mTesc

I agree with everything you've said above this point. I also agree that we won't be losing Autechre, and that's something that I'm grateful for. I absolutely don't make music with monetary considerations in mind, but I do want my music to be heard. I don't need to earn a cent from it, but I want people to hear it. I want to try to share something, and I hope that I'm conveying something kind of similar to what I'm trying to convey. It's always bothered me (just a little) that I can't make other people hear a track in black and red (or whatever), but I hope that I can communicate something even slightly specific. I don't want to be lost in a flood of AI sound; it's already difficult enough to be noticed with as much genuinely great electronic music as there is in our time.

I'm spending much too much time on Reddit and Facebook "fighting" with people who don't seem to understand that music and art are not just pretty things to enjoy but the results of others' desires to communicate or convey something. I keep telling myself that I'm just going to ignore AI-related posts and that anyone who doesn't get it or doesn't feel similarly to how I feel isn't going to have an epiphany based on what some internet stranger has to say. But the Udio-bolstered uptick in interest / sharing is difficult to let slide.

A new single, Mercy, dropped today along with the announcement that an album is coming on May 31st which will apparently contain Muder One & Invasion as well, meaning that it likely is more of a compilation of unreleased material (as those two pieces, released in early 2022, were recorded 15-to-20 years apart). Mercy is maybe a little less adventuresome from an electronic music perspective than most of Vega's later work, and it's unclear when it's from precisely. I'm guessing mid 90s based on the vocal styling, but we'll see.

I think that Brussels is my favorite. Rennes & The Hague are tied-ish.

I guess they should have consulted you before they remained alive, continuing to dynamically contribute to their singular oeuvre that brightens so many people's lives.

This is a great recording of what, so far, is a favorite among these "2022- " sets. Thanks for sharing.

Yes, this is the kind of news I've been hoping for. Didn't spot that initially.

Stumbled upon this and was pleasantly surprised when it wasn't a clickbait DAW tutorial or self-congratulation from some producer-minded person who doesn't get it: https://www.godisageek.com/2023/12/cookie-cutter-how-to-beat-autechre/

I think Dead Son is probably my favorite of the aughts-onward material (along with the Big Noise Transmission live companion piece). I will say about Berserker and The Fury that they are both probably a bit of an acquired taste (for the aforementioned reasons of dated 80s funk elements & diva-like vocal accompaniment. But I think they're worth checking out. Speaking of compilations, Cleopatra (yeah, I know) put out a thing called "Remodulate" in the 90s that has some of the more readily digestible material from the mid-80s + Sacrifice (as it was also able to be licensed from Numa Records) and a second CD of live versions of tracks from the BB era.

This seems (and has always seemed) to be a relatively rare opinion, but I'm very fond of Gary Numan's Berserker, The Fury, and (to a lesser extent) Strange Charm albums – particular some of the B sides. Tracks like "Empty Bed, Empty Heart," "Here am I," "Anthem," and "The Fear" are probably my favorite works of his, and I return to them more often than I do his coveted 1979-1980 records. I find them to be especially good winter listening in the car. There are definitely elements that haven't dated well (slapped fretless bass, diva-esque backing vocals, jarring FM bell patches here and there), but I would say that The Fury is probably my favorite Numan record, and yes I know that I'm probably inviting a fair amount of ridicule. Anyone have thoughts on this period of work?

I really liked Move of Ten when it first came out but bored quickly of it and have remained pretty lukewarm over the years. I'm very into it right now, though. The opening track doesn't really grab me, but I'm pretty captivated throughout the rest. It's also interesting to be reminded of how much Oversteps DNA runs through it – some of it not particularly obvious – and yet it feels almost more like a proto-Exai to me despite its sister-city sort of relationship to its preceding album.

He's got good taste in supervillain vistas. Not suggesting this is in any way redemptive.

I'm not sure that Putin is a good candidate for anticapitalist of the year.

Not like that, at least.

I like it all. To be fair, I'm also keen to hear these "pieces" iterated differently, and I also appreciate the variety of the ongoing sets that have more of that London B DNA injected into them. For me, though, it's mostly because I enjoy the variety as opposed to my necessarily preferring elements that premiered in London B (although I would probably be in the mood to hear those London B elements more often than the material presented in the core sets because much of the core stuff is oddly anxiety-inducing or anxiety-enhancing for me in a way that I've never really found Autechre to previously be.

That's probably what they felt like doing. Should they have consulted you first?

Is this PKD?

It seems more likely that we could hear more specific anecdotes of this nature now than before. I remember Rob's having given an interview back in November, 2013 - https://thequietus.com/articles/13899-autechre-interview-exai-l-event - where he talked in some detail about what he, specifically, was doing and thinking when working on L-Event, and that was probably the first time I'd ever encountered any description of that nature's breaking through the mystique a bit. Before that, Sean had said things like "we never tell who does what," but since then, they've candidly revealed on occasion which of them had had a hand in which bits or which tracks. Some unlikely revelations like Sean's discussion of gamelan use, etc., so I think it's possible that we'll continue get more specific insight with that historical embargo's being lifted somewhat. I doubt there'll ever be a book (or even article) dedicated to it, but a diligent fan could cobble together a spreadsheet or something : )

We've been pretty insular in the post-pandemic / intrapandemic landscape, so it's been slightly over a year since our previous live performance. The sound's a bit patchy (captured on a 21 year old Yamaha AW16G, which is still managing to prove useful after all this time), but I thought I'd share it since it was energizing to present some new pieces, etc. Thanks for taking the time to check it if so inclined!

Agreed. I'm happy to listen to it year round, but I think of it as very autumnal.

"North Spiral Superiore," I think it is ; )

They sometimes are, though...albeit unseriously it seems. That said, I do really appreciate those live "exclusives" sets with the made-up names (which I simply don't pay attention to).

Thanks, @djimbe! I've just put it on and am really surprised at how different it is so far (just over five minutes in). Does this opening segment appear as one of the interludes in London B? I'm not recognizing it specifically, but it sounds familiar, and I've only listened to L-B couple of times so far.

This image from @stev & the Melbourne show (from the accompanying thread) is almost exactly what I had in my head in the above description. Thanks!