IS IT WASHAPOLL? - ILM ARTIST POLL #57 - AUTECHRE - RESULTS thread

Big thanks to ledge, who did 110% of the graphics for the main poll, and everyone who sent in a ballot (all 20 of us).

Roll-out order:
Remixes
Non-AE
Albums
Tracks

18T. Silvania - 1Belm : Autechre Mx - 28 points | 1 vote
http://youtu.be/Q4hkNzD9H3U

18T. Tortoise - Ten-Day Interval (To Day Retreival) - 28 points | 1 vote
http://youtu.be/SkHIVu06Nh8

18T. Slowly - On The Loose (Autechre's For Internal Use Only Mix) - 28 points
| 1 vote
http://youtu.be/EiDADIjHvdc
18T. Black Dog - Tunnels Ov Set (Autechre Remix) - 28 points | 1 vote
http://youtu.be/n-08N2Vzo9g

17. Scorn - Falling (Autechre - "FR 13" Mix) - 30 points | 1 vote
http://youtu.be/okKFz-lKTg0

14T. Higher Intelligence Agency - Speech3 (Conoid Tone reformed by Autechre)
- 33 points | 1 vote
http://youtu.be/0xzk9y8J_TM
14T. Gescom - Keynell (Mix 2) - 33 points | 1 vote
http://youtu.be/dRj26_olsYY
14T. Impulse - One-Six-Four-Seven (Numbers Rammed down My Ear Mix by ae) - 33
points | 1 vote
http://youtu.be/71Y_ZEr30q4?t=35m17s

12T. DJ Food - sexy bits (AE9V) - 36 points | 1 vote
http://youtu.be/A1EUn6SRiZQ
12T. Buck-Tick - Iconoclasm (Don't X Ray Da DAT Mix) - 36 points | 1 vote
http://youtu.be/8vej5V_OI6c

11. Soft Ballet - Jail Of Freedom (Jailtilsli) - 58 points | 2 votes
http://youtu.be/63ztC74ODRI

Continues tomorrow.

You tease

http://i.imgur.com/34lbnUJ.gif

10. Seefeel - Spangle (Autechre Remix) - 60 points | 2 votes
http://youtu.be/9kx5zS92Bn0

9. Earth - Coda Maestoso in F(flat) Minor - 61 points | 2 votes
http://youtu.be/9NT3Kls8Jek

8. Gescom - Viral Rival (Rmxd By Ae) - 69 points | 2 votes
http://youtu.be/TTc9zYFi4Kw

7. Dominique Dalcan - Aveugle & Sourd (Autechre mix) - 72 points | 2 votes
http://youtu.be/w4pg_UkqF2U

9. Earth - Coda Maestoso in F(flat) Minor - 61 points | 2 votes

\m/

glad i'm not the only vote for this one

Is it actually a remix? It sounds like a reverse Aphex Twin mix where Autechre didn't change a damn thing.

Not that that stopped me from voting for it.

5T. Beaumont Hannant - Psi-Onyx (Psix Million Dollar Myx Oscar Goldmans Bonus
) - 76 points | 2 votes | 1 #1 vote
http://youtu.be/ilRTFwJXCXE
5T. Palm Skin Productions - The Beast (Autechre Mix) - 76 points | 2 votes |
1 #1 vote
http://youtu.be/tnml0qU4S54

4. Stereolab - Refractions In The Plastic Pulse (Feebate Mix) - 80 points | 2
votes | 2 #1 votes
http://youtu.be/uZja9HKh0Q4

3. Gescom - Keynell (Mix 1) - 91 points | 3 votes
http://youtu.be/bMxj75WvOWg

Pitchfork: If you compare the collaborative EPs with Hafler Trio to your new remix of "Earth" [on the Earth remixes CD on No Quarter records], it seems like lately you are really careful and respectful with other people's material.

Autechre: The "Earth" remix is something we've wanted to do for ages.

Pitchfork: I listened to it and I could barely tell it was you-- it's like you've disappeared into it.

Autechre: We wanted it to just sound like an alternative recording of the same song. We did the mix, we went in there and we did, well, I wouldn't call it a dub-- I mean I'm sure there's people that feel that it's not a dub unless you
do a wild parametric sweep or something...

Pitchfork: Yeah, but they don't read Pitchfork.

Autechre: Okay, well anyway. There's what I think of as dub as a genre and then there's the actual process.

Pitchfork: That snare was the only part that sounded like you.

Autechre: Yeah. It's their snare but it's been gated and compressed and mixed differently, and messed around with. We almost could have done all of "Phase III", which would have been amazing. Having the opportunity to do that is just killer basically. I mean, I don't care about how it's viewed as an operation. It's something I've wanted to do for ages.

from the WATMM forums

They fade in the bass and 2nd guitar later in the track, and then cut out the main distorted guitar before the solo at the end. Bringing back the main riff in the middle of the solo really adds some punch to the climax of the song, I think. I also like how they emphasize the grit in the main riff, even bringing out that little mistake a few measures in.

Then there's the bit of background noise in the beginning ... and the end is a little more coherent. The harmonic feedback in the original fade-out sounds a bit out of tune to me, and they EQ'd it out of the mix.

I've always wanted to hear them produce someone else's work.

Interesting! Thanks for the contexts.

2. Lexis - Hypnotise (Autechre Slow Mix) - 103 points | 3 votes | 1 #1 vote
http://youtu.be/xVY1mqCeKvg

1. Saint Etienne - Like a Motorway (Skin up You're Already Dead mix) - 110 points | 3 votes | 2 #1 votes
http://youtu.be/u5spbpRZnl0

14T. Lego Feet - Side B - 28 points | 1 vote
http://youtu.be/PLNsKZzSzg4
14T. Gescom - Go Sumo - 28 points | 1 vote
http://youtu.be/bVyXFzwhMtE

12T. Lego Feet - Keyop - 30 points | 1 vote
http://youtu.be/-WoeJPbe1Mg
12T. Gescom - Stoop - 30 points | 1 vote

11. Gescom - Mag - 33 points | 1 vote
http://youtu.be/I7G0WDrCC9o

8T. Gescom - Viral Rival (Rmxd By Ae) - 36 points | 1 vote
http://youtu.be/TTc9zYFi4Kw
8T. Gescom - Skfl2 - 36 points | 1 vote
http://youtu.be/T8GHDdMPwdU
8T. Gescom - Sciew Spoc - 36 points | 1 vote
http://youtu.be/pG9kEw6TGOI

7. Gescom - Two Of - 40 points | 1 vote | 1 #1 vote
http://youtu.be/1pSJmnxCdjo

6. Gescom - Keynell 1 - 58 points | 2 votes
http://youtu.be/5srVPfWo99A

5. Lego Feet - Leaves on the Line - 61 points | 2 votes
http://youtu.be/MMG1SAxV__o

4. Gescom - Puzl - 63 points | 2 votes
http://youtu.be/wQxE7Kg2LWQ

3. Gescom - Keynell 3 - 66 points | 2 votes
http://youtu.be/nW4UUfiP1Xk
[

2. Gescom - Go Sheep - 112 points | 3 votes | 1 #1 vote
http://youtu.be/qSapf8_mE1w

1. Gescom - Keynell 4 - 120 points | 3 votes | 3 #1 votes
http://youtu.be/Qam7mKlc21Q

aw man, i'm the only vote for "two of"?

autechre at their detroit-est!

