Autechre - PLUS 20.11.20

[Roo 497]

On 11/23/2020 at 1:49 PM, modey said:

lol I haven't even received my SIGN CD yet

That’s a bit strange. Must be a Victoria thing with recent easing restrictions. My CD took forever, a few weeks, and still arrived in remote Queensland around Melbourne Cup day. PLUS I’m expecting to be mid-Dec.

[xyrofen 119]

Got the CD Friday. It'll be going into my car's CD changer on Monday.

As I think I said from my previous listens of the digital, I'm loving lux 106 mod, ecol4, and X4 the most. Both of these albums are really solid outputs and I love the maintained thematic artwork they've kept up with tDR since Quaristice with all the "surrounding" releases (whether versions, companions EPs, or and whatever you want to refer to the elseq series, NTS series, and live stuff as).

[modey 360]

11 hours ago, Roo said:

That’s a bit strange. Must be a Victoria thing with recent easing restrictions. My CD took forever, a few weeks, and still arrived in remote Queensland around Melbourne Cup day. PLUS I’m expecting to be mid-Dec.

It turned up the next day lol. The CD preorder direct from Bleep (that I ordered when it was announced) took way longer than the vinyl preorder from JB Hifi..

[ignatius 5916]

some pops in the vinyl of this for me. hoping it's just because it's the first listen and it's really dry and so possibly some static electricity causing it. otherwise sounds nice on vinyl.  my Be Up A Hello vinyl is perfect though so perhaps the lathe cutting the autechre's vinyl is aging out. will have to see how it performs going forward. fingers crossed the pops aren't in the same places 🙂 

 

[Chabraendeky 248]

22 hours ago, ignatius said:

some pops in the vinyl of this for me. hoping it's just because it's the first listen and it's really dry and so possibly some static electricity causing it. otherwise sounds nice on vinyl.  my Be Up A Hello vinyl is perfect though so perhaps the lathe cutting the autechre's vinyl is aging out. will have to see how it performs going forward. fingers crossed the pops aren't in the same places 🙂 

 

incomplete without surface noise

[ignatius 5916]

3 hours ago, Chabraendeky said:

incomplete without surface noise

it's not surface noise.  i'm well acquainted with that. this is possibly artifacts in the pressing. maybe not. could've just been wicked static electricity.  but the []pusher record played perfectly.  

years ago i got some test pressings back and they were covered with the same type of noise. we didn't accept them and cancelled the order and got refunded. then found someone else to press the vinyl which was 100% right move.  i spoke w/a few people about this and turns out when lathes get old the cutting needle introduces lot's of artifacts like this.  you ever here DC voltage pop into a speaker? it's like a smaller version of that. 

[eclipsis 213]

1 hour ago, ignatius said:

it's not surface noise.  i'm well acquainted with that. this is possibly artifacts in the pressing. maybe not. could've just been wicked static electricity.  but the []pusher record played perfectly.  

years ago i got some test pressings back and they were covered with the same type of noise. we didn't accept them and cancelled the order and got refunded. then found someone else to press the vinyl which was 100% right move.  i spoke w/a few people about this and turns out when lathes get old the cutting needle introduces lot's of artifacts like this.  you ever here DC voltage pop into a speaker? it's like a smaller version of that. 

idk what your issue sounds like but my copy of SIGN (not PLUS, that one is ok) sounded terrible af. no scratches on any of the discs and no visible dust particles. i did a quite thorough cleaning in the antistat liquid and it sounded superb after.

[ignatius 5916]

4 minutes ago, eclipsis said:

idk what your issue sounds like but my copy of SIGN (not PLUS, that one is ok) sounded terrible af. no scratches on any of the discs and no visible dust particles. i did a quite thorough cleaning in the antistat liquid and it sounded superb after.

that's kind of my guess is that it's static. or my hope anyways. it was the first listen of the vinyl. when removing the vinyl from the sleeve the sleeve wanted to stick to the vinyl. i need some humidity in this motherfucker! 

i'll give it a wipe or something and listen again. then hopefully post back here that i over reacted and everything is fine. 

