sweepstakes

This is by far my favourite album (and that's saying a lot, because I really love all the other albums). You mentioned that you were wondering if it's about the melodies or the structure? Well, I don't think it's about either. I think it's primarily about the interplay between different voices. This is, in my opinion, a predominantly contrapuntal album. I really enjoy it, but I come from a classical music background, so I think I might be looking for something different in autechre than most autechre fans are. That's possible. I'm definitely NOT from a classical background. I've got good ears but I can't read music; what little theory I know I learned from classical/jazz oriented friends in school. I remember when I first heard it I was all excited about counterpoint and I dusted off my copy of Switched on Bach and I thought I was hearing all this new stuff in it. Then maybe because the warm weather just started aI want to hear something rawer, more structurally simple and maybe more texturally complex, or maybe just crustier/dustier. Or maybe it was just too much effort for me to try to intuitively/autodidactically figure out this counterpoint thing. I don't think I want to learn too much theory beyond the descriptions of fugues in Gödel, Escher, Bach. Not my style really, not what I'm after, so for now I relegate myself to not getting it. FWIW my faves are probably, in descending order: Quaristice Chiastic Slide/Envane Amber Draft Cichlisuite Garbage the Flex set (I'm pretty sick of Tri Repetae but I really, really dig this deconstruction of it) EP7 As I hinted at in my first post, I think it has something to do with their interaction with the machines on these albums. There is an improvisational feel to these that seems to be lacking in the rest. Maybe this is just a sign that I need to seek out more jazz, noise, improvisational stuff to get the detail fix I used to get from Autechre.

I think I've only properly (dark room, headphones, no distractions) listened to this album twice, although I did listen in the car a few times in February. Now that my initial excitement has worn off, I think it might be my least favorite Autechre now, although I need to listen again to be sure. I believe that I didn't listen to it once, at all, in the month of April. I think it's a technically impressive album, but it seems to embody an acquiescence for Autechre that disappoints me. I think the turning point was when I saw the flickr pictures and the only recognizable, non-midi-controller-audio-interface-mixer-boring-glue piece of equipment was a Nord Lead 2X. I mean, I get it. It's 2010. Everyone uses computers, it makes a lot of sense for so many reasons to have everything on the machine and have the glue hardware instead of a bigass pile of heavy, expensive, non-duplicable drum machines, synths, effects, etc. There is no practical reason to use a centrally hardware setup anymore except to give your eyes a break from the ubiquitous computer screen. They have possibly exhausted the grainy, crunchy, DSPed-out, all textures of utterly indeterminate origin aesthetic. Well, I really fucking liked that aesthetic. I liked listening to the same album every day and feeling like I still hadn't absorbed all the details, like it was impossible to do so. I'm sure there are details in Oversteps I'm missing out on, but they seem auxilary to the main point of paring down the textures to focus on the other elements. But I find the melodies kind of icky. Either schmaltzy or baroque. I can get on board 100% with the very end of...oh shit what is that track called? The one with all the stupid, truly random-sounding, slow chords throughout most of it. Maybe the composition is the point now, and I just don't really dig their feel for it. Coincidentally, I recently find myself consciously wanting to avoid melody in my own music. To go back to rawness and distortion and crusty ass junk samples. The hiphop-industrial-punk-noise. I think someone on here said it's their most mood-dependent. Maybe that's all it is. I guess I haven't been in that mood since early March. Someone also said that there's always the next Autechre album. I hope you're right. I feel like a geezer saying it but dammit, I miss the old Autechre. What happened to the noise, the b-boyism? Anyone else feeling this way too, or is it all love?

Oh I can answer that, actually: what a politician answer It's hypocritical to the point that it seems like it must be sarcastic. I wonder if that's a robot answer.

Yup, and so is Max/MSP, Nord Modular, G2, etc.

