How did you get into Ae?

[cichlisuite 309]

It was probably spring of 2003, I spent some time in Paris on a art history excursion and had a really wonderful and inspiring time there. While roaming the streets of Paris I found a record shop. At that time I was a young techno/electro/detroit enthusiast and thought there is no greater music than that. So I was digging into their electronic music section, and found Miss Kittin's Radio Caroline vol.1 that had a very intriguing playlist (artists I knew at the time: Der Zyklus, Alexander Robotnick, Marshall Jefferson...). I bought it immediately and listened to it on my portable CD player (Sony Discman lol). Little did I know this particular record will change everything about me in relation to electronic music and music in general. It had Autechre's Flutter and Mu-ziq's remix of Kinesthesia's Flicklife and these tracks blew me away and all I was doing for the next several years was digging this immense treasure, eventually wandering way beyond just electronic music.

[dcom 1174]

Around the beginning of the 1990s I was already a Warp fan due to LFO's Frequencies.

Artificial Intelligence was released, and I proceeded to buy the rest of albums in the series as they came out.

I haven't stopped buying records from any of the artists featured on the series after that.

Autechre has always been the most important one.

 

[subsub 11]

I was already into Aphex and Boards at the time, I also had borrowed a copy of Chiastic Slide but it didn’t grab me after one or two spins. Then around 2002 I was in Barcelona and saw a cheap Confield cd and thought I would take a punt and had no expectations. 

Upon cranking it up on the stereo I was completely blown away. I recall the moment when it clicked for me was during Pen Expers, the combination of the stuttering beats and the majestic synth melody that slowly reveals itself. I had never heard anything like this album, it sounded so otherworldly and unlike any other electronic music. 

I was hooked from then on and have gone onto collect all their records, although I gravitate more towards the the abstract output. 

In terms of seeing them, I convinced a friend to go with me to the Autechre curated ATP, which was a lot of fun and they did a Gescom set. Although I had to wait a couple more years to experience an AE set. 

[BoaufStroganoff 8]

I was an pre-internet 2.0 exchange student for a year in Mexico city, in 98, and my mate was shipping tapes once in awhile cos that's a cool thing to do. I've heard what I didn't know was Eutow on one of his tape, recorded from some Belgian radio show. It Blew my mind..., rewound it like a million times, to the point that all the trebles were scratched away from the distorted tape. Still sounded amazing, if not more. Found out a year later that it was Autechre. I must still have that tape somewhere, in one of those boxes that also typically contain old business cards, a cool ashtray from your first apartment, dry stationary you'll never use again, funky keychains tied together, ikea allen keys, and tiny knickknacks you keep for god knows what reasons.

[Afrofinger 9]

Getting into Autechre was probably the single most significant music listening moment for me that's shaped my tastes so much ever since.  I used to stop by a cd store on the way home from university and check out whatever was on the listening station and was drawn to the black box artwork of LP5.  I gave it a listen and was confused but intrigued but not enough to buy it.  The next day i stopped by again and gave it another go and bought it. 

 

LP5 remains my fave Autechre album with Amber close behind then Chiastic Slide.  I'm pretty new here so explaining my autechre preferences overall i'd say I favour their output up until Confield the most but Elseq and NTS are right up there too.  I pretty much like all their output though.  They are my favourite band 🙂 

[WurstPLUS 21]

I'm 48, after Acid House (Baby Ford big love) there was an interlude with XL recordings, The Prodigy etc. 

Then there was the revelation called WARP. And LFO. I was crazy about them. I just bought all purple records. 

German Techno was stupid for me. GB was the holy island. 

On AI I got to know them and liked them. Not more. Incunabula was a wakeup call. Revelation 2. Also RDJ of course. I was crazy about Ventolin. 

Baby Ford btw. Oochy Koochy fat kick drums were special back then. Still listen to his old stuff. His S'Express rmx (Mantra for a state of mind) is awesome. Also Children of the revolution and Beach Bump - Colin Faver mix. Oops, offtopic.

A new aspect of WARP artists was, there was finally more interesting drum programming. Acid House was mostly monotonous in that regard. 

Oh I think I have a VHS recording of an earlier warp docu on mtv. I think it was wap100 time, not sure. 

Edited November 8, 2020 by WurstPLUS

[Amen Lare 300]

Welcome back

9 hours ago, WurstPLUS said:

Baby Ford btw. Oochy Koochy fat kick drums were special back then. Still listen to his old stuff. His S'Express rmx (Mantra for a state of mind) is awesome. Also Children of the revolution and Beach Bump - Colin Faver mix. Oops, offtopic.

It's rarely mentioned Baby Ford was far better after the minimalist turn, mid 90s to early 00s, pure class. Of acid house he wasn't a pioneer, just a competent import with pop sensibility. I think Ae mentioned Fordtrax (1988) among the favourite tracks on AI compilation debut, i would say that track's still non-cheesy unlike the rest of that era

[Chabraendeky 248]

14 hours ago, WurstPLUS said:

 

Oh I think I have a VHS recording of an earlier warp docu on mtv. I think it was wap100 time, not sure. 

I remember on a warp docu on the german Viva TV at the wap100 time. There are sections of it on YT.

 

[WurstPLUS 21]

6 hours ago, Amen Lare said:

Of acid house he wasn't a pioneer, just a competent import with pop sensibility.

Yeah that's right, no pioneer nor avantgarde... Stuff just worked for me. I have no knowledge about his music post (and including) Fordtrax. I think I tried it, but didn't like it.
I think he was a big one at that time, but is veeery rarely talked about today.

[dcom 1174]

39 minutes ago, WurstPLUS said:

Yeah that's right, no pioneer nor avantgarde... Stuff just worked for me. I have no knowledge about his music post (and including) Fordtrax. I think I tried it, but didn't like it.
I think he was a big one at that time, but is veeery rarely talked about today.

Ford's a treasure - there was a label called Insumision with nothing but Ford's releases, some great ones there like In Your Blood and Fetish; Monolense/Dead Eye on Ifach (run by Ford) was an underground hit, and there's of course Normal EP on RePHLeX; PAL SL is his other label - just to name a few. From the old ones Fordtrax (the track) is probably my biggest favourite, Oochy Coochy comes close second... but I digress.

 

Edited November 9, 2020 by dcom

[Amen Lare 300]

7 hours ago, WurstPLUS said:

Yeah that's right, no pioneer nor avantgarde... Stuff just worked for me. I have no knowledge about his music post (and including) Fordtrax. I think I tried it, but didn't like it.
I think he was a big one at that time, but is veeery rarely talked about today.

Ae even called him the favourite electronic artist at the time of AI, so the link is there

They also invited him to their curated ATP festival in 2003.

Here's a couple of tracks they played in marathons (recommend this Sacred Machine LP)

This one was even confused by people as unreleased Ae in recent mixlr chat (low bitrate blurs sound design) and Sean Anthony had to specify

 

[Chabraendeky 248]

"Dougans & Cockbain" 😄

[BUNKUM 86]

On 11/9/2020 at 4:20 PM, Chabraendeky said:

"Dougans & Cockbain" 😄

That’s correct, guess he changed it to avoid the cock pronunciation. Pretty sure I’ve got a release with this spelling

[Chabraendeky 248]

21 hours ago, BUNKUM said:

That’s correct, guess he changed it to avoid the cock pronunciation. Pretty sure I’ve got a release with this spelling

Thanks! I didn't knew that! 😮