Autechre Rant about Confield

[ten fingers ten toes]

I keep coming back here to discuss generative synthesis :(

[Guest Rook]

I keep coming back here to discuss generative synthesis :(

 

Yea sorry. I guess I still don't really have a grasp on how it is done. I suppose it is something you have to do to understand? I had an extremely brief overview of it with Super Collider, but it was very elementary and I wasn't exactly impressed.

 

So which tracks and what parts do you guys think are made with generative stuff? Including from other albums by the way. I mean, everyone knows Liccifli is generative, which is probably my least favorite track off of ep7. I suppose Dial is generative, the beats just sound so complex. Cap IV too. I have no idea what I am talking about lol.

[ten fingers ten toes]

Well, it's tough, because I don't know these songs very well. But I don't think youll be able to know without asking them. You could make really boring 4/4 techno generatively. You could make a program that would generate Fugue's, or amen breaks or whatever. All of it or none of it could be. Also remember people can direct the pitches of thins and let generative algorithms change other thing like filters or delay times or bit depth or anything else.

 

This is one I did

 

Here's another.

 

They don't sound anything like ae tho lol.

[Guest earlgrey]

We may have one fader that determines how often a snare does a little roll or skip, and another thing that listens and says 'If that snare plays that roll three times, then I'll do this.'

god i love those AE little rolls and skips ... when you start focusing on something that, without paying attention, sounds like a loop but then you notice a little high-pitched rhythmic t-tt---tttt-t-ttttttt-tt---t-t kinda thing happening all of a sudden at the end of a bar, never to be repeated again, and then you think "hey, how often are these things happening?" and start concentrating harder, then, say, three measures later you might all of a sudden notice a quiet c-c-cccccccc--c-ccc, which is almost a kind of response; they're like subtle clicking drum fills which take time and focus to be conscious of, but are so richly detailed and contrast so well with the slowly developing, superficially montonous backdrop..

[Guest uncle traveling matt]

Ok, here is the deal people. This thread is about confield discuss everything from generative techniques and what the hell that means to what you think about the tracks, and why it is or is not the greatest album evar.

 

Though Confield was my favorite album on my first listen, I can wholly understand how it isn't for most people or how it takes many listens. Here is why. Confield doesn't appeal to readily accessible human emotions. I mean lets take LP5 for example. Songs like Rae and Corc are just flat out beautiful, those songs wear their hearts on their sleeve and can easily be recognized as saddening beauty. Or Under Boac and Acroyear play to our sense of fast adventure. Arch Carrier is straight up gangsta.

 

Confield on the other hand isn't beautiful the way you find your cut little depressed indie crush to be, or how you find the Italian super model to be beautiful. Confield asks you to find beauty in pain and abstraction. Each song on confield is so visual that you could write a thousand page book on each.

 

Vi Scose Poise is separatation. You aren't sure where you are. Just that it is raining. Metallic atmosphere surrounds you. You relax.

 

Cfern is the drunken knowledge of torture by mother nature. You suddenly realize why you are hear. When the bass comes in the tension starts. It is maddeningly slow and incremental. As if army ant pinchers are slowly slicing you while drops of water slowly land on your forehead. Yet the pounding and resistive bass lets tells us that your will is unwavering. Your eyes squinting, your face scowling, nothing can stop you.

 

Unfortunately, as we all know, nothing defeats mother nature. Pen Expers comes in and demolishes you. A seemingly never ending treatment of your body as only the hands of the abstraction of torture could do. But there is one thing that mother nature did not count on, for she cannot. Human will. Through your gray-black clouds of tears you begin to smile regardless of the pain. You see yellow and white light. Something not of this world has aided you, you for several minutes you experience enlightenment. You do not care about the physical world. The physical world is not real, it is not everlasting. You cry in pleasure as you have never experienced beauty before.

 

But wait, though the physical world is not everlasting, you are still alive in it, mother nature has not relented. You are released from enlightenment, each man must suffer the pain coming to him. You are again thrown into darkness. Pounded, for an agonizingly long minute.

 

Then the real sickness starts.

 

 

With Sim Gishel, mother nature smiles her most evil smile and begins. She inserts creatures in your ears, not meant to cause direct pain but instead ever so slight pressure, slowly increasing. All the while the natural weapon of claustrophobia works against you. The black-red-dark gray closes in on you. Your sternum is periodically pressed inward. Your lungs grasp for breath.

 

Than it is over. At this point you are tired, the fifteen seconds of dead time nearly allows you to lose yourself and go under. You feel sudden relief. But mother nature is not always merciful.

 

The loud, repetitive bass of Parhelic Triangle appears from nothingness. This sort of pain is not physical. Instead purely psychological. You begin to see fear as you have never seen it before. Suddenly fear is no longer an emotion, it is a tangible entity. Your eyes roll back in their sockets, your brain expands, white hot beads of torturous sweat emit from every pour of your sickening body. But something keeps you from giving in. What could it be? It is the realization. You realize that fear is just an emotion. Your reason seems thousands of miles away, but you notice it none the less. Mother nature sees the momentary strength of your resolve. THis angers her greatly. She fights you with Bine.