[eclipsis 213]

1 hour ago, ignatius said:

i'll give it a wipe or something and listen again. then hopefully post back here that i over reacted and everything is fine. 

fingers crossed!

[Roo 497]

FYI Auzzies, got my PLUS CD yesterday.

I'm saving that and a few other used ebay CDs in mail for bday/xmas though. Too close to silly season to unwrap lol. Even from mine truly.

[rhmilo 896]

Postman just delivered my vinyl copy. Only took PostNL two and a half weeks. Impressive, of course, as distances in the Netherlands tend to be huge and infrastructure is sketchy at best. Once packages arrive at Rotterdam port or Schiphol airport (which is usually very quick), they are then loaded on caravans of anemic goats that slowly meander through the soggy marshlands in the general direction of where it is the packages need to go.

[Soloman Tump 870]

Urgh,... I really cannot decide whether I like SIGN and PLUS, or not.... they don't set well with me yet.

I find it hard to place them in the catalogue, they feel like bits of previous albums mashed together.  I have not felt that from previous autechre albums before.

Sorry

[Hugh Mughnus 1597]

7 minutes ago, Soloman Tump said:

Urgh,... I really cannot decide whether I like SIGN and PLUS, or not.... they don't set well with me yet.

I find it hard to place them in the catalogue, they feel like bits of previous albums mashed together.  I have not felt that from previous autechre albums before.

Sorry

I'm starting to feel this way now too after repeat listens and the honeymoon phase kinda wore off.

Edited December 5, 2020 by Hugh Mughnus

[toaoaoad 367]

They went in opposite directions for me. I wasn't really feeling SIGN when it came out so I didn't listen to it much in those first few weeks, opting to only do so when I could give it attention and see what there was to like about it. PLUS came out and I "caned it", probably listening to it four or five times straight on the first day alone. The novelty kinda wore off and it became more apparent that it had that "collection of outtakes" feel to it and that some tracks felt somewhat underdeveloped. In the meantime SIGN has really grown on me, and taking the time to pay attention has revealed that there is a lot of detail in it (duh it's Autechre). PLUS still reveals new things too but as many others have said it just doesn't seem to hold together as An Album as well as SIGN, which feels much more like a cohesive statement with more thought put into the pacing of the track sequence. 

Neither of them brought in anything hugely groundbreaking but those synth pads are definitely new. And besides, if they've spent years and years building a system why would they abandon it for something entirely brand new? I kinda enjoy finding those bits and pieces that echo earlier tracks.

In conclusion, they're both Autechre albums so it goes without saying that it's great music either way and very rewarding of attentive listening. In the other thread I had to vote for both equally.

Edited December 5, 2020 by toaoaoad

[misuta Go 50]

just because there is a repeated notion that sign and plus will reveal themselves over time and we‘ll eventually “get it”…

some of us have listened extensively to it, hundreds of time and really “get it”, it’s just that we don’t like it. it happens you know.
i still dislike oversteps (except for os veix 3) after all these years. that doesn’t mean anything bad about Ae, au contraire.
i am more than happy that they still do whatever the fuck they feel like, whether i like it or not, who cares.

and after oversteps came exai, which blew my fucking mind, so i’m not worried about anything and shit.
plus the oversteps tour was amazing, top-5 Ae set ever.

i still have a selection of 9 tracks from sign/plus that sound to me like NTS Session 5 and i enjoy but that's about it...

[dcom 1150]

Although Autechre has been one of my favourite artists for almost 30 years, it hasn't been without bouts of self-doubt and cognitive dissonace. At times listening to the most challenging releases and/or tracks have brought on a crisis of musical identity - do I really like music like this? Why am I listening to something that irritates me? Am I into this only because it's something I've been into for so long that I'm tolerating it because it would be more painful to let go of something that has been an indelible part of my musical environment? Do I listen to things like this because it disturbs others and makes them think I'm weird?

