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

[Sean Ae]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand you guys toured in Japan back in '05. What were some of your favourite things about being in Japan in general? (like the local food, the shops, etc) I'm curious cos I used to live in the north (Hokkaido).

 

we're never there long enough to get familiar with it

i think tbh that's what i like, how weirdly impregnable it is

like an impossible game

 

that and the shape of everything

talking about deco loc is the percusion a sample of wood or did you make out of bits and bites?

 

i'm sorry i have no idea about production

 

yeah it's wood and rubber

[Guest]

[Params]

 

Btw, Sean or Rob, are you aware of a radio broadcast in the Netherlands back in 2008 where your music was played for 30 minutes (listeners have a chance of 'reserving' 30 minutes to show and tell their fave music) which pissed off the host beyond belief? He only allowed it because it was the basic rule of the whole program, but he was really bummed out by it and said that this would lose a lot of his listeners. Also, they continuously tried to pronounce AE track names and he literally warned listeners about how long the tracks would last before playing them.

 

that sounds ace

is there a recording?

If the are Elements Of Hip Hop are:

1. Bboying

2. MCing

3. Graffiti

4. DJing

5. Knowledge, Culture and Overstanding

 

What are the elements of IDM?

ask someone who makes idm

 

[Sean Ae]

eletronic musicians tend to be quite anonymous

but have you ever thought incorporating fans in to the creative process may it be creating beats or just something as simple as a cover art?

oh btw. would you consider your music accidental?

 

technically everything is accidental

 

yeah we do that already via feedback loops like this

[cygnus]

 

 

ask someone who makes idm

 

*oh no he din't*

 

[Sean Ae]

Sean will u use MAX again?

 

the majority of oversteps and exai tracks were done using max

[Sean Ae]

Can you name my Boss SP-303 sampler?

 

your sp-303 is now called agnetha

[Guest rd1994]

when you make music ...before you release the tracks to the public do you get some third party with a fresh ear to comment or is it more like "We do what the fuck we want" kind of approach?

[Sean Ae]

having the internet around nowadays people either make autechre influenced tracks, make autechre music videos or even spend some time analysing your music and doing some type of essay

 

do you feel flattered by that or does it make you feel uncomfortable?

 

neither

[Plarkreluke Banloboh]

 

 

If the are Elements Of Hip Hop are:

1. Bboying

2. MCing

3. Graffiti

4. DJing

5. Knowledge, Culture and Overstanding

 

What are the elements of IDM?

ask someone who makes idm

 

 

 

lol I had a feeling I'd regret that.

Edited November 3, 2013 by wabby

[splesh]

Don't have a question at the moment, just wanted to thank you for making some of the most original and enjoyable music out there! (You two are my favourite musical act) Oh and to add that Ubik is another really mindbending PKD novel. Hope you can make it to Toronto for your next tour!

[Sean Ae]

I had no idea this was happening today. Thanks a lot to everyone involved to make this happen.

 

I didn't read the whole thread yet, so maybe this question's already been answered:

 

Do you guys mix in quad or 5.1? I have to assume that playing around with the textures and sounds you guys produce must lend itself to 5.1 mixing. It seems to be made for it at times. And of course it would be great to have Autechre 5.1 mixes as well as LtRt's in the future sometime.

 

Thanks again.

 

not yet but maybe in the future for something, depends

did you ever regret making a track? if so which one? would you change them if you could?

 

i made some shit ones but i don't regret making them cos i learned how not to make shit tracks by doing them

Here, have a 13x13 pixels Exai cover art.

 

haha this is so awesome

thanks

[Guest rd1994]

also have you ever thought of doing an aduio/visual collab like you do the tracks and then someone else (or even you) create visuals ...like videos for every track of an album? would it be something you would want to try or is it something you don't want to get your fingers dirty with?

[Ivan Ooze]

this was the best day ever good night everyone

[Herr Jan]

 

Just want to give a massive thanks to AE for all the music over the years. Very cool to do this!

 

Sean, in reply to your comment about Grant / Rephlex, what do you make of Rephlex' recent output and the strategy behind it (or: do you like or follow any of the recent Rephlex artists/releases)? How secretive does a label/artist need to get to let it be just about the music? Is there a point behind it that you can identify with on the theme of it being ´just about the music´ and how do you act on that idea (for example, around Exai and L-Event there was only 1 or maybe 2 interview, a lot less then with previous releases I think?)

 

And because you put a Necrophagist track years ago in a mix: black metal or death metal? Any faves? What do you prefer about it, the complexity, atmosphere/feel or melodic side of metal?

 

ah man it's like

just let people present things the way they feel comfortable

rich was always hiding behind tables and things

 

we didn't want to discuss exai on release at all we wanted to see what people could figure out

 

i really like sleep terror, it's so flattened and designed, like hyper futurist

i like the precision of the good technical stuff and really into the angles of it all, the geometry of it appeals to me

 

 

 

 

Btw, Sean or Rob, are you aware of a radio broadcast in the Netherlands back in 2008 where your music was played for 30 minutes (listeners have a chance of 'reserving' 30 minutes to show and tell their fave music) which pissed off the host beyond belief? He only allowed it because it was the basic rule of the whole program, but he was really bummed out by it and said that this would lose a lot of his listeners. Also, they continuously tried to pronounce AE track names and he literally warned listeners about how long the tracks would last before playing them.

