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

[Sean Ae]

I am curious about the sound in We R Are Why and Gantz Graf.

At which released Autechre era do they belong to? Are they mutant? By era I mean LP release periods.

we r are why were the first two tracks we did on the ry30

they're both entirely done in the ry30 - with a bit of fx on the diff channels maybe, can't rem

 

gantz graf was done before ep7 was released but it was too distinct so we held it back, then it occurred to us to get alex to do a vid for it cos he'd already sent us some test vids so it got held back even longer

[poblequadrat]

In music and generally in anything that is designed, what do you think about technique, both by itself and when compared to theory (meaning any sort of reflection on technique), and what do you think about the way advances in electronic music are organised nowadays, where developments in both technique and theory seem to be something private, a particular musician's chops, or something tied to a very particular scene or genre?

 

What do you think about facelessness in techno in respect to this?

 

Thanks a lot to both of you for answering our questions!

[Kavinsky]

Does Nature have an impact on making new Tracks or even an Album ?

[jeremymacgregor87]

For someone who is for all intents and purposes musically illiterate, one constant I find in your music is a kind of buried, distorted, teasing, or muted melodic pull beneath your tracks - I refer especially to tracks like Zeiss Contarex or that hanging melody in Sublimit. At what point does this melodic payload enter the equation?

[Sean Ae]

For me, Treale has been a real highlight of your recent output. Is there anything you can tell us about that track?

 

Also how many North Face jackets between the two of you?

 

i don't own any and prob never will (i'm not the right shape)

i think rob might have about 40 or 50 of them though :D

[lumpenprol]

- what was the last track you finished where you just smiled and thought "yep, totally nailed it!"

 

- which track do you think took the shortest amount of time to make? The longest?

 

gantz graf was done before ep7 was released but it was too distinct so we held it back, then it occurred to us to get alex to do a vid for it cos he'd already sent us some test vids so it got held back even longer

 

 

just gotta say, mind blown

[cygnus]

on that third cut in tac lacora the kicks do something so vicious and its something ive heard in some of yr other tracks, its this thing where a kick behaves like reverb, or i dunno, like the opposite of a reverb - like if instead of creating the sense of things being on the outside with blues and greens what happens is its stuff on the inside with blacks and purples does that make sense, "dark reverb". when i listen to that track in my car its got this alarming/devastating effect and the timing of those kicks combined just makes it so brutal, it happens on reniform puls too and prob a bit more prevalent on that track. so what it does is this tectonic shifting that is funky and sounds like a kick drum but it sounds like it could definitely not be u feel me?. not even sure this is a question tbh.

 

but like,do u have that capability with your rig, to where you can be like, "ok these two sounds need to be connected with this element" and program drums that way?

 

do u miss programming drums with that bbox thing on the monomachine?

 

i failed that drug test but i hadnt smoked in over a month do u think it was from second hand inhalation from my housemate ? i couldnt believe it but when i found out i laughed idk

 

do u think that psi/mind/ is something important for kids to learn/know abt? thoughts on meditation/focus?

 

prob will post more questions

[Sean Ae]

Do you guys see a parallel between what you do and what classical composers or jazz musicians do? Do you like any of that stuff?

 

yeah sometimes i hear jazz and i like it a lot but i'm not digging into it or anything

like - phil washington (cygnus) sent me this album called yellow fields by eberhard weber which i reckon is amazing, silky smooth strings, but when i tried to follow it up by going thru other things he did or other ECM things none were as good. it tends to be a really occasional thing, where the sonics are just right or something.

classical, same thing really, it depends on how it was recorded a lot for me. like, i like shostakovich chamber works but only when the strings sound really grey, somehow that sounds like i imagine he wanted it to. i might be way off there tbh i know so little about him really

[cygnus]

btw i think u got trolled a few pages ago when he asked u a question about questions

[Sean Ae]

I'll try not to ask too many questions... but here's another one:

 

Even though I love Exai and your recent stuff (except Oversteps, that one totally misses me), one of my fav track of yours is Tazmx - I never really see this one get mentioned anywhere, but it's just such an honest, nice and atmospheric little piece. Do you have like an archive of some other old drafts or out-takes that you're not embarrassed about and might release some day?

 

And, if no release is scheduled anyway and Warp doesn't have their claw on it, would you be so kind and maybe even leak a track or two at some point?

 

warp actually own every sound we make (true story)

 

but yeah maybe some retro thing might happen one day. i dunno cos like, stuff like that never sounds as good to me as it apparently does to you lot

i do like how fsol keep doing those archives albums totally under the radar tho, they released like 10 albums without anyone noticing. i keep buying them as well

With the rise in prevalence in the 'alternative'/indie videogame scene, are there any games that you're interested in? I'm thinking of games like Memory of a Broken Dimension and Fract -

 

 

 

they both look totally wicked and no, i know nothing about them

[jeremymacgregor87]

I would like you to tell me how you feel about "see on see"

[Guest Rulohead32]

Yes, any curiosities about that song? It's one of my favourites all-time.