 

Bine is the irrational anger of mother nature. She lost the control and logic she had with her previous assaults. Significant, because Bine can be fought. Bine can be resisted. Bine can be understood, since irrationality is a human trait. Bine ends.

 

Eidetic Casein is the realization and actualization of assault. For the first time you physically see your opponent. Mother nature fights with perversion. She takes childish things and uses them in only a way that the most disgusting of men could. Eidetic Casein is mother natures rapists, pedophiles, murderers, psychotic, perverted. Waves of vomit like yellow and green lines caress your body. You are disgusted. This disgust wakes you up in a way that you were not before.

 

God takes pity on you.

 

You are thrown again into abstraction. Uviol is floating in eternity. Dark purple and black clouds protect you. The torture that once was is not apparent. You know it is there, but it is not. Where are you? God is showing you unsettling beauty. He knows that you must inevitably return for a final battle, but rewards your resolve as he has rewarded none others. The impending end creeps in through the abstraction. You walk on ambiguity, but are suddenly thrown back by unknown force. You walk again anyway. You are throw back again by unknown force. White noise looks like black noise, and sees you. The end has come.

 

Lentic Catachresis is the monster that confield is. It grows and grows. You stand unwaveringly. You are not afraid. As it erratically rises, you stare at it, it stares at you. For a long while. The battle begins. It is obvious that you will lose. You fight anyway. The monster strikes you down, you don't get up. The monster keeps striking you anyway. It has no notion of honor. It strikes you faster, faster, faster.

 

You are dead.

 

 

 

 

I love Saturdays.

fucking brilliant.

 

now do the same for draft when you get around to it, pleases.

[Guest Rook]

so I listened to Confield today for the first time in like three days and it re-affirmed my position that this is the greatest album ever. I love those gurgly bassy bits in the background of Cfern. And those kick patterns are waaaayyyyy rad. Around 36 seconds into Bine is one of my favorite AE sounds.

[Guest Enter a new display name]

A bit off-topic, but I suddenly adore Chiastic Slide for no apparent reason. I have always thought this was alright and easily their worst LP. I can hear its uniqueness that I couldn't figure before.

[Guest Rook]

I am sure I have mentioned this before, but I have always wanted to perform Chiastic Slide with live instruments. Probably the most underrated album ever. I love that diesel engine crank at the beginning of Cipater. It's quasi Industrial in a way. My third favorite AE album.

 

 

 

lol wtf back to Confield.

 

 

I think it would be really cool to see Eidetic Casein in the new batman movie during a particularly sicko Joker part.

[Brown Town B]

it's pretty kool to listen 2 when ur on shrooms and walking alone at night in industrial areas, like shadowrun

[Guest Rook]

it's pretty kool to listen 2 when ur on shrooms and walking alone at night in industrial areas, like shadowrun

 

have you ever listened to it while killing someone lol?

[six]

A bit off-topic, but I suddenly adore Chiastic Slide for no apparent reason. I have always thought this was alright and easily their worst LP. I can hear its uniqueness that I couldn't figure before.

 

So you finally saw the light

[Guest Enter a new display name]

A bit off-topic, but I suddenly adore Chiastic Slide for no apparent reason. I have always thought this was alright and easily their worst LP. I can hear its uniqueness that I couldn't figure before.

 

So you finally saw the light

Not the whole light, although I see it coming! ^_^ I bought Chiastic Slide today, though.

[Guest Rook]

I feel pretty confident in asserting that the genius of Confield has never graced Dumbledore's ears.

[six]

I feel pretty confident in asserting that the genius of Confield has never graced Dumbledore's ears.

 

Snape was listening to Bine when he killed Dumbledore

[Guest Rook]

Snape listens to confield while feeling anxiety about lily potter. Snape is a thousand times more electronic music and way cooler than dumblydore.

 

"it's called a snare rush you cunts"

 

 

 

Dumblydore probably listens to ghey disco musiks like tobias does from Arrested Development.

 

"there's a new daddy in town. A discipline daddy"

[six]

snape rush

[YEK]

blah blah blah give it time.

[Guest Enter a new display name]

blah blah blah give it time.

Chiastic Slide is so minimal, this is hard for me to get into such repetitive tracks. It's coming slowly, I'm listening the album every day. "Recury" and "Nuane" are insane tracks, though.

[Guest Rook]

Chiastic slide is my third fav ae lp. Tewe is absurdly good. Listen to the whole album, in the dark, late at night. There can't be any other noise around. The repetition is part of its genius.

[awepittance]

Does anyone know of any other albums that employ generative techniques like this?

 

yes, some albums that i think influenced Confield include -

 

Farmers manual - explorers we (sounds more like gescom minidisc)

Farmers manual - fsck (lots of generative sequencing)

 

and my own generative stuff -

Fluorescent grey - asian woman mummy in my tummy ( http://www.recordlabelrecords.org/MP3/awmimt.zip or http://www.recordlabelrecords.org/asian.html )

- specifically the songs - 1 (generative ambient) , 2 , 7, 15, 16, 17 (about 50% generative), 19

[Guest Enter a new display name]

The repetition is part of its genius.

wtf? Some of the tracks are leading nowhere, this is what I dislike.

