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

[Uniret]

What are your favorite jazz musicians?

[Guest]

do you have any old elektron .syx files flepping around on your HDD that you'd be happy to share?

basically the stuff that was driving the '05 -'08 live sets would be ace. thxx

[th555]

What's the best scifi movie you've ever seen?

[Sean Ae]

Do you consider it a challenge that while you are working on a track, you have to be listening to it a lot? Or do you ever create without listening? Do you have any methods to avoid prematurely tiring your ears of a track and getting into situation where you can't see the forest for the trees? Is it enough to simply step away from the studio and go do something else, or is that the point at which you pull the oblique strategy cards out of your sleeves? Do you ever obliterate tracks to see what will happen (or is this an irrelevant analogy in an organic system of bifurcating iterations)?

just leave the room, do something else for 10 mins, go back in the room

 

yeah sometimes, completely destroy it, save as

[Dale]

Sorry to push the question Sean but would you and Rob consider putting out the Quaristice live set for download? Or a purchase release?

[Atop]

jazzband questions

[Rob Ae]

Are you listening to any Music while you type your answers? If so what? (Or are you watching the X factor like I am right now!)

Bullion crazy for u is on right now

Following your love frankie knuckles

[Sean Ae]

Are you going to retire these accounts after this thread and go back to being Troon and LUDD, or do you plan on posting occasionally under these aliases?

 

paranoid much?

[Rob Ae]

 

Do you consider it a challenge that while you are working on a track, you have to be listening to it a lot? Or do you ever create without listening? Do you have any methods to avoid prematurely tiring your ears of a track and getting into situation where you can't see the forest for the trees? Is it enough to simply step away from the studio and go do something else, or is that the point at which you pull the oblique strategy cards out of your sleeves? Do you ever obliterate tracks to see what will happen (or is this an irrelevant analogy in an organic system of bifurcating iterations)?

 

just leave the room, do something else for 10 mins, go back in the room

 

yeah sometimes, completely destroy it, save as

Haha you said oblique strategy

[Sean Ae]

This is great and feel much more personal than a Reddit AMA, or something similar. Thanks for doing this!

 

Do you ever feel that you have locked yourself in a musical style, even though you invented this style yourself? I guess your fans expect your music to sound a certain way, so is this ever an issue or do you simply just make whatever you like and that's the music we get?

 

yeah we just do what we like, we just ended up here by moving point to point, occasionally hopping branches

we didn't even make a style, it just seems that way from over there

[Atop]

DUH, TROON is GRANT and LUDD is AFX, GET IT RIGHT!

[Ivan Ooze]

HEY

who's smoking weed in this interview?

[Adieu]

- Do you often revisit your old tracks? if so, do you tend to revisit unreleased material or certain released work more?

 

- Are there any tracks of yours or periods of work that immediately remind you of some important moment in your life? If so, do you care to share it with us?

[Atop]

@Ivan: you are

Edited November 2, 2013 by Atop

[triachus]

The strangest thing I have ever encountered during one of your pitch-dark shows was that I bumped into a guy wearing a hotdog costume.

 

 

 

Are there any strange/weird/interesting events/encounters that happened during one of your shows that you are willing to share, or was that as crazy as it is going to get?

Edited November 2, 2013 by triachus

[lumines]

How many unreleased tracks do you have?

[Rob Ae]

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

 

 

Like this mov, my firstborn was the same at quaristce dev

[Sean Ae]

Long winded rambly drunk post. It's saturday!

 

Do you think of yourselves as apart from the electronic music 'scene', or part of it?

 

There was a time, as referenced upthread, when you sound like you thought that you were very much part of something big, something new that was evolving and going exciting places which then swiftly turned out to not be the case.

 

I think of Autechre as an entity being somewhat outside the sphere of music in general. Your sound is singular; you're pretty much a subgenre of your own. But what about in relation to contemporary music and recent styles? We all know about the influence of hip hop on you, but do you hear your influence trickling through to anyone else? Are you/Would you be happy about such an impact? Pale imitations are ten a penny of course, but do you feel as if other artists have taken on board your output as you see it and run with it?

