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

[nizzleone]

sup. had to get a beer, Soz

 

What are you sippin'?

[Rob Ae]

3 questions that are really just one :

Being constantly working / listening to music, do you feel it does still move you as much as when you were young teenagers, discovering everything ?

Do you think your sensitivity evolved a lot or are your obsessions pretty much still the same ?

Do you feel more creative now or in your earlier days ?

1 more

2 more

3 more

 

yeah i'm not kidding,cos its just causing a wedge shape for most things i like, and in doing this as much as i can sort of feeds back in. even something as silly as hearing some new band doing something re-done say but as 'new people', as shit as it sounds, even that adds to it all. we get asked so many times ; when u were a kid what did u want music to be like in the future?

 

sup. had to get a beer, Soz

 

What are you sippin'?

 

tyskie atm.

[Sean Ae]

How has running SKAM been for you guys? (I assume you guys still run it. Please correct me if this is wrong) Has it been lucrative? more a labor of love? Does it require a lot of your time or do you have people helping with it to alleviate some of that?

 

nah we never ran it, it's run by a guy called andy maddocks

a tiny number of their other artists are sometimes part of gescom

 

i would never run a label, way too time consuming

[triachus]

Lol, the AAA isn't over yet, and people are saying their goodbyes.

 

 

I don't know, there's some confusion about the time. I think we have time until tomorrow, right?

 

 

 

it's til 6am GMT but i'm gonna be fast asleep long before that i reckon

 

edit: i think it was GMT anyway

 

 

 

How about you guys keep doing this until this happens:

 

 

ae: "Hey, where is everyone? Does anyone have any questions? Anyone? Questions?"

watmm: "Sheesh are you still here?"

[Guest]

if there was no more electricity to be had, WAT DO?

[Goiter Sanchez]

Thank you for taking the time to do this Autechre! WATMM will never be the same.

[jhonny]

where's the most random place someone has asked 'are you from autechre?'

[Guest SammyTheCrab]

To sean,do you think a majestic raid on a cell would be the most defist shame?

[Rob Ae]

Is this your last night answering questions? Everybody is saying their goodbyes! (I haven't read up on what has been said today )

yeah shame, joyrex says no (from midnight CST)

[Guest ZombieLincoln666]

 

 

What are your opinions on the use of fractal formulas for generating beats or melodies?

 

Any particular favorite types for particular applications? (i.e. L-Systems for melodies... Mandelbeats...etc)

Just bumping this one, in case it wasn't previously answered in the last 150ish pages.

 

Additionally: thank you guys so much for doing this. It absolutely blows my mind that you've put so much time and effort into this.

 

 

yeah (altho some people prob already know this) i'm a huge fan of simulating fluid dynamics to make things move around in a controllable but beautiful way (using navier-stokes equations)

 

 

For generating sounds? Can you also do turbulence?

[Sean Ae]

 

 

What did you guys think of Lynch's Inland Empire?

 

it's my fave thing he's done

 

 

fuck yeah cheers, mine too! saw it in a little indie theater on mushrooms and it was... transformative! definitely a similar uncanny beauty to listening through recent ae albums.

 

Huge thanks for taking so much time for this! It's been fun and insightful. And thanks for the massive inspiration I've gotten from your music - it's played a significant role in my experience of art and life. I really can't say enough positive things but I don't want to be too fanboyed out so I'll leave it at this. I thought of a couple more questions I'd been curious about -

 

What was the deal with Tried by 12? How did so many great experimental producers get on board to remix? Did you have a lot of fun putting yours together? It's an all-time favorite for me, I love the vocal processing so much.

 

Also, just a taste query - have you listened to Freestyle Fellowship much? Inner City Griots is one of my favorite hip hop albums so I was curious if you're fans at all.

 

 

 

tried by 12 happened cos that guy seven (think thats his name) was pretty pushy iirc

glad it did tho, he had a good list of artists there (like, who the fuck would think to ask sluta leta). yeah it was tons of fun, esp splitting the vocal up into two people

 

never heard freestyle fellowship, i have a weird gap in my hip hop knowledge from about 89-93 cos it changed so much when mtv tried to get hold of it (imo)

[Rob Ae]

 

my only questions for AE, sorry if asked before

 

autechre, what the hell should i do with my life?

 

what types of objects could i attach to drumset for cool autechre sounding drumset?????

 

bump:

 

also - amazing set in toronto in 2008. music has always been a huge part of me, and that set literally changed my perception of music overall.

 

do you guys like tool?

 

u mean drumset IRL or Vdrums? u tried tinfoil yet or crackers (edible)

Edited November 7, 2013 by Rob Ae

[mgore10]

 

 

a couple of questions that were missed earlier (no problem):

 

1. Have you ever checked out some of the electroacoustic/acousmatic concerts at the University of Manchester with their 24+ channel "MANTIS" sound system?

 

They do some pretty amazing things with aural images and spatial counterpoint. The music coming out of there is quite gestural, but still really taps into cross-modal perception in a meaningful way, if one's listening skills and attention span are up for it. Some "academic" composers that are doing some really interesting DSP - Natasha Barrett (although she is from Norway), David Berezan (professor at U Manchester), Manuella Blackburn.

 

 

2. Either of you have any interest in Supercollider anymore, or does Smalltalk code do your head it too much?

 

I love Max to death, but often feel deflated when some algorithmic process takes an extraordinary amount of patching in Max, but is only several lines of code in Supercollider.