I was casting around a bit for gescom votes, never properly absorbed a lot of their stuff. Sure I've got those lego feet tracks at 12 and 5 but they didn't show up in itunes, probably because itunes is shit. Keynell 4 is no question the winner for me though, absolutely classic ae style slow build up and fade out of all the different elements.

I mean I'm sure there's people that feel that it's not a dub unless you do a wild parametric sweep or something...

Pitchfork: Yeah, but they don't read Pitchfork.

Autechre: Okay, well anyway.

possibly the most revealing three lines of dialogue in any pfork interview ever

the Coda Maestoso remix is exquisite but it was also the only one I knew, so I didn't vote

I didn't vote in the non-AE poll but voted for the Keynell EP in the other polls. Glad to see it getting so much love here, I've always thought it was way underrated even by hardcore fans.

I'm listening to some of the remixes I didn't have time to hear when I put together my ballot. I forgot how good the Slowly remix is! I'm not sure why I didn't vote for the HIA remix either -- I played that EP to death when it came out.

I like the poll title. Not tempted by Kalpoll Introll then? ;)

Or Polled4,Wrap5

Keynell 4 the win! That track is an absolute epic. Glad I wasn't the only one who thought so.

glad "go sheep" got love

Go sheep was my #2 non-Ae track

Kapoll Intro would've been a good one!

IncunaPOLLa -- Autechre :: LP1 :: Incunabula
POLL4, Wrap5 -- Autechre :: LP5 :: LP5

~* ALBUMS + EPS *~

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/25/Autechre_untilted_cover.jpg

10. Untilted - 208 points | 7 votes | 1 #1 vote

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8b/Autechre.garbage.jpg

9. Garbage - 218 points | 7 votes | 1 #1 vote

http://cdn.albumoftheyear.org/album/draft-730.jpg

8. Draft 7.30 - 228 points | 7 votes | 2 #1 votes

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/93253207/Anvil+Vapre+AnvilVapre+PNG.png

7. Anvil Vapre - 231 points | 9 votes

albums by autechre ✓

eps by autechre ✓

I'm the #1 voter for Garbage. I remember back in 1995 when music was expensive it was great getting a 40 minute album for the price of a single. Even if the music wasn't that great. However that wasn't the case here, two tracks on this still ones that kill me every time.

It's probably my least favourite cover though

only 7 votes for Draft? ah well. my #1, obviously

also it has the best cover maybe in popular music history

Love Garbage, when I was putting my ballot together, its ambient vibe just hit me in the right spot: mournful and beautiful.

draft my #1 album

Checking my list I actually had Garbage at number 2. Oops.
Imago, agreed about the draft artwork. Wish I had that on vinyl.

not so much thats its their best or even my favourite just that it best represents their most valuable qualities

http://31.media.tumblr.com/c22525e00724386aa4866f72a74d7cff/tumblr_mihlhlqhQi1qb4lmho1_500.gif

6. Exai - 233 points | 8 votes

I realized when listening to albums in order to put together a ballot that I never completed that in fact, the recent Autechre is the band I love most. Didn't expect that.

Exai is great imo!

http://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4050/4294107444_ea92ef6bca.jpg

5. Amber - 342 points | 11 votes | 2 #1 votes

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41l94unr%2B%2BL.jpg

4. Chiastic Slide - 385 points | 12 votes | 2 #1 votes

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/75/21/ef4b71a88da0dd363266e110.L.jpg

3. Confield - 395 points | 13 votes | 2 #1 votes

https://38.media.tumblr.com/d86a16bb49ba0109a86ded26dd6dd2ce/tumblr_mxygjjRgJq1qkj39po1_500.jpg

2. Tri Repetae - 455 points | 14 votes | 4 #1 votes

Amber is my favourite instrumental electronic record of all time

wow surprised envane didn't place!

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/14167355/Cavity+Job+hard003front.jpg

1. Cavity Job - 699 points | 69 votes

fail

ha

(you got me tho)

hey.. wait a minute..

Correction!

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41vQ9ht8gmL.jpg

10. Gantz Graf - 212 points | 7 votes | 1 #1 vote

Everything is correct.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41kdfEYU0HL._SS500_.jpg

1. LP5 - 476 points | 15 votes | 3 #1 votes

things i voted for

Gantz Graf
Peel Session
Draft 7.30
LP5
Untilted
Confield
Quaristice.Quadrange.ep.ae
Tri Repetae
Peel Session 2
Exai

Voted for Draft 7.30, Confield, Untilted and Gantz Graf in that order. Will be using the tracks poll to direct any concerted further listening, but I've heard stuff from all the LPs at least, and this run of material, for me at least, stands out (above most music, let alone Autechre)

my ballot ... also surprised ep7 didn't place

#1 tri repetae
lp5
envane
chiastic slide
anti EP
anvil vapre
EP7
confield
amber
gantz graf

glad that gantz graf made the top 10. I almost voted it #1. It probably is their high point, but ended up voting confield #1 because there's just because it's a full album and there is therefore more stuff to enjoy.

my ballot:

1. Confield
2. Gantz Graf
3. Draft 7.30
4. EP7
5. Quaristice.Quadrange.ep.ae
6. Exai
7. LP5
8. Garbage
9. Chiastic Slide
10. Oversteps

A teaser.

http://i.imgur.com/PQspWIa.jpg

49T. 6IE.CR - 64 points | 2 votes | 1 #1 vote

What could possibly have tied with 6IE.CR? Check back tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion.

wow LP5 with a pretty bare margin

My list is dedicated to sixteen years of not getting the love for LP5

Chiastic Slide
Amber
Garbage
Incunabula
Confield
Key Nell
Tri Repetae
Anvil Vapre
Peel Sessions 1
Ganz Graf

don't get LP5? have ryan schreiber explain it to you!

http://web.archive.org/web/20050404023546/http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/a/autechre/autechre.shtml

Hah! I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that people were pining for the 'old' Autechre when LP5 came out.

Was surprised that I couldn't find a place for Amber on my list. Always felt it was rough and an unfinished vision that was put into focus much, much better on subsequent EPs and Tri Repetae. Exai, while a touch bloated, is a sonic monster of beauty and nearly the best thing they've done. I somewhat regret not having Key Nell in my ballot. It's probably their best EP when all is said and done.

1 Chiastic Slide
2 Exai
3 Tri Repetae
4 LP5
5 Untilted
6 Envane
7 Incunabula
8 Draft 7:30
9 Anvil Vapre
10 Cichlisuite

No Amber for me, either. I fact I was surprised at how little time I have these days for the albums prior to LP5 ... Still like 'em, just never seem to listen anymore. I would say it was down to over-familiarity, but I play the contemporaneous EPs all the time. Anti - Garbage - Anvil Vapre - Envane - Cichlisuite - Peel Session is a pretty formidable run.

Also, not enough love for Quaristice!!

1. LP5
2. Envane
3. Draft 7.30
4. Garbage
5. Peel Session 1
6. Untilted
7. Quaristice
8. Exai
9. Anti
10. Confield

don't get LP5? have ryan schreiber explain it to you!

haha

Their sound has come to define drill-n-bass

hmmmmmmm ...

So, rather than looking at Autechre as a crappy, self- indulgent, overly- experimental release from an otherwise brilliant band

It's their least experimental release by far -- that's why I've never been high on it!

In a personal aside, I think "LP5" was the most I ever paid for a new CD (non-special edition, box set, etc.) I was in Ottawa and I could only find one good store for electronic music. I think I paid 33 CDN -- the price only added to my disappointment about the quality of the album.

