AAA - Ask Autechre Anything - Sean and Rob on WATMM!

[Test Fforet]

" naivete" versus "maturity, straight reasoning" regarding production ?

 

i think the more you grow accustomed with production techniques, the more you lose a kind of simple approach to making music, which can lead to boring or overly intellectual music.

 

is it important for you, whats your opinion ?

 

if yes, how do you preserve an unsophisticated playfulnes?

[Sean Ae]

Whoa thanks so much guys, this is a real treat!

 

Your use of reverb on the last few albums has been mind-blowing. Listening to d-sho qub for example, on good headphones, I feel like I'm in a chamber constantly expanding and contracting - totally mental. It's really inspired me to start messing around with weird arrays of comb filters and all-passes in max/msp, modulating delay times to try and toe the lines in between delay and reverb and harmonizer.

 

So my question - do you do most of your reverb experiments in Max? Are there other hardware/software techniques you like to use these days for lush atmospherics? And how important is the sense of space in your music?

 

 

yeah max - and gen now as well is ace for anything feedback related

loads of my reverbs end up sounding nothing like a reverb, but that's why i got into it, cos there's all that grey area as you say, tbh that's one of the most enduring things for me, all the overlaps between physmod and reverbs

was using kyma for it a decade ago, well worth a try if you can get your hands on a capybara cheaply

As a fellow Manc, I find a really distinct synaesthetic connection between the structures and architectures in your work and the atmosphere of Manchester and the Pennines. Would you say your work is connected to the local landscape in that way?

 

yeah def

the water as well, the way the air smells

all that grey

[Sean Ae]

are you playing any video games or old video games?

 

lately just dodonpachi on my phone

[Guest cult fiction]

What is my 2 week old baby thinking when he's listening to fleure?

[LimpyLoo]

You talk about seeing normal things from different angles...can you site an example of this? I'm really curious what this means to you exactly...

 

 

p.s. thanks so much for naming my MPC! Can you name my sh101 too? (It's grey, of course... )

[Sean Ae]

have you guys ever considered producing a whole album devoted to hip-hop, with various guest MCs? would love to hear krs-one, kool keith and others like that rap over autechre beats!

 

i still wish krs had joined ultras

 

yeah i mean

thing is i rate ced gee so highly, i would feel a bit weird probably

but i would love to work with keith, and krs if he would stop fucking shouting

[Soloman Tump]

What is my 2 week old baby thinking when he's listening to fleure?

 

 

 

^ Literally lol. Amazing. +50 internetz.

Edited November 2, 2013 by feltcher

[Ivan Ooze]

" naivete" versus "maturity, straight reasoning" regarding production ?

 

i think the more you grow accustomed with production techniques, the more you lose a kind of simple approach to making music, which can lead to boring or overly intellectual music.

 

is it important for you, whats your opinion ?

 

if yes, how do you preserve an unsophisticated playfulnes?

holy shit its one of those swedish house mafia guys

[Salvatorin]

Do you have any pets?

[LimpyLoo]

Do you have any pets?

 

that got addressed on page 10 or 11 I think

 

all I remember is "cats are mental"

Edited November 2, 2013 by LimpyLoo

[geosmina]

will aphex twin release a new album soon?

[Hoodie]

 

Do you have any pets?

 

that got addressed on page 10 or 11 I think

 

all I remember is "cats are mental"

 

 

can someone start a wiki that can organize the contents of this thread? thanks.

[Soloman Tump]

Would you DJ or perform live at a private watmm party? How much would you charge? I could help organise something, it could be near your place so you wouldn't have to travel far. I would also sort out your drinks rider.

 

No homo.

[Sean Ae]

Do you think knowledge of 'process' or 'history' enhances art or is superfluous and beside the point?

 

 

Also, how much musique concrete (vs. pure gen) is in your process these days?

 

it's more that categorical description generalises the past into oblivion, and people even manage to fuck up teaching that properly, and i reckon we stand a better chance just picking gear up and fucking about

but it's not necessarily pointless, just depends on what you're actually trying to achieve, why, who for etc

 

it's mostly generated. like 95%

still using occasional samples but it's just nature telling us who's boss

[SR4]

what do you feel is more instrumental in forming a unique understanding of gender identity, second or third-wave feminism?

