Autechre. NTS Residency. (_O_)

[Soloman Tump]

We have only heard 25% of this release.

Amazing - let that sink in.

I will critique it when its all out!

 

Its the same as only hearing elseq1 and forming an opinion.

[goodbyetheband]

well we're only talking about nts1. what, like we're not gonna talk about new ae?

[zlemflolia]

It isn't even the length of tracks/releases or style that's the problem, it's an alarming lack of hunger and exploration in their music, something that has been prominent regardless of the style or mood on a given release (started waning around Exai) Maybe it's just they're getting on a bit, what are they almost 50 now? They've found software/hardware that they like working with and they're comfortable doing this kind of music and releasing it at their leisure. It's a bit of a shame, but then again it had to taper off at some point right?

 

do you even l3 ctrl

[zlemflolia]

 

 

 

 

>what I'm saying is that writing circles onto lined paper is not "painstakingly crafted music".  it's certainly painstakingly crafted as, like, drawing or writing? but not as music, or at least it's certainly not coming across that way

>playing with codes

>codes

 

 

 

let's say that I'm a novelist, and that I invented an absurdly complicated word processing program, and then used that program to write a few long, rambling first-draft novels that didn't break any new ground ... would it matter how complicated my word processing program was?  I don't care if Rob and Sean are literally creating a new programming language from scratch, the music is all that matters

 

 

so their recent elseq + ae_live + nts.live style doesn't break new ground?  Awesome, I'm extremely happy to hear this because that must mean there is lots of other music just like this

 

Where is it, I'd love to buy it all

[Silent Member]

lol

[goDel]

regardless of the processes they use to make/write music, i see them as artists. there's not much else out there like them. they've created their own class of music, imo.

 

to me, they're more like van gogh. sure, their paintings have a certain signature. and currently they seem to be pretty much enjoying their process of making tunes. so the signature can become a little expected, if you will. but it's not about the familiarity of their signature. it's about the uniqueness of it, with respect to everything else that's out there.

 

it's ok if van gogh made more landscapes. it's still a uniquely van gogh landscape. same holds for autechre, imo. lots of new landscapes in the coming weeks :)

[misc]

 

 

 

 

 

Why do you think they stopped editing themselves? Doesn't "elseq" probably mean "edited live sequences"? I'm sure that they ARE able to go back and edit what they "jammed" live. Tho it's not really a jam as there was a long programming process beforehand.

 

slightly cleaning up live jams does not = painstakingly crafted music, which is what we had from 1993 to ~2012.

 

when i play a random 30-second selection of anything from exai / elseq / ae_live / nts, there's just not enough difference, the sonic 'playground' is way too similar ... i.e., as i said, they're now enslaved to whatever weird semi-AI they've written in MaxMSP, such that they literally stopped buying hardware and don't make music outside of MaxMSP now.

 

i mean, in general, i was intrigued by elseq and i think it was an interesting idea to edit live jams and release a massive mp3 album; not a bad idea, and the tracks are pretty good. but they're literally just doing "elseq two: electric boogaloo" at this point, like, here's eight more hours of the same effing thing (obviously some differences but meh)

I think it still is painstakingly crafted, maybe even more than before. Everything they do happens within parameters they set, every detail is exactly how they programmed it. Sean says:

With this kind of algorithmic music, because the algorithms are made by people, it is people music! You get that thing of, "Eww, it's not human!" But that's so far off how I think of it. I think of it as being more human, because there's all these decisions in there, and they're human decisions. They're what people chose to do.

Generating the music using their custom code is actually more expressive than placing every single sound by hand I believe.

 

 

 

Here's a link to their elseq interview in case anyone wants to read it again: https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/2756

This. I don't know how their system is designed but I assume they've created a very mature set of black box abstractions which they can hook together as they please. This gives enormous flexibility and allows experimentation and orchestration at a much higher level, ironically reaching a much finer level of detail despite these finer details being abstracted away from the user.