LP5 is brilliant. Very surprised at EP7 not making it - sometimes it's my favourite thing they ever did.

The one I don't get the love for is Tri Repetae - always saw that as a transitional album between old and mid-period Autechre with too much reliance on crunchy hip hop beats (not bad in themselves) but not enough melodic touches.

/geirhongroetc...

Oh look, my #1 track already made it. Might as well leave the thread for good now! Unless you want an essay about why 6ie.cr is the best Autechre song?

Would read.

Especially since yours and my Autechre tastes seem to occupy polar opposites. Always foudn the Confield through Untilted period hard going.

#1 vote for Go Sheep was mine and Envane was top of my albums picks.

I've sold two copies of Keynell; don't like it all that much, bit dour (LOL). The remixes on Warp are a much better thing IMO.

I had a copy of Cavity Job that I got for £4 in a Music & Video Exchange.

Apparently it doesn't even command very high prices now so I guess I sold that one at the right time! Would still be pretty funny in a hardcore set.

here's my pretty predictable top 5:

1. Tri Repetae
2. Confield
3. LP5
4. Chiastic Slide
5. Amber

I didn't get around to listening to the EPs aside from EP7, which was a near miss.

Ok -

6ie.cr is placed rather unassumingly third on Autechre's most anecdotally impenetrable record - neither a deep cut nor a lead-off track, it occupies a position one might expect (were this a rock album) of a single. Autechre are often described as 'intelligent dance music' - however misleading or reductive this descriptor, it does lead one to hope that occasionally they will bang - they will produce the kind of music that doesn't just suggest kinetics but demands them, triggers involuntary physical movements, appeals to the reptilian rhythm located in every avant-garde music fan's hindbrain. 6ie.cr is Draft 7.30's single, then, and it bangs - it bangs harder than more or less any straight 4/4 club anthem you could name (although don't forget that unlike some Autechre it's also 4/4 and doesn't really deviate from this). It piles in immediately with an extraordinary, raucous lightspeed cataract of drum sounds, in turns smudging into one another and then crisply demarcating the different edges of the beat, all while making the sort of unignorably vibrant sorts of noises that trigger instant synaesthesia in whichever listeners don't instantly reach for the skip button (if ever a first 3 seconds of a song must polarise an audience). Possibly key to it all is the infinitesimal silence between the very first drum sound and the rest of the song - you're hooked inside the first quarter-second, then immediately bludgeoned with the whole palette. This astonishing, futuristic beat makes me dance. It makes me bob my head, stand up and pull all sorts of fluid robot moves, body-pop, you name it. It's pure kinesis and I can't get enough of it. I'm familiar enough with the opening few bars to essay my own beatboxed attempt at imitation, although such is the precision of the sounds Autechre produce, it must only work in my head.

So then, almost immediately, the beat changes. Or rather, it keeps its overall structure, but initially minuscule amendments begin to creep in - longer blurs, quicker cut-outs, extra bleeps - mostly during the 'falling downstairs' second half of the cadence. It's tremendously appealing, but while I'm trying to keep up with this, the melody becomes apparent - what sounds like a sampled string instrument playing an extremely funky, minimal, off-kilter riff in the background. As the beat is manipulated towards greater heights of sensory overload, the sampled riff also passes through subtle changes, mostly truncations of the first note. Then, about a minute in, the riff drops out entirely, and returns a bar later in a different key - this commences Phase Two of the song, probably its most important part.

Except the riff doesn't quite return as before - it threatens to play out but then shifts a further key upwards. We now only hear it in snippet form, fragmented and unpredictable - Autechre's deconstruction of the beat is here applied to the melodic aspect of the piece, as the beat piles onward in thrilling style. Soon the timbre of the melody sample changes - it loses the stringy fuzz, modulates down to a more haunting synth pad tone - and then a more euphoric blare - one that will come to define the song's third movement. MEANWHILE, the beat if anything SIMPLIFIES - it loses some of its tricksiness and simply plunges headlong towards pure dance - it becomes a non-stop barrage of distorted snare hits, spilling in a demented, tone-shifted rush toward some moment where all is consumed in movement...

...except then, at the moment of highest tension, just before it becomes unbearable, the beat falls apart completely and an absolutely gorgeous pair of synth textures take over. One's hollow and plays some simple, beautiful chords as a backdrop; the other is that aforementioned blare - muted, but stark and vibrant - harplike - as it spangles an unplaceable swathe of rising ecstatic sound over the whole song, like a silken, gilded cloth draped over a clinking treasure chest. There's still a beat - a muted, hesitant (how Autechre can program hesitancy is beyond me, but they do), thinned-out iteration of what came before. As this third section progresses, sonic elements of the former beat - snippets of the raucous distorted snare, rhythmical alterations, counteractions to hesitancy - creep back in, but discretely rather than all in a rush. It reaches the point where the giddy rush of the song's opening is fully implied, but it does not actually have to be spoken - it's all present in absentia, except now with an ecstatic, emotionally-pungent melodic overlay - the hindbrain AND forebrain are being seduced in tandem - beauty, nostalgia, kinesis, funk - all together - and THAT is when you realise that a THIRD synth element has snuck in almost without you noticing - a frankly ASTONISHING synth bassline, fatly tying the rhythmic and melodic elements together. It actually doesn't creep in until about 30 seconds into this section, and fades in as if it had always been there - it's such an incredibly good fit that it feels subliminal, elemental to the piece, but it hadn't existed until nearly 3 and a half minutes into the song. It represents Autechre at their most inspired, most devastatingly architectural - to hold it back so long, then deploy it so subtly, so artfully, takes my breath away. It emerges from the very drum sounds, modulating INTO melody from rhythm. And so the song reaches apotheosis - pure listenability, pure engagement - with the introduction of this bassline. At which the drum sounds are permitted to fall apart, grow hesitant once more, falter, wither...

...and die. But what's also been happening is that the edges of the bassline, the moments of hit and fade, have taken on a life of their own, a sort of thin, membranous cycle that in the same instant the drums fall out swooshes over the remainder of the song like a rewound cassette, cycling ever-slower into oblivion, the end of rhythm, the ultimate settlement into reflection, melody and death. (This song, a synaesthetic metaphor for the life of an IDM fan?) Suddenly, the synth blare is gone, and only the hollow chords are left, playing their delightful waveforms on some simple (yet still almost impossible to predict) cycle, surging peaceably as the final rhythmic clicks fade, and then losing will, slipping into atonality, developing schizophrenia - the lower tones RIGHT at the last become a sort of moaning, whalesong bassline, stumbling and wavering to a toneshifted, uncertain close, and the higher tones play out maybe a couple more times, retaining their melodic integrity but first to die, as everything falls into the softest and slowest, most absent sort of chaos imaginable. It's an absolutely inspired way to end a song that has contained, FOR ME GARY, all of life and all of music. Stick this one on my all-time C-90! It's pop music, really. More so than much Autechre, but more demandingly so, more intricate and complex, more sophisticated in its unspoken thesis. It makes me move, and it makes me think. It eventually equates kinesis with repose. Incredible song. You should all go and listen to it right now.

just sounds like a load of robotic insects to me.

jks - thanks for that imago. i'm listening to it now and it's great to hear outside the context of the album while reading your right-up. you're right, this is pretty rockin'. my track of choice off Draft is V-Proc though.