 

that sounds ace

is there a recording?

If the are Elements Of Hip Hop are:

1. Bboying

2. MCing

3. Graffiti

4. DJing

5. Knowledge, Culture and Overstanding

 

What are the elements of IDM?

ask someone who makes idm

 

 

Thanks for answering, will def check out sleep terror.

 

I got the recording of the broadcast somewhere, I'll pm it to you asap!

[Guest WNS000]

Oh and yet one more question for you, Sean:

 

Do you know Dabrye's (Tadd Mullinix) music? If yes do you enjoy his work and would you consider colab/remix with him?

 

Thanks.

[Guest hecanjog]

L-event is on crazy rotation. You guys rule.

 

I'm also curious - it was asked, but I'll chime in again: do you guys have dayjobs too or is it Ae 24/7 for the most part?

 

Thanks!

[Sean Ae]

so you like the venue to be dark, but what about over-the-top visuals like Amon Tobin's ISAM? (did you see it?) do you think something similar would work for an autechre set? i mean obviously the identity of the space is still there, but the crowd gets really focused on an object etc that's in front of them - so in that sense it gets removed..right?

 

it's not just about removing identity it's about occupying the space with sound

it's something that used to happen in really dark clubs and warehouses, the sound became more physical and tangible, it works my synaesthesia more

what i like about sound is how it surrounds you, you are inside it even if it's coming out of one speaker

visual things can't really do that yet

 

oh not to mention the cheesiness of using projection mapping, it's like a corporate presentation or something

[auxien]

Just came across the thread and am still catching up so I apologize if these questions have been asked already:

 

The first webcast stream you two did in April of 05 had about 45ish minutes of ambience. Where did that come from, and did it get put into any released tracks? If not, you should do more heavy ambience like that. It's pretty great in the right moods (much like Perlence subrange 3-63).

You mentioned the We R Are Why EP was all done on a ry30. Are there any other EPs or perhaps some single tracks that were composed almost entirely on one piece of equipment? If there's a bunch, just maybe one or two examples would be cool!

How many Bronchus' are there?

Do either of you listen to much metal? There was that one track in the FACT Mix...

About a minute into Pro Radii there's the vocal snippet that sounds like "break;" is that a sample or not?

Have you ever come across a recording you did and had no clue how the hell you got those sounds? Any examples of this in tracks we know?

Thanks for the consistently great music. Feel free to ignore any questions if you just want to answer one or two.

[Sean Ae]

do you like germany? would you do some kind of tour here?

 

yeah a lot, yeah we will

[triachus]

where are your guy's avatars from? any reason you chose them?

[Sean Ae]

Hey guys, you've been a huge inspiration for me to make music, so thank you!! The possibilities of aural combinations and sound-scapes are virtually endless now with computers, which can be quite scary when you step up to a blank slate. You can go in ANY direction with any sound on a given track, and that just makes my head spin sometimes. I guess as a fellow explorer of the limitless electronic nebula my questions are:

 

• Do you go through a whole bunch of ideas/sounds/doodles before finding one worth polishing?
• How to you keep that "momentum" for a track going when you have to save it and come back to it the following days?
• Do you run into dry spells... times when you have all kinds of creative energy and drive but are unable to make anything decent?

I can't help get discouraged sometimes when making tracks, like I'll have a ton of lush individual sounds but no way to link them, or just a 10-20 second "clip" that I'll be unable to flesh out into a whole song. I get the sporadic drive to bang out a song maybe once every 50-100 ideas or sketches I make. This isn't something I plan on giving up on, this is a life path, something that I'll do until I'm dead because nothing beats that moment when things just "click" and you're bobbing your head to your own stuff. I'm just wondering if you had some tips for those times when nothing seems to be working out.

 

i tend to get into building something, usually when i'm doing that i'll notice something weird along the way and go off on some tangent exploring it, follow that trail where it leads

personal question and it feels weird typing this but here we go...

 

so the reason I asked multiple questions re elektron gear earlier is, I've been working on reverse-engineering their kit (MD & A4) and writing an app which uses the MIDI sysex interface to generate & remix patterns & kits/sounds on the fly, basically multiplying your hands & doing arithmetic-based things one likely wouldn't put into the sequencer by hand.

 

now, frankly... a big inspiration for doing this, and actually for coding in general, was and is your music. It likely wouldn't have occured to me that code can be a design tool at all if it weren't for Draft 7.30...

 

you said you're not using elektron kit anymore... would you be interested in having a look at that software i'm doing nonetheless?

i can't run it tho cos my elektrons are on loan atm

Edited November 3, 2013 by Sean Ae

[Guest rd1994]

do you think about emotions when making tracks? becuase I played VLETmx for a friend of mine and he found it so emotional that he literally broke down and cried

[DorkingtonPugsly]

Would you guys like to collab with Clark? Think his unique sounds + your guys' would turn out lush.

 

Sean will you not name by machinedrum and axoim 61 keyboard?

Without a name they will have no personality.

Without personality they will have no sounds.

Without sounds I cannot make the musics.

Without the musics there is no me.

[Sean Ae]

anyone you still want to collaborate with or remix?

 

yeah, DM

Has Ae done any recent remixes? Anything that will see a release?

 

yeah, oberman knocks, out sometime soonish