 

The balance between high and low level is always difficult. Play instruments by hand is kind of like programming in some shitty inflexible language because you literally only have two hands and one instrument texture. Programming sequencers is kind of like programming in C. I assume they're created something like C++ where they can reach immense abstraction but also drop down to the metaphorical assembly level (sample-level math operations) any time they please through gen~

 

Instead of re-writing container classes all the time in C or using weirdly implemented once you can just use very clean and well defined std::vectors for instance. Similarly in a well implemented Max/MSP framework you could create high levels of abstraction with regards to high level abstract DSP primitives

 

I assume that if they had to they could whip together something really abstract and weird in a short amount of time whereas most electronic musician's workflows would require them to work really hard to do that. With a well designed system abstraction can be a primitive which can be manipulated in arbitrary but well defined ways whereas with typical synth programming you have to do everything, and this limits expressiveness because you have to express everything manually, whereas with abstract generative methods you can express broad abstract concepts with limited amounts of code

 

I'm probably projecting a lot and I'm a programmer not a musician so that influences my thoughts on the matter. I wrote some rants on the matter years ago but never got around to actually implementing anything. The Max half of Max/MSP is a pretty shitty programming language imo with a lot of weird hacks and unexpected behavior, I'd love it there was a more perfectly implemented version without the weird shit because it would increase agility tremendously instead of being a headache. Ideally you can do this all in plain MSP but it requires much more processing power and you lose the nice event processing abstractions of Max.

This is all really interesting and I agree completely. The thing is, with the few releases before nts1 I really got the feeling that I was listening to something that could only be made on this system they'd built. Like it really felt like what you were hearing was uniquely autechre, it just wouldn't be feasible for anyone else to make this music, and that was the product of this constant experimentation they've been doing in max. I'm just not getting that at all with nts1. It doesn't really sound like it'd need to be made in this software they've built, whatever form it takes. Which again is fine, I don't wanna criticise that cause people are liking the tunes. It just to me feels like a bit of a step back from the level at which they were working.

 

What would be incredible, although I don't wanna get my hopes up, is if the point of these 4 sessions was to showcase the versatility of the max system they've built. So each session was a live generation of a different style. Could have this one, then a more abstract one, an ambient one, and then finally the hip hop one they've been talking about wanting to do. Honestly that'd be incredible, something for everyone.

[Bertolt Brechtakt]

You all should check the Autechre Shop!

Like NOW!

[Guest]

CUMMMMMMMMMMMMMM together

[hello spiral]

lol, have you been asleep for 3 days?

[oscillik]

Is this released yet?

[zlemflolia]

It will be released in 4 parts, one for each nts.live radio show, and the cd/vinyls will be shipped in august I think

 

the digital downloads are available immediately after the live show plays, and one has already played, another is playing this thursday, so you can get part 1 now and part 2 thursday

 

https://autechre.bleepstores.com/

[hello spiral]

Autechre (/ɔːˈtɛkər/) are an English electronic music duo consisting of Rob Brown and Sean Booth, both from Rochdale, Greater Manchester. Formed in 1987, they are one of the most popular acts signed to UK electronic label Warp Records, through which all of Autechre's full-length albums have been released beginning in 1993 with Incunabula. They have also worked closely with the label Skam.

The music of Autechre has shifted gradually throughout their career, from their earlier work's roots in techno, electro, and hip hop to later albums often considered experimental in nature, featuring complex drum programming, subdued melodies, and few stylistic conventions.^[1] Their work has been heavily associated with the 1990s electronic genre later known as intelligent dance music (IDM)

[Stock]

I don't understand the hate towards the maxMSP thing really. They just refined their art to the point where they design themselves every tool they need. That's quite possibly the maximal dedication one can give to its art isn't it ?

 

That being said I'm not 100% fan of their stuff since Exai. But I read their RA interview for the first time yesterday and I was really happy for them because you can feel how much work has been put within this and how they are probably enjoying themselves more than they did anytime in their career!!!

[d-a-m-o]

Next set will be rob's soul album.

[Guest]

[Silent Member]

lol

[hello spiral]

lol

[d-a-m-o]

lol

[AnwarAutokino]

Next set will be rob's soul album.

i hope so

[Silent Member]

Fuck

[Stock]

lol

[xox]

i wouldnt place this release (so far) on the same level as their 'proper' album/ep releases. non of this tracks are not even close to elseq or exai or overmoves...tracks. remember pendulu hv moda, elyc6 0nset, foldfree, latentcall, oneum? or irelite, bladelores, 1 1 is and cloudlines? remember cep puig, see on see and treale?

hey faaaq remember recks on and yjy ux?! 

 

i like this release so far and i believe that we can expect nothing short than pure bliss and excellence this month but i also believe that a 'proper' release is on its way

Edited April 11, 2018 by xox

[Guest]

cmon duderos ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

how long have u been listening to the bois

best way is always without any historic baggage

breathe

listen

cummmmm

[jasondonervan]

 

*Nutechre exai-tement*