Uh, delete "probably its most important part" coz the third bit is, or rather the whole thing is - it's all interrelated development, symbiotic narrative. o and ty dl! v-proc is also on my ballot, don't worry ;)

hehe, that outro is pure LP5.

Everyone has to do this for their #1 btw. I command it

we should have polled the album covers. I've love to read an interview with Ae where they simply focus on the album artwork. I love a lot of it. Others (Confield, Untilted) I can't work out whether there's a concept or not.

I didn't end up voting for 6ie.cr. Great track, but I already had 2 other Draft songs on my ballot.

6IE.CR made 8th place for me. Doing this ballot made me realise Draft is my 2nd favourite LP proper, which I didn't see coming.

How did I forget about Envane when I voted??

^ envane wuz robbed, possible culprit

my albums:

1 Confield
2 Tri Repetae
3 Envane
4 LP5
5 EP7
6 Amber
7 Anvil Vapre
8 Cichli Suite
9 Untilted
10 Incunabula

maybe coulda/shoulda squeezed gantz graf in there, still hoping exai will reveal itself in its full majesty but hasn't happened yet - more headphone listening required perhaps. draft would be right at the bottom of my list but hey i haven't read louis' screed yet.

and the top 3 remixes are pretty cool n all but seriously that stereolab mix is one of the nastiest & scariest things they've done.

It's also one of the funkiest & most recognisably pop things they've done.

The saga continues.

http://i.imgur.com/gBskxHy.jpg

49T. Slip - 64 points | 4 votes

http://i.imgur.com/DxcT9T1.jpg

48. Rettic AC - 65 points | 2 votes | 1 #1 vote

Two fantastic tracks to start the poll. Rettic AC is a great precursor to Gantz Graf. Slip is just gorgeous, my favourite from Amber I reckon.

Great images too. Did you make these Leee?

albums

Tri Repetae
Exai
Chiastic Slide
Untilted
Confield
Amber
Garbage
EP7
LP5
Anvil Vapre

closest to octobeard's maybe. agree with amber being a rough draft, should have left it off. don't care for draft.

rettic ac was my no. 1. It sounds like footsteps in the snow with the faint remnants of a gorgeous little melody underneath. I pushed it up to no. 1 a few seconds before sending the ballot.

Talking of pop, Slip is quite traditionally melodic as well. At some point I had the idea that the tune is a bit like "Come Back And Stay" by Paul Young. I even made a somewhat shonky pre-Live mashup to prove the point.

ledge did the images iirc

cajunsunday that's at least 600 words too short ;) nah it sounds like something I want to hear, and will :)

xp 'chiastic slide' is a crucial winter album for me.

Needs to hear the Paul Young / Autechre mash-up

Great images too. Did you make these Leee?

imago is right, images are (c) ledge! And they're all awesome. He even did tracks that didn't make it, so maybe I'll dump them out somewhere because some of them are straight lolz.

rettic ac was my no. 1. It sounds like footsteps in the snow with the faint remnants of a gorgeous little melody underneath.

Totally get this now that you mention it.

rettic ac got my vote too. and yeah it sounds like snow.

Others (Confield, Untilted) I can't work out whether there's a concept or not.

I've read that at least for Confield, the cover image is actually a still from a (short?) animation one of the boys created (and around when it was released, it was floating around the webz as a .mov file).

http://i.imgur.com/dyYB7dL.jpg

46T. Gaekwad - 66 points | 2 votes | 1 #1 vote

http://i.imgur.com/B0CPuKm.jpg

46T. Overand - 66 points | 3 votes

http://i.imgur.com/Rru5IJN.jpg

44T. Second Peng - 71 points | 3 votes

http://i.imgur.com/cfQ3OS6.jpg

44T. Eidetic Casein - 71 points | 3 votes

^^ one of my favorite track titles

a bit hectic lately and ultimately didn't vote but I just wanted to say that...

No Amber for me, either. I fact I was surprised at how little time I have these days for the albums prior to LP5 ... Still like 'em, just never seem to listen anymore. I would say it was down to over-familiarity, but I play the contemporaneous EPs all the time. Anti - Garbage - Anvil Vapre - Envane - Cichlisuite - Peel Session is a pretty formidable run.

... is basically exactly how I feel except I'd push out the timeline to include lp5. the earlier albums clicked pretty quickly (esp. amber) but I do find them a bit played-out at this point. but I never really stopped listening to the eps, particularly garbage. couldn't really tell you why, the albums are also v solid too.

feel like the ep has been autechre's best presentation format. sometimes the album sprawl works when the material is up to it but more often than not i feel like it's been a weakness.

^^^ yes, I think that is probably why I still play thos early EPs so often.

You could definitely argue that most, if not all of their 70+ minute albums could stand to lose 15 minutes or so.

I always thought that Tri Repetae would have been nearly perfect if it was just the first half, and an EP rather than an LP.

Then you'd be able to dump "Overand," which I've *never* been able to warm up to.

tri repeatae is the one I've actually struggled with the most of the years. ultimately, I think it's... pretty good.

but generally, I like the albums as a whole and don't feel like they have much filler. but the eps do seem more focused, even longer ones like garbage. keeping things at 3-4 tracks prob helps there. each track gets to shine.

*over the years

Probably a controversial opinion but "Stud" is the one I could do without; it feels like nails on my brain

IMO Amber is the best of that early period - surprised that not a lot of y'all voted for it.

amber always struck me as perfectly composed but emotionally flat

images are (c) ledge

Except I outsourced the boring gruntwork of adding the text back to leee, as if running the poll wasn't enough of a chore already.

Overand pic is the hidden link between hot chip and ae, fyi.

xpost

Re: Amber, for me it's the opposite: it's visceral and emotional but sometimes sounds primitive compared to what they'd be able to conjure up later

Amber was my top album pick - they arguably took their sound to more interesting places later on but that's the one that works best as a complete piece for me. The Garbage EP (which I didn't actually hear until a year or two ago) makes a nice companion piece.

Hi-five to whoever had 'Gaekwad' at #1 by the way, I was the other voter for that, glad it made it in.

Thanks for the 6ie.cr screed, imago, definitely helps in understanding the appeal to have the individual elements brought into focus like that. Although a raucous lightspeed cataract of drum sounds sounds to me more like a raucous walking pace cataract of drum sounds.

Didn't recall which one rettic ac was till I read cajunsunday's excellently apt description.

Gaekwad was my #1, will try and write something about it tomorrow.

rettic ac just missed my shortlist. enjoying 6ie.cr even though i haven't listened to draft since it was released.

whoa gaekwad just performed a rhythmic switcharound about 2/3 through that complete did me. amazing

dont think i voted for any of these
eidetic casein maybe

eidetic casein was my #4 and is about to get a mini write-up

"mini."

idk how to approach that long lj post
its not one of the tracks on d730 that i care for, or their 4/4 tracks in general or their sort of meta pop tracks but i appreciate the effort to break it down
ive never thought about their tracks in that sort of song-construction way, tend to prefer the abstraction and the more formless tracks (else the more formal-programmatic ones like drane)

6ie.cr is Draft 7.30's single, then, and it bangs - it bangs harder than more or less any straight 4/4 club anthem you could name