[Sean Ae]

Is improvised jazz a point of reference for the way you approach your live sets?

 

Edit: Doh a similar question was just asked..

 

nah, i mean our main inspiration was ppl like 808 state doing live acid tracks, and mantronik before that (he was using a studio 440 or an sp12 on stage)

we just thought that was how you did it, just plug the gear in and see what comes out rather than playing a song, we thought it would be more fun to store a ton of patterns and then manipulate the gear to create the arrangement on the spot

we weren't interested in jazz at all, more the idea of being able to do what a dj does but a lot more deeply

[lumpenprol]

- which one of you finishes the other guy's tracks most often? Is one of you more a starter than a finisher?

[cygnus]

i was talking to this friend the other night and he told me that when u hold yr finger up and move it from one point to the next its not really like pushing space out of the way or occupying new space but its more like pixels where your fingers disappearing and reappearing very quickly in the interim of that movement . (like thats what it would look like if u were to view the smallest individual things in the finger, u feel me) so first of all was he telling me the truth and if he is and thats the way the universe works then what can be said about things like biological systems that function on this macroscopic scale where things obey different rules ? what is the cause-determinant of the macroscopic thing and is this what they mean they say the universe is fine tuned? what is the fine tuner ?

[Sean Ae]

Grant Wilson Claridge has said he doesn't think Aphex will release any more records, because he has given out enough of his music already.

 

What motivates you guys to keep releasing?

 

 

that interview with grant is weird, it's like he genuinely doesn't understand why people release music

 

maybe someone fucked up his brain

[YELLOW]

Sean pls, any light you can shed on this Boards of Canada interview quote:

 

"We were in Germany with Autechre and we were all pissed off 'cos we hadn't been provided with a trailer. Sean from Autechre broke into someone else's trailer and stole loads of champagne, distributed them to everyone then got so plastered that he rugby-tackled a certain electronic artist into the mud!"

[Sean Ae]

when you say you make sequencers/synths, what's your preferred way of development? do you prefer clicking boxes in max or juggling your RAM in C?

 

i was getting quite into c a couple of years ago and then gen came out so i dropped it

i way prefer using max to coding

[Soloman Tump]

Hi Autechre, your music has defined my past 10 years of electronic enjoyment and helped me escape trance music clubbing. Tru facts!

Thanks for agreeing to do AAA, so far it has been very exciting to read your thoughts and really cements you as proper top geezers.

 

Here's my question.

 

Do you actively enjoy the live tours and festival gigs, or would you prefer to stay locked up in the studio making sounds?

In terms of UK festivals I cannot really see a specific festival that autechre could play at now. With the demise of Bloc and Glade over the past few years, UK electronic festivals seem to be in a pretty shit state.

 

On a side note, there is a great little club in Oxford called The Bully, I really think you should do a gig there. Hoofing soundsystem, and its basically a dark back room of a pub.

 

Cheers thanks

 

PS

 

 

 

[jeremymacgregor87]

Who does the descending bass lines?

[Sean Ae]

In music and generally in anything that is designed, what do you think about technique, both by itself and when compared to theory (meaning any sort of reflection on technique), and what do you think about the way advances in electronic music are organised nowadays, where developments in both technique and theory seem to be something private, a particular musician's chops, or something tied to a very particular scene or genre?

 

What do you think about facelessness in techno in respect to this?

 

Thanks a lot to both of you for answering our questions!

 

well theory is a bit stifling in some ways cos it gets in the way of nuanced development by forcing people to quickly apply categories to things and it can blind people to aspects of what they're being presented with, ironing out subtle differences or even preventing people learning their own techniques

 

facelessness was more about people not wanting to be famous, because connotations

[Guest cult fiction]

How do you store and organize your own music? If you have a half finished track you might want to pick up later, where does it go, and what is it called?

[Sean Ae]

btw i think u got trolled a few pages ago when he asked u a question about questions

 

you seem to be implying something

I would like you to tell me how you feel about "see on see"

 

surprised

Yes, any curiosities about that song? It's one of my favourites all-time.

 

just a lucky combination of parameters

[mcbpete]

Was there anything more distressing for a child in the UK growing up in the 80s than Threads? -

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MCbTvoNrAg

[Sean Ae]

i was talking to this friend the other night and he told me that when u hold yr finger up and move it from one point to the next its not really like pushing space out of the way or occupying new space but its more like pixels where your fingers disappearing and reappearing very quickly in the interim of that movement . (like thats what it would look like if u were to view the smallest individual things in the finger, u feel me) so first of all was he telling me the truth and if he is and thats the way the universe works then what can be said about things like biological systems that function on this macroscopic scale where things obey different rules ? what is the cause-determinant of the macroscopic thing and is this what they mean they say the universe is fine tuned? what is the fine tuner ?

 

bluefin