[Guest unteleportedman]

if you had a "Magic 8-Ball" right now, what question would you ask it, and why?

[Salvatorin]

do you wake up in the morning and sometimes just feel 'lush' ?

sean do you like Flep the dolphin? is it 'mental' ?

have you enjoyed the madness of bull wallet? http://bullwalletversions.tumblr.com/

[Atop]

CygSational is the shit we need hear. PHIL?!!?!?!

[Sean Ae]

- I'm guessing most of us fans, rightly or wrongly, organize your discography into certain periods with "transition" albums and "new direction" albums. Some people even suggest they can be grouped in 3's, so that for example Incunabula, Amber, and Tri Rep could be grouped together, then Chiastic/LP5/EP7, then Confield, Draft, Untilted (I don't think this really works, just saying). I'm wondering if you ever see certain albums in a similar light, meaning that when you finish it you think "well, we've taken that approach to its logical conclusion, not much more we can do with that sound, time to move on", or "I think there's more to dig in this vein, let's keep pushing it"?

 

If this at all applies, which albums do you yourselves see as the most groundbreaking? (and I don't necessarily mean in the sense of the global music scene, but more in terms of personal "eureka!" moments)

 

 

 

we don't really chart progress by album, it doesn't really work like that from our point of view

there's lots of stuff going on besides what ends up on the albums, and things aren't always released in sequence

 

but i can think of millions of tiny little realisations, i have several a day usually

hard to know which are the important ones

[Salvatorin]

rob are you more 'lush' than sean?

[Sean Ae]

 

 

Thanks a lot for your answer! I'm also interested in how developments in electronic music are shared and become developments rather than personal preference... I was asking about facelessness because in architecture and industrial design there's a lot of talk about humbleness and ego and most of it is just a load of bollocks to be honest, and electronic music while also being a form of design seems to do things in a different way, the community and the way innovations are received seem to be different, and I thought it could be interesting to study different structures of how design is organised.

 

i'm a #1 shit talker anyway so sorry about that

 

By the way, what do you think about Amiga demos, that kind of aesthetic, that kind of product and that kind of community?

 

architects are worse than rockstars

 

i think the main difference is the social element is more readily acknowledged in music circles, but architects (and to an extent designers) position themselves above it or outside it a lot. i think that's why there's been this drive toward functionalism again lately (altho even by framing it as an -ism they still manage to achieve some kind of intellectual superiority)

 

ok so i know nothing about architecture, pls disregard prev paragraph

 

as far as retro computing - well i like it if i see people doing new things with old machines, same as i like new things on new machines

it's more about the actual output for me, if it's too much about the computer itself or about the past i get bored (that's more like a fashion thing really tho)

 

 

I understand where you're coming from in regard to architects and designers (i'm a graphic design and my brother is a architect but we do not try to remove our selves from the politics of our work, that in its self is a political statement anyway.) forgot where i was going with this, anyway, do you like the work of architect peter zumthor or graphic designer karel martens? two people i adore

 

both of you obviously know how to use synths and music programs very well, i find some people dismiss music if it doesn't show a certain level of technical know how which gets on my nerves because early wiley (i think he now has a good technical undestanding) or tracks like more fire crews 'oi' i love as much as autechre tracks. i doubt you do this. this is a statement not a Q, currently filling out a application form for a job, needed a break.

 

edit: complete rambling mess from me...

 

 

 

oi is unreal imo

still sounds futuristic to me now, prob still will in another 20 years

[Salvatorin]

did you guys ever see this:

[Zephyr_Nova]

1. You meet a traveler from another world who has no knowledge of music from Earth (aside from the ae discog, obviously). What three albums do you show them?

 

2. Tell a joke.

 

Thanks for all the inspiration!

[Sean Ae]

is the sample in deco loc david bowie?

 

(i'm too hi)

 

nah

i keep waiting for someone to get one of them but no one has yet

there are 2 main ones

do you or did you have recurring problems with acne? what were those experiences like?

 

i didn't

Any plans to release another AV DVD?

not plans but yeah would be cool in principle

[kieselguhr kid]

 

is the sample in deco loc david bowie?

 

(i'm too hi)

 

nah

i keep waiting for someone to get one of them but no one has yet

there are 2 main ones

„Being Boiled“ by Human League? read that somewhere in a review...