March I bought my first Autechre CDs, Chiastic Slide (again) and Oversteps. In April I bought several other Ae CDs, and just a week later NTS Sessions were announced on the Ae-store! The same time I find back to Autechre a new album is released!

You joined a cult? What kind of cult was that if you don't mind explaining, sounds like an interesting story. Of course you don't have to say anything, but I'm curious

Not a 'real' cult, but kinda. I don't know if you ever heard about 'transcendential traditionalism' - is based on some books back from the 40s and 50s, written by these guys René Guénon and Julius Evola and that kind of stuff. So there was this little group of traditonalists and I got into it, found it interesting and so on.

And this Guénon guy had this theory that the world is getting far from a desired state of Tradition, and blamed renaissance for it. (Now it sounds ridicolous for me, but then I digged it.)

So to be consequent we tried to abbandon a lot of stuff that represented the "modern spirit" - inculding art, so music also.

I didn't really joined the group hereafter, was always more individual, but it took time for me to shook off the impact.

 

Hmm, okay. Weird what ideas can do

[eryngi]

no music shops sold this kind of stuff where i lived but i somehow became obsessed with aphex years before ever hearing him.. from the BBS ANSI art scene.. there was an artist called aphin twix, which i thought sounded cool.. then saw mention of some band called aphex twin in a zine i downloaded. "oh, like that ANSI guy! i guess it's the same person.."

 

then one day in highschool art class a girl brought this rad tape along. i asked what it was - aphex twin! whoahh.. she was drumming along to alberto balsalm with paint brushes on jars.. i borrowed and taped that off her. and also hard normal daddy.. then i ordered every afx cd i could from the local music shop. they used to take a couple months to come in. the one i really lusted after was saw2 but the shop did not have that listed, could not order.

 

a couple years later on holiday in melbourne, met up with my best friend from irc, in person for the first time. SHE HAD SAW2. i taped that, omg, so happy. tripped with her and her bro on a beach for NYE.. next morning back at their place just before leaving, she's like, hey listen to this... puts on LP5. acroyear2 melted my mind, i could hardly understand what i was hearing, like a new language... a few months later i had my own copy =)

[Chabraendeky]

 

 

 

I've found this old topic... I'm quite new here, so let me introduce myself:

 

I've first listened to Autechre back in spring 1998 as a friend of mine chose Rettic Ac and Tewe as soundtrack for a school-project film. I fell immediately in love with this music, and the same summer I bought Chiastic Slide and some months later LP5 too.

I listened to many Warp artists and other electronic music for the following couple of years, but my favs were Autechre and Squarepusher.

Some years later I joined some kind of cult, and I was kinda forced to abandonned this music and sell all my CDs.

After that I listened only to early classical music, which I still love.

I got out from this cult luckily and tried to find back my way to the things I love.

The time to rediscover Autechre come a few months ago, I pirated some albums down, and listened to it on my phone sometimes. After some time I knew that I still love this music, so I've decided to buy them all. At this time only Exai is still missing, but should arrive this week.

And there was a strange coincidence: end of March I bought my first Autechre CDs, Chiastic Slide (again) and Oversteps. In April I bought several other Ae CDs, and just a week later NTS Sessions were announced on the Ae-store! The same time I find back to Autechre a new album is released!

You joined a cult? What kind of cult was that if you don't mind explaining, sounds like an interesting story. Of course you don't have to say anything, but I'm curious

Not a 'real' cult, but kinda. I don't know if you ever heard about 'transcendential traditionalism' - is based on some books back from the 40s and 50s, written by these guys René Guénon and Julius Evola and that kind of stuff. So there was this little group of traditonalists and I got into it, found it interesting and so on.

And this Guénon guy had this theory that the world is getting far from a desired state of Tradition, and blamed renaissance for it. (Now it sounds ridicolous for me, but then I digged it.)

So to be consequent we tried to abbandon a lot of stuff that represented the "modern spirit" - inculding art, so music also.

I didn't really joined the group hereafter, was always more individual, but it took time for me to shook off the impact.

Hmm, okay. Weird what ideas can do

Yep. The 20th century showed this too. :/

I'm glad I have this behind me.