 

1 no i haven't, i didn't know they got acoustic setup there.

 

ok cool,

 

2 i never used SC. no good at coding really.

 

Yeah, U of Manchester has some very nice studio facilities for 8 channel composition work, in addition to their massive speaker setups for concerts. Here's a picture of the concert hall set up with 48 Genelecs:

 

http://www.novars.manchester.ac.uk/mantis/overview/

 

If you are into electroacoustic composers like Parmegiani, then these concerts are definitely worth checking out.

[Rob Ae]

It was raining yesterday in Memphis, it's rather clear and sunny here today.

 

What's the weather like over there for you boys?

dark, post wet

[Sean Ae]

Edit #2: I'm currently pumping incunabula in the streets of mem, I'm at that part around 4:00 in bike when there's that synth smoke chamber that gets me every time :)

 

Q: y'all ever have drycleaning? If so is it delivered to you?

 

:D that's the best bit

 

yeah, yeah

[Rob Ae]

Sean and Rob, it has been a true pleasure participating in this q&a with you. Your music has been an inspiration and a conduit to new and heightened experiences for me and my best friend since we first stumbled upon it. Thank you so much for your music and your time and best of luck and health to you both in the future.

thanks cebec, really appreciate the buzz.

[Sean Ae]

what are your favorite BoC tracks?

 

northern plastics

[Rob Ae]

How do you like watmm sense of humor?

Also...we somethimes make jokes about you but it's all love.

 

When/if u get really angry about something how that looks like?

 

Thnx forever! Come by sometime.

yeah we can take it - also we understand i reckon.

 

cya xox

[Guest 21B]

 

sup. had to get a beer, Soz

 

What are you sippin'?

 

tyskie atm.

 

I really like Lech if you've not tried it? Also Polish.

[Sean Ae]

How did you guys do this marathon? How did you keep up with it? What tactics did you use? What are the highest number of tabs that you had open because of this?

 

Were you able to do other things while doing this? It certainly consumed my time to do other stuff, and I didn't even had to answer hundres of questions!

 

 

There was talk to ask you guys to take pictures of the place you did this marathon from. The reason for this eludes me. I don't think there ever was one. I assume it is meant for a greater good. You care about greater goods, right?

 

no more than 4 at once

the main prob is keeping up with ones that have been replied to, if there had been some little light on posts that had been quoted it would have been faster

 

yeah but nah, i'm in the studio atm and i'm not posting pics sorryyyy

[soma333]

 

 

Edit #2: I'm currently pumping incunabula in the streets of mem, I'm at that part around 4:00 in bike when there's that synth smoke chamber that gets me every time :)

 

Q: y'all ever have drycleaning? If so is it delivered to you?

:D that's the best bit

 

yeah, yeah

Cool dude! Surprise yer delivery driver with something great for me :)

[Sean Ae]

 

 

 

What are your opinions on the use of fractal formulas for generating beats or melodies?

 

Any particular favorite types for particular applications? (i.e. L-Systems for melodies... Mandelbeats...etc)

Just bumping this one, in case it wasn't previously answered in the last 150ish pages.

 

Additionally: thank you guys so much for doing this. It absolutely blows my mind that you've put so much time and effort into this.

 

 

yeah (altho some people prob already know this) i'm a huge fan of simulating fluid dynamics to make things move around in a controllable but beautiful way (using navier-stokes equations)

 

 

For generating sounds? Can you also do turbulence?

 

 

sort of yeah

it's a lot easier since gen came out as well

[Rob Ae]

Several questions all related:

 

1. When one of you have made a new bit of music - do you call it a "beat" a "track", etc.

 

ie. Do you say "Hey Rob/Sean, check this new beat I made"

 

I call them beats due to childhood hip-hop associations.

 

2. When you are amazed at what you just made but the other half of ae is not around, do you then go to your wife/girlfriend/lady/etc. and say

 

"Dear love, check this new beat I made"

 

3. Does said wife/girlfriend/lady/etc. then begrudgedly listen and say "That's nice"

 

4. According to your mood, do you then think "I'm half of fucking autechre - there are fuckers on the internet who'd be going crazy for this shit right now!"

1 both, beats for beats - tracks for tracks, but yeah i know what u mean, or we say, "so Sean, what'r u sayin'?" after a friend of ours - who is fully hiphop

… pretty much sums it up.

 

2 yeah, its not quite the same response tho'

 

3 no, something more amusingly patronising. =)

 

4 i try

[Adamovich]

 

Is this your last night answering questions? Everybody is saying their goodbyes! (I haven't read up on what has been said today )

yeah shame, joyrex says no (from midnight CST)

 

Hey, you can always stay for longer, like outside the thread, y'know

[Mr12000]

Ok, so I'm a huge fan of the seemingly bootleg 'Rob Brown Ultra Rare Mix Tape' series, of which I have 13 different mp3s. We don't really know the true source of these mixes, and it's been said that there is no proof that they are even Rob Brown's. But I feel that the track selections have a lot of resemblances to the cuts we heard on 12 hour radio broadcast.

 

Legend has it (at least around here) is that these were taken from a Warp employees desk, were unmarked CD-Rs, and assumed to be created by Rob Brown...

 

I guess I'm just looking for the definitive answer... Are these your mixtapes I've been rocking, Rob? What's the story of their leak? If they're not you, do you know anything about them?

 

 

Sorry if this has been touched on already, still working my way through the thread....

Edited November 7, 2013 by Deepex