Listening to something repeatedly will habituate the listener to whatever they're listening to - it doesn't mean that they actually like it, but that they've adapted their mindset to tolerate and discard the dissonance brought on by the listening.  It's a behavioristic jedi mindtrick, sometimes bordering on learned helplessness - that's how pop hits are made, by repetitive exposure creating the feeling that because you've heard something so many times it must be good. I know this is a pessimistic view, but it is a part of the adage "you just have to work on it" by giving it more listens. There's also peer/group pressure, we WATMMers feed on each others' opinions and there's not a lot of explicit dissent - especially with canonised artists' releases - so it's not always easy to say that I don't like something that a most of us seem to like a lot. Doling out facepalm reactions on dissent is a fine way of making sure that people are wary of it.

I've always overcome the internal issues I've had with the music I seem to like - Autechre is still my favourite - but I've also toned down my intense interest towards some of the artists in the canon (RDJ), and I'm fine with that. I listen to a myriad of music all the time, I don't spend my days with Autechre on repeat because I want (or need) to come here and say that yeah, I get it why people say you have to give it some more listens to get it.

Edited December 7, 2020 by dcom

[mushroom 141]

i fuckin love ii.pre esc

[Lexicon 11]

On 12/5/2020 at 4:24 PM, Soloman Tump said:

Urgh,... I really cannot decide whether I like SIGN and PLUS, or not.... they don't set well with me yet.

I find it hard to place them in the catalogue, they feel like bits of previous albums mashed together.  I have not felt that from previous autechre albums before.

Sorry

If suffering these symptoms, seek help immediately. 
 

🙂

[zkom 1343]

On 12/6/2020 at 2:11 PM, dcom said:

Listening to something repeatedly will habituate the listener to whatever they're listening to - it doesn't mean that they actually like it, but that they've adapted their mindset to tolerate and discard the dissonance brought on by the listening. 

Doesn't really work with annoying pop music for me. Repeated listens will make me just hate it more. If I had to listen to Crazy Frog raping the Axel F for 10.000 times it wouldn't suddenly "click" but more likely I would snap and there would be some kind of murder-suicide thing happening. And with catchy songs it's more like the opposite. If something is really catchy I like it initially but it will wear out really fast.

Also the way Autechre clicks with me is not by repeatedly listening to it, but it's more like leaving the whole thing alone for a longer period, like a year, and then when coming back I suddenly "understand" it. I can't really force it by just repeated listening.

Well, that's just my personal experience anyway. I just like Autechre. Why does something like Untilted sound so fucking good to me? IDK, it just does. Generally also I've noticed that analyzing my tastes endlessly doesn't really make me enjoy something more, it's more the complete opposite.

[Draft78 666]

...in my case the tracks click when I stop listening to them analytically. It's not the amount of listening, but the way of listening. It happened to me recently with ecol4: with careful listening I was led to divide the beats from the melody, and so I had a 4/4 with some tricks, and reverse feedback over all... nothing special after all. Then, a few days ago, I was working on a graphic, and Plus did its job ... I was focused on a defect in the paper, and I certainly didn't pay attention to ecol4, and that's how it clicked: I felt it as a whole, spontaneous, and it was another thing. Analytical listening turns out to be interesting only after the first step: each previous attempt is just a boredom exercise. This is a phenomenon that happens to me only (or almost) with Ae, and I don't think it happens because I forced myself to like them, but rather, it is the reason why I like them with such a lasting effect. Or am I trapped in a labyrinth of mirrors between will and pleasure and it is no longer possible for me to discern what is the effect and what is the cause?

[dingformung 2628]

Dunno, to me it's just fascinating, hypnotising sounds arranged in the most interesting ways, hard to resist. I suck it in like it's breast milk.

[Alcofribas 1341]

On 12/6/2020 at 6:11 AM, dcom said:

Although Autechre has been one of my favourite artists for almost 30 years, it hasn't been without bouts of self-doubt and cognitive dissonace. At times listening to the most challenging releases and/or tracks have brought on a crisis of musical identity - do I really like music like this? Why am I listening to something that irritates me? Am I into this only because it's something I've been into for so long that I'm tolerating it because it would be more painful to let go of something that has been an indelible part of my musical environment? Do I listen to things like this because it disturbs others and makes them think I'm weird?

