Autechre All albums best to worst

[ooqpoo]

It's all so darn good.

Given a desert island disc type situation, it'd have to be NTS for the variation and size. 

[xox]

2 hours ago, zaizai said:

 

arrggg I hate Quaristice

Yo crazy. Objectively.

[Extralife]

Amber is the best. All others great though.

[zaizai]

4 hours ago, xox said:

Yo crazy. Objectively.

Now today I love quari, was just joking around the fact that the best lp can moves, it’s relative to time ans space because a lot of hate around quari times for this one  when it went out, but soz I never shit posted about Quari I love them all 

(I put lel tho...) 

[Amen Lare]

I think of roughly 7 years cycles (not adjusted to release lag). So it's something like this:

1998-2005, the prime

2013-2020, the unexpected shadow prime, still has a chance to overlap

1991-1997, very occasional constitutive brilliance

2006-2012, kinda slump, unpublished live sets seemed to take a priority to the point of rehashing some stuff on Quaristice, even Gescom became half-assed

[xox]

32 minutes ago, Amen Lare said:

2006-2012, kinda slump, unpublished live sets seemed to take a priority to the point of rehashing some stuff on Quaristice, even Gescom became half-assed

Can believe how many crazy ppl on watmm! Ppl stop it, i can only count to two

[mushroom]

lol a1-d1 and skull snap are silly but fun. i like em.

and saying any of the quaristice and oversteps material represents a slump is really odd to me idk...

[Guest]

Worst: Quaristice

Best: Confield

Simple. 

[xox]

... best to wurst

[splesh]

I can barely understand why some so strongly dislike Quaristice. Is it because of how much it foreshadowed elseq 1-5, etc? I used to think of it as part of the same "block" that started with Confield but I've recently come to think of it as its own singular sonic universe that stands outside most of the 'Chre-onology

[Chabraendeky]

15 hours ago, splesh said:

I can barely understand why some so strongly dislike Quaristice. Is it because of how much it foreshadowed elseq 1-5, etc? I used to think of it as part of the same "block" that started with Confield but I've recently come to think of it as its own singular sonic universe that stands outside most of the 'Chre-onology

I see Quaristice as a turning point after "Untilted"., that the guys very much needed artistically. For me it sounds like a fresh start from scratch after a point, where nothing more was left to explore. Tbh I still feel Draft and Untilted a bit of shying back from what they have already reached with Confield - but at the same time exploring some ideas of it deeper.  

Quadrange was very much a foreshadowing, what become elseq 1-5 and the NTS Sessions. And the experiment to boil down this bigger, more organically built pieces to they very essence, to 3-5 minute-long, very concentrated moments and fuse these musical moments to a greater narrative (the album itself), is in my view something genial. But i can understand, it's not everybody's taste to drink undiluted concentrates... but for me it's perhaps their most entertaining record. 

I see almost everything they've done since, as growing out from ideas planted in Quaristice. 

As Confield was a divisive record upon it's release, because it pushed so hard on the alreday established aesthetics, Quaristice still remains divisive because it's approach is so different from anything they worked on in the Confiled-Draft-Untilted-era.

When I listen to the NTS Sessions, it's clear to me, that it is clarly a similar aesthetic endpont, they already reached once with Untilted.

I'm convinced, Sign will be something disturbingly new. I can't wait to be disturbed.

 

[Soloman Tump]

God Tier

Quaristice (and Quadrange and Versions)

Draft 7.30

Oversteps

Chiastic Slide

 

Lord Tier

Confield

Tri Repetae

Untitled

Elseq 1-5

LP5

 

Squire Tier

Amber

Incunabula

Exai

 

Still yet to categorise:

NTS Sessions

SIGN

 

*edit*
Shite, I mean, I like them all in different ways.  Exai should be higher, then I can't leave Amber and Incu in a tier by themselves so just bump them all up. I still don't know my way around NTS enough to be able to say.

 

Edited September 27, 2020 by Soloman Tump

[xyrofen]

The only album I ever find myself not really wanting to sit down and listen through is Untilted. By no means do I dislike it, but I get pretty uninterested after Pro Radii.

Edited September 27, 2020 by xyrofen

[Amen Lare]

1 hour ago, Chabraendeky said:

Quadrange was very much a foreshadowing, what become elseq 1-5 and the NTS Sessions. And the experiment to boil down this bigger, more organically built pieces to they very essence, to 3-5 minute-long, very concentrated moments and fuse these musical moments to a greater narrative (the album itself), is in my view something genial. But i can understand, it's not everybody's taste to drink undiluted concentrates... but for me it's perhaps their most entertaining record. 

I see almost everything they've done since, as growing out from ideas planted in Quaristice. 

 

Now this talk just seems as an exercise in rhetorics to me, so i have to state the opposite view.

Quadrange was not a foreshadowing to elseq/NTS in any way other than releasing many tracks, it was all alternative takes on the same few tracks instead of all the different ones.

"Undiluted concentrates" were edited jams as we were told, you can edit something down only so much, it stays jammy in nature, i.e. a shorter cut, not concentrated version of a bigger thing -- and all the really similar versions outside the main LP showed that. If anything, diluted is far more appropriate description, you don't generate many intense ideas on the fly, especially in electronic music, however more "organic" it may be built.