[Guest Rook]

I can't disagree with you more. Although I have to thank you for reminding me to listen to this album a lot again. Have listened to it four times since yesterday. The reverb on Tewe is driving me nuts.

 

Chiastic Slide's emotion is subliminal and imaginary. It force feeds you into an industrialized trance from which there is no recovery. It is repetitive because life is repetitive. Suspense, depression, the unsettling feeling of voyeurism. Especially Hub. You know you are doing something wrong, but you do it anyway. This is one of my favorite albums of all time.

 

The only thing that keeps this album from perfection is Pule. For some reason, I only understand the song half of the time. Though perhaps that is part of its complex beauty. You are tricked into inattentiveness, more of an outer body experience. You are brought back in by the harsh chop of Nuane.

 

 

Arg, such a confusing and beautiful album. But alas, 'tis why I love it dear. Confield, Chiastic Slide, and LP5 are three of the few albums that I knew were utter perfection upon first listen. Except for my struggle with Pule, but thats why Chiastic is numero tres on my AE list.

 

 

 

 

 

PS: thanks for the recs and the download Ghostbusty

[awepittance]

I can't disagree with you more. Although I have to thank you for reminding me to listen to this album a lot again. Have listened to it four times since yesterday. The reverb on Tewe is driving me nuts.

 

Chiastic Slide's emotion is subliminal and imaginary. It force feeds you into an industrialized trance from which there is no recovery. It is repetitive because life is repetitive. Suspense, depression, the unsettling feeling of voyeurism. Especially Hub. You know you are doing something wrong, but you do it anyway. This is one of my favorite albums of all time.

 

The only thing that keeps this album from perfection is Pule. For some reason, I only understand the song half of the time. Though perhaps that is part of its complex beauty. You are tricked into inattentiveness, more of an outer body experience. You are brought back in by the harsh chop of Nuane.

 

 

Arg, such a confusing and beautiful album. But alas, 'tis why I love it dear. Confield, Chiastic Slide, and LP5 are three of the few albums that I knew were utter perfection upon first listen. Except for my struggle with Pule, but thats why Chiastic is numero tres on my AE list.

 

 

 

 

 

PS: thanks for the recs and the download Ghostbusty

 

have to agree with rook on all counts except i would replace LP5 with Draft ;)

 

Rook why is Nuane such a fucking good song? that arpeggio melody that creeps in towards the end for about 45 seconds is seriously awesome

[Guest Rook]

Rook why is Nuane such a fucking good song? that arpeggio melody that creeps in towards the end for about 45 seconds is seriously awesome

 

The gritty industrial chop beginning Nuane, can only be summed up in one word. Penetrating. These beats are the prelude to what would some day become pen expers. The repetitive yet somehow ever changing symmetrical melodies and roomy, airy, bass hyper-charges your imagination. Despite the many layers that are Nuane, you can't help seeing something that isn't there. You feel as if you knew the song before you even hear it. As the late great master Alfred Hitchcock once said, "there is no terror in the bang, only the anticipation of it". Nuane is that quote come to life. Your breathing gets heavier and more intense as the song goes along. The adrenaline rising. By the time Nuane begins to wind down, you are already in a state of subliminal satisfaction.

[Polymershapes]

Confield.

 

When you listen to music, is there a direction to it? Is it left to right? I don't know about most music...maybe most is just staying still. Well, this album is like moving slowly forward, tied to a rail like in one of those shoot'em'up space ship videogames, each track a new Boss fight: Patterns that never quite repeat , new elements whizzing around, unfolding progressively through different stages of decay as the boss is destroyed. Physically, listening to it with headphones, it feels like moving forward in space. Things might fall from the sky above you and crash down: these are called 'drums' in other musics. Other things bounce around on the ground from right to left. Colored, textured walls suddenly rise up on the left side of the 'stage set', looking more like force fields of energy than a real walls. It's the most attention grabbing, visually stimulating album I've ever heard, provided I give it my full attention. And when I don't give it that... when I, say, put it on the stereo as "background" music while drifting off to sleep, through that in-between state of wakefulness and sleep...the particular configuration of the stereo in the room relative to the bed always makes the bass weight of music extra heavy while laying down, and Confield is no exception. It feels like being an insect pinned to a board, sound waves wrapping me up like a narcotic cloud. Completely mind transforming, complimenting what's already happening while falling asleep. The tracks on Confield function as miniature worlds more than as what we usually call "songs." They are that in so much as they are directed passages of sound. But they are not experienced as songs... they refuse passivity. Each level of attention is being assuaged independently and complexly. Like the worlds we live through, we can't notice everything at once, but everything at once is contributing to a whole which we can say to see, if only as a blur of combinations. We can also filter out some and focus on particulars, a few at a time at best. And with this album, every time we do we are rewarded with new discoveries. If there is any other music that does this, please tell me about it.