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y267/v_ralson/emot-colbert1.gif~original

hahaha oy

yeah sorry lj i'm tl;dr-ing anything you post that is longer than 5 sentences, b+ for effort though

basically it's the sound of elves deconstructing, a very autechre christmas

really tho it's autechre's rhythmic principles - complexity, recombinations, entropy - applied to melody. now yeah melody & rhythm is a false binary esp where autechre are concerned but this track is almost all melody - intersections of tone, (dis)harmonic explorations, phrases you'd maybe expect of fucking cardiacs - it's absolutely beautiful, shows that not only can autechre write a tune but compose melodically up there with pretty much anyone you can name. it's pop, it's classical music, it's sheet music for computers & it all falls apart at the end in one of autechre's best denouements i mean what's there to hate

doesn't have remotely their most sophisticated drum programming but it doesn't need it. that one moment exactly 4:19 in where the beat suddenly stutters for one bar is the perfect framing device for its melodic collapse, demarcating the edge of descent, the victory of drone over tune. stunning

a lot of autechre songs do that trick though

yeah I was talking about eidetic casein there lol

6ie is like a lumpen idm brokenbeat sort of procrustean carcass around some quite interesting melodies

needs to be said that autechre are just supremely melodically gifted in a way very few others are, even though its a talent they have never tried to overplay in their augustan period

oversteps does sort of overdo it though

agree with all of that

electro + sound art nerds

yep

the way melody has to do battle with nxtlvl drumprogramming in the aforementioned period leads to its greatest triumphs imo but then this poll will hopefully introduce me to some stuff without that sphere

all of their best work retains skein linking back to electro

there was an interview once where they almost upbraided ricardo villalobos (this would be around achso time i suppose) for citing them as an influence, saying that he was a house producer so they were a little unsure why he would take after them, autechre still sort of see themselves as 'electro' in some intrinsic sense no matter how far they have wandered from that

Unreformed b-boys to the last.

Overand pic is the hidden link between hot chip and ae, fyi.

OIC!

we getting the next five tonight btw? ;)

I was waiting for the current discussion to abate!

i've 'bated, your turn to issue

ok bb.

Is this what sexting is like?

I mean ILM-style?

in autechreland, yeah

never forget btw what do you think Autechre call their genitals?

http://i.imgur.com/WaordoY.jpg

43. Cfern - 77 points | 3 votes

only my #17 so it's not getting a write-up beyond that fucking bass and that fucking creeping space-age sonic development, obv an incredible piece of music and maybe THE sleeper hit on confield

really tho it's autechre's rhythmic principles - complexity, recombinations, entropy - applied to melody. now yeah melody & rhythm is a false binary esp where autechre are concerned but this track is almost all melody - intersections of tone, (dis)harmonic explorations, phrases you'd maybe expect of fucking cardiacs - it's absolutely beautiful, shows that not only can autechre write a tune but compose melodically up there with pretty much anyone you can name. it's pop, it's classical music, it's sheet music for computers & it all falls apart at the end in one of autechre's best denouements i mean what's there to hate

― Ƹ༑Ʒ (imago), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 00:09 (41 minutes ago)

approve of this post except for

i) cardiacs reference
ii) the pop / classical is another false binary

re: ii, surely the falseness of that binary is inherent in its juxtaposition - i'd not call that a binary at all

Great to come back to some of these tracks. I'm now a 6IE CR convert.

Never realised how melodic Rettic AC was till now. Noise + ambient.

Slip is so pretty. Very Aphex Twin in its own way. Always think the name is apt, and next to Silverside on the album I always imagine it's the sound of rolling/running down those dunes on the cover.

Gaekwad - Never really paid this one that much attention but I'm digging it now. Amazed at how melodic all this earlier Autechre sounds now. It always sounded so atonal. Wow the amount of bass on this track is just insane... Reminds me a little bit of Drane2 on LP5 with those chimey dulcimer noises. Cor, this is superb on headphones..! A little mutley laugh towards the end. Whoever said Ae were cold and clinical? This is so fun.

Overand - Not a super fan of Tri Repetae but this just scraped my ballot. I like it for the same reason I like Kraftwerk's Radioactivity album. Just these minute squelches of radio-like interference spinning off into the galaxy. Transmissions being sent off into the vacuum, being picked up and interpreted. One of their few (and best) pure ambient tunes.

Second Peng - Don't dig out the Anvil Vapre EP enough really. It's good though - like a tougher, angrier Tri Repetae. Some of their bangingest material on here. This is a slow stomper but the beats are hard and heavy as fuck. Autechre always got their album art so right, and Tri Repetae-era always makes me think exactly of those radio-controlled robotic creatures in the video for Second Bad Vilbel - all moving parts whirring around menacingly. My only issue with this one is it goes on a bit long. Cool way to round off the EP though.

Eidetic Casein - Nope, sorry. I don't get it and never have. I've been wanting to like this one for a long time as, like imago says, it's supposed to be the 'pop' track on Confield. All I can hear is a thousand toy ambulances running out of batteries at the same time. I hear nothing in this I can lock onto at all. If there is a melody it's totally atonal with few repetitions or 'catchy bits'. Maybe that's the point, but in that case I definitely see it as one of their more abstruse bits.
In all my time of listening to this record I feel I never quite got Confield. And yet I still come back to it once or twice a year out of sheer morbid curiosity. There's something about the frequencies they used on this album that really gets to me - all the kick drums have an teeth-gritting high-end quality that makes them squish around like someone rubbing their fingers on a balloon.

re: ii, surely the falseness of that binary is inherent in its juxtaposition - i'd not call that a binary at all

― Ƹ༑Ʒ (imago), Tuesday, 30 September 2014 00:56 (1 minute ago)

theyre just terms that dont need to be introduced in relation to something like confield which is neither

xxposts Cfern is the other example of that - I like this song in theory but those kicks are too damn loud and plonketty for this kind of tune. A strange little track though I must say.

not really interested in anyones attempt to taxonomise autechre except for autechre themselves

fair xps

cfern settles at the end for a repeating pattern - quite a few of autechre's songs find their entropy this way, and it works

playing cfern rn, one of the least enterprising tracks on confield, thomas plinkettys crapital amirite

my problem with Anvil Vapre is that i have it on vinyl and listened to it at 33 for many years before hearing an mp3 of it. what a shock. it sounds immense at 33, i can't get my head around how it's supposed to sound.

one of the least enterprising tracks on confield

it's my 5th favourite so i almost agree, ha

yeah i do really like everything else about Cfern. Just the timbre of those beats do my head in. I'd like to hear a version with those taken out please.

Last two to round out 50-41.

http://i.imgur.com/ncpPxFE.jpg

41T. Rsdio - 79 points | 3 votes

http://i.imgur.com/tn273zA.jpg

41T. Pir - 79 points | 4 votes

sort of ridiculous but i downloaded the album amber yesterday and im not sure if ive ever heard it before

these graphics are cool though
49t 'slip' the purple one is sweet

Pure speculation, but I imagine that "Rsdio" approximates tactile/acoustic soundmaking in a unique way for Autechre -- maybe I shouldn't say "acoustic," what I mean is that the act of creating a sound isn't a black box, but more like banging on a surface to create a percussion effect or, closer to "Rsdio," striking a key and a hammer striking a string. Because those "DUNN! DU-DUH-DUNNNNN" chords sound bring up the image of a pianist throwing him/herself into a composition, not so much a pair of knob-twiddling guys. It's a kind of rockist image/nonsense I see when I hear this.

"Pir" I have to admit I think of as the chintzier cousin to "Krib."