 

they might have, it's hard to tell from here

as far as impact is concerned, if anyone wants to adapt it that's cool, that's what it's all about

 

i don't think of our sound as being that singular, i just see a web of connections and us linked to a few of them, in the way all other music does the same thing (only maybe people take it more for granted with things like genre music)

[baph]

Sean, was that your previously-mentioned cat at the end of Tewe?

 

And this is probably way off the mark (sorry, I know nothing about production): was there any conscious decision to sort of explore and widen the stereo/imaging aspect of the music on Exai/L-Event? Seems like a lot of older Ae output had a very effective use of, like, a predominant mono backbone with interesting stereo events fleshing things out a bit spatially on occasion, whereas Exai has this massive sense of exploration all around the stereofield. Some really cool psychoacoustic stuff going on. Sorry if this is full of shit, and seriously, thank you both.

[Sean Ae]

what do you think of OPN new album (R+7)?

 

brilliant, weird as fuck

like he folded vaporwave inside out

context got obliterated, music just got handed a ton of new parameters

[mcbpete]

Sean, was that your previously-mentioned cat at the end of Tewe?

 

And this is probably way off the mark (sorry, I know nothing about production): was there any conscious decision to sort of explore and widen the stereo/imaging aspect of the music on Exai/L-Event? Seems like a lot of older Ae output had a very effective use of, like, a predominant mono backbone with interesting stereo events fleshing things out a bit spatially on occasion, whereas Exai has this massive sense of exploration all around the stereofield. Some really cool psychoacoustic stuff going on. Sorry if this is full of shit, and seriously, thank you both.

Yes, there are multiple tracks in LP5 that are almost entirely in mono - was this a conscious decision to concentrate on harmonic and rhythmical content rather than spatial imaging ?

[vertsk8er419]

can either of you post a voice recording of how you pronounce "autechre"?

Edited November 2, 2013 by impotentwhitecapitalist

[Guest WNS000]

Hello to the Great Britain and please excuse my English,

 

I have a specific question as I am interested in music production for several years and making an album for few years now. I am thinking of this very often while listening to your music:

 

Do you spend a lot of time choosing and crafting reverbs for your tracks? Or is it something that you make intuitively - not thinking too much?

 

I am asking because many of your tracks like Xylin Room or Tilapia sounds fairly dry on the first listening but yet they have very distinct vibe and depth as if some super-gentle reverbs and delays were used to craft the space as there are no obvious echoes and reverb tails. Xylin Room sounds claustrophobic yet very 3D but the mix is almost mono. Tilapia sounds very spacious, some sounds are distant but again it has this vacuum feel into it. I simply absolutely love it (not even mentioning the incredible compostion). This question unanswered seriously affects my sleeping everytime I mix some "to be dry" track but if some "secret" techniques are involved I will respectfully and diligently continue trying to achieve it by myself :-)

 

Please, take this question also as my big "thank you" for your incredible work and tons of inspiration and emotions you gave me. I am a proud owner of most of your discography and you have seriously changed my view on music in all ways. You have also made me to register here on WATMM and pay their basic subscription for this single post.

 

All the best from the Czech Republic.

 

PS: I am very sorry I could not be in Brno while you played in Fleda during Oversteps tour, I was more into Orbital that time and had known only Amber... :-))

 

Jev

Edited November 2, 2013 by Jev

[Sean Ae]

One more question. Have you ever had sounds in your head you haven't been able to "get out" musically, that you haven't been able to recreate?

 

not sounds so much as whole tracks

usually after some drugs trying to get to sleep i will get whole full morphing tracks going on, but i can never remember specifics, like dreams

i dunno about recreating

[LimpyLoo]

can either of you post a voice recording of how you pronounce "autechre"?

 

it's pronounced "Aww-Tesh-Ray" obv