TheTransitionary

if you look at my avatar, there does seem to be some sort of logic to the sequence (that's all artworks animated in sequential order)

I really wish I knew. I'd love to be able to get my hands on one of their recent patches and just play around with it. Anyone know if the sounds are being generated in software or are they controlling nords/machinedrums etc with MIDI output from their laptops?

The pricing seems about right, it's basically 5 decent length albums... so that's £5 / £7 / £8.60 for each album in MP3 / WAV / 24bit WAV. That's actually pretty good value imo.

^ i was thinking the same thing earlier actually

those comments... claiming that syro is 'lazy' too? wtf

With disk space so cheap nowadays I don't see much reason not to go lossless if you're really into music, it's nice to have the .flac files (plus log and cue if it's from a CD) just so you know you have a true digitised exact copy of the CD that you can use to create more identical CDs in future or create as many transcodes in as many formats as you like from.

fingers crossed for an interview soon, would be good to hear some of the background to this release

the sound on this release comes alive on speakers better than headphones imo, can often be the other way round with ae. sounds almost 3d at times. Lots of detail to be caught with headphones though.. like a lot of what sounds like room recordings of the track playing out through monitors sampled back into the track and fucked about with? idk but generally the sound / mixing / mastering / eq of this thing is amazing

I've listened to 1, 4 and 5 so far and they're all really great, there's only 2-3 tracks that I didn't immediately like. Still got to listen to 2 and 3 though

This ultimately links you through to here if you try and buy https://bleep.com/release/73327 It 404's currently but I guess when it goes live we might have some details about physical formats

If they are doing physical I imagine it will be on the ae bleepstore, and those that already bought the tracks will have a discount applied..? also, it surely couldn't fit on either 2xCD or 4xLP. maybe the physical will be like an elseq best picks kinda thing that's more of a typical album/double album length?

i like how they've used (what sounds exactly like) microphone recordings of the tracks playing out in a room in some segments of the tracks I've heard. adds a cool extra dimension to the sound, fixes my only criticism of the ae_live 'sound' which is that it could seem a little flat/2d at times. what a beast this thing is though, thought I was spoiled when exai came out... then ae_live... everything I've heard sounds great so far. disc 4 is standing out, but not heard all of them yet. is this counting as a new LP then? also someone commented on fb "Hi Warp, media outlets stating that the new EPs will be released physically via your label. Truth?"

acdwn2 <--

so still no official story on what this is exactly? livejam studio edits? bunch of EPs? 5-part album? I'm guessing it's gonna be digital only seeing as there was no physical pre-order put up at the time of sale.. seems in that way they are differentiating it from their usual studio release strategy? unless they've just given up on physical releases for good

The artwork is mesmerising when animated.

~2 months if memory serves. It was October when pixelives first linked to tdr post, then December when official word came out The Exai TDR post was 'day 1' of Exai cover design. So I guess we can expect 2 months minus however long the artwork took to complete seeing as he said the L—Event artwork was already done. No idea how long it takes them to finish artwork for a release though.

I wonder if there will be any more to come this year. I wouldn't expect it as Exai is a great deal of quality music to come from an artist in a year as it is. But with the un-Ae like lack of interviews, tour announcement, or 'EP' of some sort, it seems like they maybe haven't 'finished' with the Exai era yet. Has nobody with inside info or anything heard or speculated anything since Exai was announced? Radio silence is very odd for Ae when an album comes out. Although it would make sense for them to wait for new BoC to get out of the way, it could detract from them getting attention on anything they announce (tour pls).

The more I listen to TH the less I'm liking it...

Interesting, and it looks like the vinyl has something else written on it, can't really make it out.

Found some photos of the Japanese edition:

The pressing sounds totally lush, I prefer it even to the 24bit FLAC. It seems to have more depth, dynamics and a more detailed high-end, and the vinyl takes a lot of the 'cold' and 'digital' feel away from it as well imo, sounds warmer. Bass seems plentiful also.

I'd say it would be understandable for this album to be disappointing. Listening back to the BoC discography, there's some tracks and moments in there that are so great I think they doomed their future selves in terms of ever bettering those as soon as they had recorded them. I've not heard the album so this is total gut instinct, but I just have a feeling it will be kind of like another TCH. It'll be pretty good, unmistakeable BoC, but I really can't see it containing the next Aquarius, Happy Cycling, IABPOITC, 1969 etc... Not that it couldn't happen, just saying I don't really expect BoC or any artist to pull that off and I can't really recall any that ever have pulled it off that well, in terms of 'comebacks' or w/e

When I asked about whether you get a free lossless download with physical pre-orders, they said "we have recently changed our stance on this as we have found the cost of delivering lossless files to all customers to be too high", seems weird cause I can't really imagine that many people are gonna buy the vinyl and then buy a FLAC version too, and if they are hosting the FLAC files for other non pre-order customers anyway, where are this costs coming in?

I was beginning to wonder whether maybe Exai was intended to be an LP + EP rather than 2LP but they combined them so sales wouldn't be hindered by the new BoC... perhaps unlikely but I can see why that might happen. Exai contains a lot of material though so I'm not exactly expecting an EP, although of course I would welcome one fully if there is one. But yeah, EP + Tour Announcement next month... I'd be down for that.