Where you see almost everything, i see nothing as growing out from Quaristice, even the next LP they've done was a stylistic/sonic far cry right away. In fact, it's Quaristice that grew out of Untilted live set in places. Care to give a couple of examples? Preferably belonging to the most impressive by your assessment.

I can agree on the point that Quaristice was needed as a sort of liberation off painstaking crafting, but it doesn't mean that they would at once create this monster of overloaded creativity many think of it, rather the opposite.

[Chabraendeky]

8 hours ago, Amen Lare said:

Now this talk just seems as an exercise in rhetorics to me, so i have to state the opposite view.

Quadrange was not a foreshadowing to elseq/NTS in any way other than releasing many tracks, it was all alternative takes on the same few tracks instead of all the different ones.

"Undiluted concentrates" were edited jams as we were told, you can edit something down only so much, it stays jammy in nature, i.e. a shorter cut, not concentrated version of a bigger thing -- and all the really similar versions outside the main LP showed that. If anything, diluted is far more appropriate description, you don't generate many intense ideas on the fly, especially in electronic music, however more "organic" it may be built.

Where you see almost everything, i see nothing as growing out from Quaristice, even the next LP they've done was a stylistic/sonic far cry right away. In fact, it's Quaristice that grew out of Untilted live set in places. Care to give a couple of examples? Preferably belonging to the most impressive by your assessment.

I can agree on the point that Quaristice was needed as a sort of liberation off painstaking crafting, but it doesn't mean that they would at once create this monster of overloaded creativity many think of it, rather the opposite.

I didn't mean it just rhetorical, but I'm enjoying our discussion!

Quadrange is foreshadowing elseq/NTS for me not just in dumping many tracks (an so being definitely longer than an anything before), but also in the jamming-based production, something, that also the elseq nd the NTS stuff is often accused of - so I can"t be the only one who feels an aethetically similarity in the structural build of these tracks.

The other - and in my opinion not minor - point is that we have here their first attempt in a long-form in a 50-minute track. The next time we see this approach to the long-form is on elseq/NTS. I must make me clear here: I see this tracks as intented to be long, and built in an appropriate way for that purpose, and not just "shorter track sletting run for long". That the gusy were interested in the long-form, was obvious before, but Perlence subrange 6-36 was their first really long track, only be topped in length by All End. 

Sonically Oversteps might be very different as Quaritice, in that point I give you full credit. But some new new approach for melodies, building rhythmic tension with not-percussive elements were shown here first (Perlence) - but explored really first on Oversteps.

From a technical, and sound-metarial standpoint, you might be absolutely correct - but I was talking more from a compositional standpoint. And so I still think, that a lot of ideas, how to find  new way for the Autechre project in the futre, was founded here.

Now to your send point of critic: editing. I have absolutely no experience and knowledge in music editing, but if I understood the statements made in interviews, the goal for the editing process was to select the best moments of longer jams, and edit them to shorter pieces. That doesn't mean just cutting out a sample from a longer track, but selecting different musical moments and takes from the run of a loger track and creating a more concentrated version from them. A lot of tracks on Quaristice have 3 or 4 musical "parts" in just 3 or 4 minutes. What is this if not "boiled down"?

I don't know shit about programming and sound designing. All my thoughts refer mostly the compositional approach of the guys. And as we can agree on that the guys needed that "liberation from painstakingly crafting", I just want to point out, that in these more improvisational sessions they tapped into some musical ideas, they wanted to explore in more detail in the following recordings.

[xox]

5 hours ago, Chabraendeky said:

Perlence subrange 6-36 was their first really long track, only be topped in length by All End. 

6-36 is longer

[Chabraendeky]

3 minutes ago, xox said:

6-36 is longer

You're right, my bad. 6-36 is 13 seconds longer 

[jaderpansen]

it's also about 13x better. *ducks*

[splesh]

What I meant about the foreshadowing was partially the large amount of tracks but also a marked similarity sonically

[Boxus]

#1 for me is absolutely Confield

I love how varied it is - each track feels like its own distinct sonic world. And it has a perfect balance of complexity and minimalism. It feels open, airy, cool. Not quite so dense as their post-2010 albums.

After that it's too hard to rank, but LP5, Quaristice, Oversteps and Tri Rep would probably fill out my top 5.

[mTesc]

Exai, ep7 (yes, including), LP5, NTS, Confield, Tri Rep, Draft, Oversteps (although most improved with time and patience), Chiastic, untilted, elseq, Amber, Quaristice (although the livesets are absolute top notch stuff), Incunabula

[Roo]

1. Untilted

2. Confield

3. Amber

4. Chiastic Slide

5. NTS Sessions 1-4

6. Exai

7. Draft 7.30

8. Quaristice

9. Tri Repetae

10. Oversteps

11. Elseq 1-5

12. SIGN (tentative, only coupla listens, but feels about right for now)

13. Incunabula

14. LP5

[mushroom]

im really gonna have to wear out SIGN and then set it aside for a while before i can even think about ranking it

[misuta Go]

Best: EP7

Worst (by far): SIGN

[Psychotronic]

Is this the lets bitch about the new autechre album thread?