Listening to something repeatedly will habituate the listener to whatever they're listening to - it doesn't mean that they actually like it, but that they've adapted their mindset to tolerate and discard the dissonance brought on by the listening.  It's a behavioristic jedi mindtrick, sometimes bordering on learned helplessness - that's how pop hits are made, by repetitive exposure creating the feeling that because you've heard something so many times it must be good. I know this is a pessimistic view, but it is a part of the adage "you just have to work on it" by giving it more listens. There's also peer/group pressure, we WATMMers feed on each others' opinions and there's not a lot of explicit dissent - especially with canonised artists' releases - so it's not always easy to say that I don't like something that a most of us seem to like a lot. Doling out facepalm reactions on dissent is a fine way of making sure that people are wary of it.

I've always overcome the internal issues I've had with the music I seem to like - Autechre is still my favourite - but I've also toned down my intense interest towards some of the artists in the canon (RDJ), and I'm fine with that. I listen to a myriad of music all the time, I don't spend my days with Autechre on repeat because I want (or need) to come here and say that yeah, I get it why people say you have to give it some more listens to get it.

this is a very interesting post and i identify with what you're saying. when i was younger i was definitely more impressed by the "fucked upness" of certain artists, whereas this quality does not suffice for me these days and is often something i perceive as a drawback. if something is more simple or understated i'm more likely to check it out. recent albums i've been obsessed with are barker's "utility,"  jessica pratt's "quiet signs," or the vast array of chihei hatekayama records. i see this kind of stuff as more emotionally rich and less wow check out this wild thing i can do. on the other hand, i haven't enjoyed a squarepusher record in many years - i simply don't find myself in the mood for any of that lol.

for me autechre has remains one of the most pure examples of music that i find very challenging, that pushes me to the limits of what i understand about what i like, while remaining entirely convincing on a level of craft and integrity. i'm always willing to go on an ae journey and continue to give it more listens even if i'm not comfortable with it up front and i think the main reason for this is that they have remained so consistently devoted to just making really good music free of bullshit and their personal standards seem insanely high. this ends up giving the music some kind of heart, i think. lots of other avant garde music tips over too completely into extremes but i think ae always have this core "roots" element of popular music like hip hop and early electro - this kind of prevents them from dipping entirely into wankery imo. and it's also just really compelling to me that they put out records with such humility in the sense that it's just like here's the new record by autechre and we're not faced with multiple paragraphs of why this is so important, culturally significant, how it covers the well-worn electronic music tropes of the future, memory, nostalgia, how they spent a year in x-country studying topic y, etc. idk, there's just something very real about it to me. i think i have always been rewarded by going deep into autechre albums and i continue to learn new shit and be blown away by their entire catalog.

your comment about group think is one i've seen expressed recently (by fumi i think) and i'm not sure i entirely agree. not that i don't see what you're saying but it seems there are tons of people constantly complaining in the subforums about new music (or, in the case of boc, being utterly enraged that they haven't released something) so it's hard to navigate what's really happening with thoughtful dissent. at the same time i often feel it can be hard to go against the grain of a particular thread and it can be awkward to try to open up a more critical conversation in a thread where everyone is ejaculating to something. while we're on the topic i actually think the facepalm emoji is really lame and if i ever use it please ban me immediately.

 

Edited December 8, 2020 by Alcofribas

[jaderpansen 839]

2 hours ago, Alcofribas said:

while we're on the topic i actually think the facepalm emoji is really lame and if i ever use it please ban me immediately.

one couldn't survive the "Now That Trump's President..." thread without it tho.

[Alcofribas 1341]

4 minutes ago, jaderpansen said:

one couldn't survive the "Now That Trump's President..." thread without it tho.

i refuse to enter cursed threads of that nature

[jaderpansen 839]

1 minute ago, Alcofribas said:

i refuse to enter cursed threads of that nature

wise choice.

on topic: as someone else stated earlier that benefit of doubt is something you have to earn first. it's like with opinions you don't agree with: you're naturally more likely to engage with them when expressed by someone close to you. yeah this whole "hypnotize yourself into liking shit by listening to it over and over"-meme is basically bull, but of course i am inclined to give ae's stuff more than one chance since that simply has proven to be fruitful. not always, mind you, but that's ok, too, at least they consequently do whatever the fuck they want obviously giving their all, what more can you ask for from an artist.