Never cared much for Rsdio, but Pir was #3 on my ballot, so I'm a bit disappointed it ranked this low. The beginning sounds like a blocked toilet being flushed and then it turns into this table-slapping, car-doors-opening-underwater cascade of rhythm underpinned by this huge bass frequncy and angelic melody box chime. I love the way the patterns twirl around and resolve themselves. The slappy-rhythm almost works as a melody itself, it's hard to describe. It's just magnificent and startling.

is there any good writing about autechre from someone with knowledge of how they make these tracks (largely idk shit about the praxis) but that isnt just arcane technical stuff

can think of a couple of musically engaged ilxor.com posters who could perhaps be able to do that

i voted for both of these. on reflection i probably had Pir a bit too low and Rsdio a bit too high. damn, Pir's so good. there's a fun little fan made vid for it here too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5XJhzPwxmg

and it's a fantastic way to end the second half of EPy - after the triple-headed hellfire sermon of Maphive, Zeiss Contarex and Netlon Sentinel, they end it with a sweet little gem like Pir.

nakh, without wanting to spam my own writing, you could try this: http://thequietus.com/articles/13899-autechre-interview-exai-l-event

..particularly the second part where Rob Brown dissects the tracks on L-Event to an extent.

great interview

was this a phone interview

dont think ive read this before

read your exai review at the time, that was good

anyway i didnt so much mean interviews from themselves but secondary writing

Twenty years since the release of their debut album Incunabula, the duo remain a puzzle to be solved, an enigma to be unwrapped, and it can take years, decades even, for some tracks and releases to sink in properly.

dont feel like this at all though, about autechre or about any music except for perhaps something terribly gnomic and remote like late beethoven or scelsi

Yeah it was a skype interview.

I know what you mean though. I'd love to read, say, a 33 1/3 book about Confield by someone who knew a bit about the technical side but really was just entertaining and interesting to read.

exactly

i voted for rsdio ... endless rolling menace

is this where the title comes from?

forgot how good pir is, it's practically a jazz ballad

Thoughts on some tracks above:

- Rettic AC is so short but so gorgeous. Feels futuristic and nostalgic at the same time. Chiastic Slide is my #1 album of theirs and while it doesn’t have the luscious, sculpturally evolving sound design they’d perfect post Confield, it has a really amazing and unique textural continuity and “album” feel that few of their other LPs have. Love the comment about Chiastic being a winter album. Every song on that record to me is important.

- Overand was the first time I heard Autechre outside my own CD player. It was the chill room at my first rave in the late 90’s in the bay area and I was actually tripping on LSD for the first time, and HARD. It was an awesome experience knowing that others liked this weird ass band I had fallen into. As a track itself it’s a nice calm breakdown on Tri Rep, but in terms of Ae’s ambient epics, it is nothing compared to Vletrmx, Pule, VI Scose Poise, or See on See.

- Eidetic Casein… I forgot how much this track initially I despised and now I adore - perfectly paced evolution and it transitions into Uviol so brilliantly. I love how the baseline starts off as a squealing high pitched almost staccato melody and ends up devouring the track and digesting it until there's nothing left but excreted dissonance. Probably the best case of experiencing initial revulsion to gradually “getting it” and eventually going full grok on an Ae track. Probably regretting not putting this or VI Scose Poise from Confield on my ballot, but there were just too many others to choose from. Eidetic is by far the masterpiece from Confield.

- Pir was for many years what I thought was going to be the last “pretty” Ae song they’d ever write, so it somewhat is near and dear to me due to it closing the door of an era. I was of course wrong in a big way when Quaristice and Oversteps came out, but the melancholic nostalgia remains for it. Ae always seem to write the best openers and closers for every album/EP and this is no exception. The exquisite sampling for texture (water filled barrels or something) perfectly coupled with that melody melts me every time. Reminds me of Krib from Cichlisuite with the stunning combination of found sound sampling and bright, ethereal melodies.

And Imago, I can't wait to write about my #1.

forgot how good pir is, it's practically a jazz ballad

When I attempt to describe Autechre's post-Chiastic output to someone I tell them they're an electronic jazz band. Jazz in the sense of intense improvisation, but along with melody, timbre, sonics, percussion, rhythm are improvised. In addition to this they often transition these attributes into each other (timbre becomes rhythm, melody becomes sonics, percussion becomes melody - at times all at once). There's even traditional melodic jazz elements, seen early on in Acroyear2 off of LP5, Stop Look Listen off of WAP100 (a fantastic and overlooked track, btw) and more recently on Irlite (get 0) off of Exai.

Exai to me feels more fluid in this respect and is by far and away my favorite "jazz" record of theirs in that it is so wonderfully balanced in its improvisations.

^^^ wow, this is also how I finally 'got' Confield: I started thinking of it as a jazz record, rather than techno, and it began to make more sense and open up for me.

more like jazzy post-rock

hah, yeah i felt like that about Pir being the last pretty Autechre too

i was listening to some Exai cuts on headphones last night and I'd say the difference between that album is as greatly felt as the difference between Confield and Tri Repetae. It's seriously next level.

Also, loving the idea and totally agree with the idea of Autechre as jazz band. Pir has a kind of 'Lonely Woman' quality to it where it feels like about five vamps or 'parts' strung together in sequence.

alright then gaekwad. i'll try and keep it brief. it's off kilter, it's giddy making, it's like a spinning top continually in danger of falling over then somehow righting itself. no matter how many times i've listened to it i feel like i can't really get my head round it. it has krib/bucephalus bouncing ball style percussion taken to the limit, spooky marimba, a glockenspiely thing hovering uncertainly between melody and random vamping. all the elements fight for dominance, things fall under the waves, resurface, spin and wobble. around 3:30 there's an unsteady truce, the percussion settles down, the marimba comes to the fore. but the truce doesn't last, the percussion falters, some woozy top heavy synth strings come in and destabilise everything. spin, wobble. demonic laughter bubbles up out of nowhere and holds sway for a minute, then everything falls away and we're left with a metallic whine, the hum of the top suddenly and finally spinning steadily.

autechre and jazz, hmm. i can't stand the jazzy chords and melodies in autriche or lowride but i don't really hear anything like that in anything else they've done. that's obviously a pretty limiting definition of jazz though.

It makes sense to me as a description in terms of the cross-rhythms and interplay (real or accidental), especially Confield on.

"T ess xi" is another one with quite a blatant and almost straightforward "jazz" chord progression, maybe via UR or something.

LP5 = Dave Brubeck's Time Out.

is there any good writing about autechre from someone with knowledge of how they make these tracks (largely idk shit about the praxis) but that isnt just arcane technical stuff

― nakhchivan, Monday, September 29, 2014 8:00 PM (Yesterday)

no, i think there is largely nothing good written about their music

i think in that they have been the victims of their own experimentalism, which not only challenges listeners/writers (who are already usually disinclined to really get at the heart of a piece of music, or how it works) but is given so much misleading cover by their music's character (o bioluminescent robots dancing etc., o cold techno aspergers lab employees) and by their praxis (o dark DSP secrets, o automatic tuneification beatlets) that all that junk has to be cleared away or firmly situated somehow before anything meaningful can be said about the music, what its experiments are and how they work, etc. no one seems to have bothered. a shame, because ae also create the suspicion, from time to time, that they are charlatans / savants / fringe weirdo hobbyists / incapable of or uninterested in quality control / mired in a DSP bizarroworld they know not how to extricate themselves from, and seem like they would really benefit from a better understanding among their audience of their work.