[AnwarAutokino]

when I was 13 or 14 I got the Spike Jonze Directors Label DVD from the library and while flipping thru the clips I stumbled upon the trailer for the Chris Cunningham DVD. Being fairly blown away by that clip I got obsessed with Aphex/Squarpusher and not long after that I discovered the Second Bad Vilbel & Gantz Graf vids. I was already used to weird music back then (a lot of which I knew because of my paps - playing Stockhausen, Steve Reich and Wim Mertens on the car stereo) but AE was a different thing, a more funky thing. I guess this was the time when I turned from a more casual music listener to the full-on obsessed music geek I am today

[EXTRASUPER81]

I obtained a heap of music from a college network including Autechre. At the time i was really into big beat and was starting to get into breaks and jungle. Was 20 years old when exposed to Squarepusher and Aphex and immediately warmed to things like Hard Normal Daddy and Windowlicker / Classics. I only delved into Tri Rep and Chiastic and just thought it sounded too cold and alien at the time. Became a big Aphex and Squarepusher fan over the coming years (Drukqs, Ultravisitor) and gave Ae another listen when Untilted came out. It completely blew my mind and i went and bought up the discography immediately and never looked back!

 

Quaristice was the first album to be released when i was already a fan and hearing those first chords was a lush experience

This is very close to me, including the sort of music I was into when I first heard ae, aphex etc when I went to Uni, around the release of Confield I think. Still got a lot of love for the Chemical Brothers and the 1st Bentley Rhythm Ace album. And Depth Charge of course, Lust 2 is among my favourite albums still.

 

I liked Amber but found Tri Rep really hard (which sounds really strange when I listen to it now). The first thing that clicked bigly tho was probably LP5.

[EXTRASUPER81]

 

 

 

I've found this old topic... I'm quite new here, so let me introduce myself:

 

I've first listened to Autechre back in spring 1998 as a friend of mine chose Rettic Ac and Tewe as soundtrack for a school-project film. I fell immediately in love with this music, and the same summer I bought Chiastic Slide and some months later LP5 too.

I listened to many Warp artists and other electronic music for the following couple of years, but my favs were Autechre and Squarepusher.

Some years later I joined some kind of cult, and I was kinda forced to abandonned this music and sell all my CDs.

After that I listened only to early classical music, which I still love.

I got out from this cult luckily and tried to find back my way to the things I love.

The time to rediscover Autechre come a few months ago, I pirated some albums down, and listened to it on my phone sometimes. After some time I knew that I still love this music, so I've decided to buy them all. At this time only Exai is still missing, but should arrive this week.

And there was a strange coincidence: end of March I bought my first Autechre CDs, Chiastic Slide (again) and Oversteps. In April I bought several other Ae CDs, and just a week later NTS Sessions were announced on the Ae-store! The same time I find back to Autechre a new album is released!

You joined a cult? What kind of cult was that if you don't mind explaining, sounds like an interesting story. Of course you don't have to say anything, but I'm curious

Not a 'real' cult, but kinda. I don't know if you ever heard about 'transcendential traditionalism' - is based on some books back from the 40s and 50s, written by these guys René Guénon and Julius Evola and that kind of stuff. So there was this little group of traditonalists and I got into it, found it interesting and so on.

And this Guénon guy had this theory that the world is getting far from a desired state of Tradition, and blamed renaissance for it. (Now it sounds ridicolous for me, but then I digged it.)

So to be consequent we tried to abbandon a lot of stuff that represented the "modern spirit" - inculding art, so music also.

I didn't really joined the group hereafter, was always more individual, but it took time for me to shook off the impact.

Hmm, okay. Weird what ideas can do

Yeah, books have a lot to answer for. Burn them all I say.

[monoppus]

Cool thread to bring back. Digging the stories.

 

[edited]

 

That night I called my buddy with a booming car sound system, rolled a big one, grabbed a neighbor and hit the road with Confield cranked.

 

m y

b r ai n spl a tte red. Never had heard anything like this. Precisely what i needed to hear at precisely the time i needed to hear it.

Edited September 5, 2023 by monoppus
to edit