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

[rekosn]

 

any of you ever get tinnitus? (esp.after too much fm)

how do you get around it, when it stays for a while?(days, weeks)

 

yeah i have pretty constant hf tinnitus and occasionally i will get either a kind of rippling bass sound or like a 70% reduction, both of which can last for anything from a few seconds to a few hours, and then seem to clear up by themselves. i found that listening to computerworld by kraftwerk seems to make them go away faster.

not joking there, it works for some reason. prob cos it's a neural feedback thing, i think i'm shoving something in the feedback path and kind of washing it out.

 

hehe thank you, will try it

havent listened to computer world in a long time

[Sean Ae]

Hey Rob! Hey Sean!

 

What is your stance on illegal file sharing?

A collab with VHS Head possible in the future?

What are your thoughts on Vatican Shadow output?

That last track on Radio mix - one of your own unreleased tracks or a remix?

Sean, that Casio Databank is still working?

 

Thanks!

 

voice in my head saying 'do not answer' every time i see your name

 

answered about filesharing already, don't mind as long as i can live off music

dunno, it never came up, but i like his stuff loads. not sure how good a collab would be he has his thing i dunno how we would make it any better

i've not heard enough to comment

unreleased track

nah it snapped where the strap goes , got a replacement

[coax]

are you already now starting to hear material you would release on a new album? and like, since your albums sound so different from one album to the next, do the tracks typically come from the same sessions or do you pick and choose from tracks before like, the previous album and so forth. and do you find that you have many aesthetics and ideas that are not released that you could have done a new album out of?

also i sent you a pm sean if you wanna check;

[Guest Melissa]

To be fair.... I'd be dead happy if you just said Hello to me? I've got no smart or relevant questions or input....

Edited November 4, 2013 by Melissa

[Guest WNS000]

and like, since your albums sound so different from one album to the next, do the tracks typically come from the same sessions or do you pick and choose from tracks before like, the previous album and so forth. and do you find that you have many aesthetics and ideas that are not released that you could have done a new album out of?

 

Good question.

Edited November 4, 2013 by Jev

[Sean Ae]

Hello Gents.

 

Was wondering about the soundtrack work. I know you can't talk about current things in development (or not) but I did want to know if there were any films you wish you could have scored, or how you would have approached the scoring of certain genre films (say Blade Runner, or Alien for example)

 

Thanks!

 

kind of hard for me to separate the existing soundtracks from the films, to me blade runner would be shit without vangelis

and i know he doesn't rate it but i reckon the alien music is some of the best stuff goldsmith did

 

so i dunno, 'what they did' basically

[Redruth]

thx

[Sean Ae]

Word up, Ae. I recently found a few of your old radio mixes on my old Compaq desktop PC (XFM, Breezeblock and Solid Steel), it was great to hear them again (big chunks of Wendy Carlos and Hafler Trio on that Breezeblock Mix :-D). I know you guys do the massive webcast marathons but does it work differently for the radio output? does the station come to you and you post them a CD of a half hour mix? And are you inundated with requests for this type of stuff in the lead up to an album release?

 

yeah back then we would just mail them a cd, nowadays it's file transfers

not usually inundated, but if i told warp we want to do as many as possible then we are, just depends on how available we make ourselves

[soundwave]

Sorry I'm late to the party and I will get through 59 pages eventually but if it hasn't already been asked what main bits of kit/software have been most influential in defining Autechre's sound over the years?

 

Also would you ever consider doing work with analogue synthesis?

[Schlitze]

 

Hello Gents.

 

Was wondering about the soundtrack work. I know you can't talk about current things in development (or not) but I did want to know if there were any films you wish you could have scored, or how you would have approached the scoring of certain genre films (say Blade Runner, or Alien for example)

 

Thanks!

 

kind of hard for me to separate the existing soundtracks from the films, to me blade runner would be shit without vangelis

and i know he doesn't rate it but i reckon the alien music is some of the best stuff goldsmith did

 

so i dunno, 'what they did' basically

 

Best Goldsmith tune is The Omen, but best soundtrack as a whole is Alien. They played the soothing tracks nicely in Alien,Even during tense scenes.

[Redruth]

recks on listens like scorn collaboration would u say no?

[Guest northernplastic]

What do you think of Yoko Ono's latest stroke of genius?

 

[Sean Ae]

what do you think of nine inch nails and trent reznor's recent output? i recall trent mentioning that you have been an influence on his music making from the late 90s onwards....

 

really? i can't hear it

[fizzkinz]

recks on listens like scorn collaboration would u say no?

nah recks on is an 80s hip hop homage, that emu snare is on loads of hip hop records, and the booming 808 etc. more of a shout to meat beat manifesto, renegade soundwave, keith leblanc, duke bootee etc

but i can see why someone who doesn't really listen to 80s hip hop but listens to scorn might think that

[Redruth]

oh' just as well

[MadameChaos]

you said you like Lynch's films, but do you like his music?