I think that's a little harsh on ae ;-)

If anyone hasn't seen it before, they did an 'ask me anything' last year with the WATMM forum:

http://forum.watmm.com/topic/81109-aaa-ask-autechre-anything-sean-and-rob-on-watmm/

There's a fair bit of fanboy nonsense to sift through, but there are also some genuinely interesting contributions from Sean & Rob.

yeah music = speech - text

at least roughly - i reckon it's a kind of super-developed version of the pitch and intonation parts of speech (the aural bit that doesn't contain textual info)

sean is obv some ridic super-level synaesthete genius - this is brilliant

xp i think a little harshness would be useful! but partly to figure out how critical one ought to be, neither to the fannish degree (barely, enjoying what one likes, passing over the rest) nor to the judicious record reviewer's degree (safely, at a distance, 'very remarkable sounds and production techniques but…').

the other day i shuffled the new aphex, the xx's debut, and 'move of ten', my favorite recent ae, together and especially up close, on headphones, there were passages in the ae of such delicacy and conception that they just made aphex seem like a plodding wanker. (and i am enjoying that record!) i just think conditions are not ideal, in terms of audiences and critical culture, for ae to be appreciated and understood as well as that comparison suggests they deserve.

At the end of Dog Latin's interview with Rob Booth (link upthread), RB talks about the making of "L-Event" in a really accessible way -- no gearhead talk, just a peek behind the curtain into the general concepts behind the tracks.

The faceless techno/electronic persona has been around forever, Autechre don't really cultivate that image more than anyone else. But it's true that their experimentalism makes it hard for people to write about their music using the typical song structure reference points, i.e. talking about "the intro" or "the melody that comes in at point ___" doesn't really work with Autechre. But instead of trying to break down the structure of the piece, I've always been more interested in hearing how the music makes people feel. I'm much more interested in hearing descriptions on this thread like "Rettic AC is like trampling through the snow and trying to climb over an iron wall" or thereabouts than any attempt to really describe how the music works.

xposts

also his answers are p zingy. he'd be a brilliant ilx poster (sean i mean)

MastaN8, on 02 Nov 2013 - 5:03 PM, said:
Sure. How do you feel your music has been received over the years by fans/critics?

in various ways

yeah it was really muddy, like insanely muddy, and i was already somehow covered in mud, and i was really beyond drunk at that point cos we didn't have to play (our tent was flooded and cancelled) and i had already downed a couple of bottles of champagne - i thought it would be a really good idea to try and push mike paradinas into the mud (he seemed to be really concerned about getting any mud on him at all). anyway it failed and i ended up face down in a load of mud next to him, but he got pissed off about getting some mud on his wrist, so I WIN

someone stop me, I cd do this all day :D

half asleep and playing confield quite loud rn

some sick low end gently rattling the place

some coruscating synth motifs also

chef d'oeuvre

http://www.openculture.com/2014/09/jacques-derrida-interviews-ornette-coleman.html

As one example of this “democratic relationship,” Coleman cites the relationship between the jazz musician and the composer—or his text: “the jazz musician is probably the only person for whom the composer is not a very interesting individual, in the sense that he prefers to destroy what the composer writes or says.” Coleman goes on later in the interview to clarify his ideas about improvisation as democratic communication:

[ T ]he idea is that two or three people can have a conversation with sounds, without trying to dominate or lead it. What I mean is that you have to be… intelligent, I suppose that’s the word. In improvised music I think the musicians are trying to reassemble an emotional or intellectual puzzle in which the instruments give the tone. It’s primarily the piano that has served at all times as the framework in music, but it’s no longer indispensable and, in fact, the commercial aspect of music is very uncertain. Commercial music is not necessarily more accessible, but it is limited.

the end of pen expers is a sort of jig

i like the idea of ae as jazz musicians, in the sense of

When I attempt to describe Autechre's post-Chiastic output to someone I tell them they're an electronic jazz band. Jazz in the sense of intense improvisation, but along with melody, timbre, sonics, percussion, rhythm are improvised. In addition to this they often transition these attributes into each other (timbre becomes rhythm, melody becomes sonics, percussion becomes melody - at times all at once). There's even traditional melodic jazz elements, seen early on in Acroyear2 off of LP5, Stop Look Listen off of WAP100 (a fantastic and overlooked track, btw) and more recently on Irlite (get 0) off of Exai.

Exai to me feels more fluid in this respect and is by far and away my favorite "jazz" record of theirs in that it is so wonderfully balanced in its improvisations.

― octobeard, Tuesday, September 30, 2014 3:28 AM (4 hours ago)

but i would think about it not so much with an emphasis on improvisation (somehow in there yes) but in terms of vernaculars and conversations. i think it's interesting that for a group with two producers, working in such a traditionally auteurless/concealed-human-auteur medium, the tendency in talk about ae's music is toward emphasizing their total control, stage managery start-up-the-robots direction, or all the way to responding to the music (in very pathetic fallacy-ish ways?) as if it were humanized/alienized nature, behaving and transpiring as it were of its own accord. because a lot of ae's developments of the last ten years seem to me to have tried to make even more room for the elements of their music to be more responsive to each other in that jazz manner, of parts in a conversation (which is very traditionally musical - cf. the late-beethoven feel mentioned above, for vienna-school 'string quartet as a free but constrained development of a theme by partners in a conversation' -style thinking about music), voices. maybe it could be said more that ae withdraw / seem absent from their music, in that sense that encourages 'total control' narratives, because they're looking for new ways to allow these conversations among, and developed by, their distinctive musical elements (tone, rhythm, etc.) to take place.

the end of pen expers is a sort of jig

1) lol
ii) slight worry you've ruined the track for me but
c) yeah i love reading descriptions & reactions like this too. obviously reaction to all music is highly personal, don't wanna make like ae are in any way exclusive in that regard, but they are kind of ploughing their own path and maybe the lack of conceptual (lyrical, historical, whatever) baggage makes it easier for the brain to free associate.

not it is like a jig, it is a jig

yerright

jigs in experimental music: a poll (see also: mbv - soon)

Thought this was interesting in that AAA, from Booth:

tbh i think everything has some emotional element, but we're not really thinking about that when we do stuff
it's not that we don't feel like emotions are important, more that it's hard for me to imagine a sound that doesn't convey some sense of something, and quite often when people discuss emotions in music they only think of happy or sad as being emotions, when imo emotions are a lot more than that
e.g. if we put out a really angry track, then people rarely describe it that way. they would more likely say it was unlistenable or difficult, the emphasis moves from expression to design, maybe they just fail to recognise it as expressive if they think it's very technical

btw

Overand - [...] Just these minute squelches of radio-like interference spinning off into the galaxy. Transmissions being sent off into the vacuum

this is more or less how i picture uviol off confield.

i get eidetic casein and lentic catachresis mixed up. tend to really like their last tracks don't know if it's just because i'm paying more attention. "teartear" is probably my favorite on amber. rsdio brings to mind "metronomic underground" by stereolab probably because i was listening to both these albums heavily around the same time in the late 90s being motivated by post-rock and i guess the basslines and tempos are sort of similar.

HI DERE.

http://i.imgur.com/oQ3etLp.jpg

39T. Vose In - 80 points | 4 votes

39T. Bladelores - 80 points | 4 votes

http://i.imgur.com/2ppgAFS.jpg

didn't vote for that but it's great

wish I had the technical knowledge to respond to j.'s posts properly :(

bladelores is modern polished autechre at its best. Ended up at #14 on my ballot.

http://i.imgur.com/zvtGRr2.jpg

39T. Bladelores - 80 points | 4 votes

Copy paste disaster!