Sorry to nitpick but D-50 was LA synthesis. Which IIRC was like PCM mixed with DCOs. heh, I always get my crappy digital synths mixed up. Haha. Yeah. I can't vouch for the D-50 but I can tell you the TX81Z is definitely not crappy. Cheap, yes, but not crappy. I'm guessing the TX81Z is the synth used in all those mental TX tracks I previously mentioned on the Ceephax albums, it definately sounds powerful. Anyway, I digress. TBH I'm not sure about Ceephax as I'm not too familiar with his catalog. It's just my personal fave, and probably the commonest FM synth. Though, supposedly Autechre used DX100s which are very similar architecture-wise, in fact their patches might be cross-compatible. I could see that being the source of the FM from Amber, possibly Incunabula, to Chiastic Slide. Whereas around LP5/Chiastic they acquired an FS1R, which is probably the most advanced non-modular, mass-produced FM synth ever, and a Nord Lead which is capable of FM. Sorry to have derailed the thread. I just feel a need to set the record straight when it comes to FM. Cos I'm a nerd.

Sorry to nitpick but D-50 was LA synthesis. Which IIRC was like PCM mixed with DCOs. heh, I always get my crappy digital synths mixed up. Haha. Yeah. I can't vouch for the D-50 but I can tell you the TX81Z is definitely not crappy. Cheap, yes, but not crappy.

Sorry to nitpick but D-50 was LA synthesis. Which IIRC was like PCM mixed with DCOs.

Guess I'm a little late on this, but the simplest way to put it is: FM synthesis = Sega Genesis/MegaDrive music. Also if you had a SoundBlaster 16 in the mid 90s, a lot of game music relied on the SB16's internal FM synthesizer. And a lot of Midway pinball machines (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom comes to mind) and various other arcade machines had them. It's electronic sounding but can be weirdly realistic. Not like blocky, chunky NES sounds, more glassy, rubbery, bouncy.

LOL. You guys shouldn't have been feeding the troll, but what a delicious plate of STFU. Nice one.

ITT: write-only access.

Do you have a link to what you're referring to here? I'm curious and can't find anything with a google search. Thanks! http://ruinwesen.com/digital Wesen is a brilliant guy. Thank you! Much appreciated. No prob. He's been working his tail off the last couple years learning every aspect of hardware development, and he's really come a long way. I'm going to buy one one of these days for sure.

Do you have a link to what you're referring to here? I'm curious and can't find anything with a google search. Thanks! http://ruinwesen.com/digital Wesen is a brilliant guy.

Also Rob has been using Live since at least April of last year. Which, now with M4L, would reinforce Max usage.

I've never been told by someone with an ugly baby's face as their userpic that I have shit taste.

This is kind of how I'm feeling... like this time around there's an obvious way to listen to it for the casual (non-fanboy) listener. And that's distracting from the details that's embedded in, so it seems like they aren't there. Of course it's possible that they really aren't there. But I like the surface impression too.

I think you still would, it would just be all squidgy and artifact-y. So I guess, not total cancellation, no. I was thinking of giving it a whack in Reaper, cos it's a slow day at work. Just need to find where the Jesusonic inverter is. If they don't have one, it shouldn't be too hard to write, but it's been a while.

Good point.

i think this is something that people are holding out on or imagining but i hear no obvious transcoding dithering going on, the mastering is final (its a promo cd, why would it be different?) and the tone is going to be 99.9% similar to the finalized album. you don't have to have a degree in audio engineering to know this The artifacts seem to be most obvious on "see on see". I don't know much about how labels work or about how Warp works and no, I don't have an audio engineering degree. So no, I wouldn't know whether the mastering would occur before or after sending out the promos, when the promos were sent out 2 weeks after preorder/announcement, 2+ months before the release date.

But we still can't verify the quality of the mastering nor the ripping/transcoding. Which plays a factor, since you're talking about tone.

Awepittance I think you are on the money with your criticism of the lack of grit/loudness. I think that's the point. They want to do something lush and juicy for once. Which they've certainly done before, just not on this scale.

New album on the way, now a leak. Autechre is more present on the collective radar than usual. http://www.google.com/search?q=autechre+discussion+forum QED

They've been there and done the dirty and loud thing. It's time for something new.

Obvious troll is obvious.