 

[Sean Ae]

related to your reply to i believe it was awe's question about the NSA to which you said it (spying) was a necessary phase-

 

so in the nearish future when brain implants, chips that allow you to connect your brain directly to your computer are available, will either/both of you say 'damn the torpedoes' (in this case the torpedoes being the american gov and possibly other govs recording every thought you have in a secret facility somewhere, and organizing all the data into various cross-referenced, instantly searchable databases, to be used in who knows what ways), and go ahead and get one so you can control your max patches directly with your brain waves? assuming you don't already. is that what you meant by saying the NSA stuff is part of a necessary phase? that all of this is inevitable, that all of our brains are going to be under direct monitoring by gov/commercial entities but that we have to accept that if we want the cool shit like robot servants that bring us our tea when we think about tea, or being able to compose tracks with our thoughts like raymond scott wanted to do?

 

nah

i don't know why everyone is focusing so much on the nsa

everyone's at it, all spying on each other

it's not like some nice neat pyramid, it's like a web

 

in the future we're gonna be so much more networked than this, even the concept of monitoring will be totally antiquated

[Rob Ae]

What do you think of Yoko Ono's latest stroke of genius?

 

 

Makes me instantly think of all the things New York is capable of.

[Guest billybrown]

Would Max be your main composition tool?

[xox]

I apologize for my English in advance.

Before I come to my question I have to explain some things that you know where I coming from, please bear with me...what I'm actually asking...

 

 

Avoiding fancy philosophical terms (just cause I’m ignorant actually), lets assume that Reality is something that really exists outside our minds and that is the reality that we discover and upgrade (for example, through science, art, dreams and daily contemplation), and that our personal truth is only our personal interpretation of the Reality. Therefore people would differentiate in levels of objectivity and genius in art is nothing but the highest level of objectivity in the interpretation of the reality with an ability to convert it in consumable form of art. What helps this artist to achieve that highest level is comprehension/ cognition/ of the reality as parts of things and ideas separate from himself in every sense, and as such they can be viewed objectively, and then he can cognize them freely by unconscious reasoning and conscious recognition as ‘true’ .... He feels/knows that there is something worthwhile and follows it to see where it will lead him. It is desire for knowledge and thirst for the truth that push him, and he would not have required motivation if he doesn’t believe that the reality is ‘pretty’ and interesting, like a fractal.

Furthermore he/they can name a project Autechre which is also seen as something separate from him/them or at least as an intersection halfway between Reality and his/their own personality/subjectivity. When the artist comes to this intersection he brings to the table things like: psychological openness to knowledge, intellectual ability, lateral horizon of ideas (the main requirement of creativity) , taste / aesthetic preferences, morality (yes, I do think so) , perseverance, diligence , precision, technical skills, time, money, etc…but gains more of the objectivity as an award so he can enjoy the reality even more. It’s a feedback loop actually IMO. That's why genius has the most benefit from his ingenuity... He knows it when he sees it.

Today, all call for relativism and subjectivity like it’s the holly grail of in cognition. Less and less ppl believe in One Objective Reality. Everyone just wants to selfishly ‘‘Express themselves’’ but have not much to show ... if they have they wouldn’t want it. This is also a feedback loop. Someone upstairs have a great sense of humor I guess…

I know that not everybody has all the ability but I'm actually talking about morality in art. One can only resonate with what he is.

The only artist i could compare you to is Beethoven, lots of reasons (the only artist i love more than you guys [sorry, sorry]). Non could beat him in morality.

Interestingly, Beethoven was the first romantic, one could ask how romanticism can be 'objective', especially him? It's not music that has to be objective at first IMO but the composer behind it and you'll see objectivity in the music eventually. Big subject, could wright for days. Sorry for this... i feel like a total dush ...

 

Question:

Do you think that tilting in favor of the objectivity in oppose to focusing on self- expression stripped of Reality is possible to be the norm again (as it was in time of classicism) and should it?

I don't assume it should be black or white but still in general… what are your thoughts about it?

Edited November 4, 2013 by xox

[Rob Ae]

you said you like Lynch's films, but do you like his music?

 

 

Really like the track Crazy Clown Time ,I prefer the dirtier side of his music to the slinky housey stuff

 

But the most special ones like the thought gang tracks with angelo badalamenti,

 

Pink room.

[lamourfou]

Hello Rob and Sean. Been listening to your work for maybe 10 years now (I've never thought about it that way - crazy to say). I have a very specific question about a single track. Surripere. It has been my favourite since Draft came out and seems to have a narrative to it, a story almost. Do you remember the process? Or could you pick a track you could give some more meaning to? (Surripere to me is an alien train on a doomed path).

 

I imagine your tracks as pulsing and moving visual objects or scenes, do you ever think of them visually?

[Sean Ae]

 

 

but i can see why someone who doesn't really listen to 80s hip hop but listens to scorn might think that

 

which is exactly me, thanks for answering. I think what made me think of Scorn wasn't so much the drums but that really nasty filtered pad sound kind of reminiscent of a Virus synth combined with the 80s hiphop vibes like Mick used a lot back on Plan B and his records in the early 00s

 

 

oh, that's a piano, funny

[Guest Tok]

Do you guys have a favorite programming paradigm? Maybe even a favorite language?

[Guest northernplastic]

 

you said you like Lynch's films, but do you like his music?

 

Really like the track Crazy Clown Time ,I prefer the dirtier side of his music to the slinky housey stuff

 

But the most special ones like the thought gang tracks with angelo badalamenti,

 

Pink room.

 

 

I guess you like Twin Peaks?