Bladelores pic = Wesley snipes. Vose in = vosene. I'm not one to shy away from the obvious. Goz is Turkish for eye and the only thing that shows up in an image search.

Vosene shampoo, I should say.

B'oh!

http://i.imgur.com/zvtGRr2.jpg

37T. Goz Quarter - 81 points | 3 votes | 1 #1 vote

Goz quarter is great but still only the third best on envane.

I was looking for images of gauze to use!

I.e. thank dog you found something better.

My #1 in this poll. Was sent this and Anvil Vapre on promo (vinyl), those were the days. Perhaps slightly arbitrary placing but it is a fave. I think it's the most well rounded of the tracks on Envane. Lots of nice elements that work together and I always really liked the dolorous "burning" string pad that comes in for the main slow melody for some reason. Works @33 as well IIRC. "Jam like Autechre"

Playing Latent Quarter now and it is filth.

That one's never stuck with me, can't recall it at all.

enjoying this thread. I only really know&love confield but having dug out the cd it sounds superb & I'd forgotten how fond I was of it even though I'd never got into anything else

confield was my introduction too :)

obviously my advice would be to listen to the albums that came immediately afterwards before regressing but others may disagree

Jump straight to exai.

yeah I got tri repetae but it wasn't as immediately beguiling so I didn't spend much time with it. ganz/draft sound good though, autechre bring out audiophile tendencies in me

http://i.imgur.com/2RJCVDW.jpg

37T. Foil - 81 points | 4 votes

cool. have a soft spot for their brutalist 4/4ish bangers

goz was the quarter i voted for.

Three-way tie coming up!

Goz Quarter is the song, and Envane is the EP that got me into obsessing about Ae as much as (if not more than) RDJ. I also ended up meeting one of my best friends because of Envane. I had only heard Tri Repetae++ at the time, and he tossed Envane my way to borrow after only meeting me once (he later told me I was the first real life person he met who had discovered and listened to that style of music on their own), and I was blown away by Goz Quarter in particular because of how simply groovy it was, and how gorgeous the lead melody was toward the end. Very Cichli-esque. I couldn't quite ignore my nostalgic influences, otherwise I'd have put Draun Quarter up there instead.

And come on, who doesn't want to "Jam like Autechre"?

http://i.imgur.com/ZnrlqxH.jpg

34T. Corc - 83 points | 3 votes

Sad I didn't vote for Vose In. Went for Fold4, Wrap5 instead. They complement each other so well on the LP5 album. Love how the synths sound like they're being turned up and down like that.

yeah i love the way vose in sets up 4/5

Corc is glorious. I didn't vote for it though.

Oh wait I did vote for Vose In.could have sworn I also voted for Bladelores too but apparently not. Don't know why I didn't cos it's such a great standout on Exai.

Corc always feels like the least memorable track on LP5 but I'm always pleasantly surprised when it comes on.

Most overrated track on LP5. Possibly most overrated Ae track ever.

http://i.imgur.com/B3EfWfR.jpg

34T. Lentic Catachresis - 83 points | 4 votes

This is sort of the archetypal Confield track but not necessarily the best I think.

this is the legit & unassailable sound of lentic catachresis occurring

IMO it's one of the three or four strongest on the album, but yeah, it's got a very Ur-Confield sense from it. The frenzied end is where it makes its money.

also my #9

the melodies in the first two minutes are absolutely sensational, some of ae's best songwriting. the rest...is the end of history

As much as I have grokked later Ae after initially disliking it, I have never really enjoyed Lentic Catachresis. The pure wall of sound, lack of overt textural/sonic progression, and missing beat has made this always a non-starter for me. Can someone give me a compelling reason to like this track or possibly explain how they got into it?

Corc more devisive than I'd have expected! I like it a lot.

Lentic is OK, but I prefer CapIV when it comes to the this particular style

only my 4th favourite from confield too! could have put it higher tbtffl

missing beat???? omg the beat is there, and it's sick. and the finale has this unstinting hihat sound holding it together right until the end

http://i.imgur.com/dxA6oEm.jpg

34T. d-sho qub - 83 points | 5 votes

i'm impressed by the high number of votes this far down the poll.

how many polls did you get, Leee?

idk what that even is

Yes! Glad something from Oversteps made it. And it's a huge tune! Didn't expect 5 votes for this but mine was one of them.

^^^ #7 on my list. d-sho qub is an absolute latter Ae masterpiece. The ending with the synthesized vocal choir is eerie as fuck, and made me realize these guys still have some fantastic all timer tracks left in them.

how many polls did you get, Leee?

20 ballots, jed_.

Right now, Oversteps is the ae album I don't quite 'get' ... too many shimmery generative-sounding tracks I think.

yeah its too glossy and not edited enough

ta.

Lentic is my second fave off confield, not that it made my ballot. Love the alien processed voices at the start but not sure there's enough of interest in the second half.

Lentic is OK, but I prefer CapIV when it comes to the this particular style

Yeah capiv definitely similar and just a bit stronger.

Elvis is all sho qub.

Love Oversteps. Felt like a little revisit to the LP5 sound but with updated production.

Okay not a missing beat per se. It's a classic example of turning the beat into texture, morphing a major element into a completely different one, and that I enjoy. The thing that kills this track for me is the pure lack of progression after the first 2 minutes. All the other tracks on Confield are these pristine organic structures that slowly and often unpredictably evolve into new forms over the duration of their performance. This metamorphasis is much more subdued on the last 6-7 minutes of Lentic, and I get bored with the inert minimalism coupled with the lack of overt rhythm outside of the hihat. There is an interesting and buried melody but it's not enough for me to derive any sort of appreciation for the track. When I first started enjoying Confield, I thought of this track as a concept song expressing the "ghost in the machine", where Ae setup the parameters for the initial beat and it just collapsed in on itself and created this whole movement they didn't initially predict and felt that the idea of putting a song on that was an "emergent" tune was pretty compelling (not sure if that's how it was indeed composed). In any case... it's the most boring tune on Confield for me. Something I never listen to when I play it, in fact.

I enjoy a lot of Oversteps and Move of Ten but feel both have utter duds, too. I have a "custom" album called "Move Over Ten Steps" that combines my favorites of the two. If I could have voted for that custom album, it might have made #3 or #4 in my album ballot.

was just listening to oversteps for like 15+ minutes and it was actively angering me. reminded me most of all of fucking Rain In England, haha

see on see is beautiful but formally otiose like a lot of oversteps

voted for ilanders though

IMO the best parts of Confield are the transitions between tracks.

the transition between track II and III of gantz graf is exquisite

pro radii into augmatic disport is nxtlvl

nakh otm as well tho, my god

Oversteps rules, it's like the rest of their boring Supercollider 00s wankfests but it has tunes

http://i.imgur.com/9WnjRkJ.jpg

32T. Bronchusevenmx - 84 points | 3 votes

http://i.imgur.com/PuDrGyN.jpg

32T. spl9 - 84 points | 4 votes

Can someone give me a compelling reason to like this track or possibly explain how they got into it?

love lentic/capIV. it's similar to what I get out of harsh digital noise - the sounds are sharp and vivid but the the gradual build is disorienting and anxiety-inducing and it all kinda just flattens my brain out. the net effect ends up being sorta relaxing.

"Bronchusevenmx" is the sound of water dripping from stalactites over the eons and thus is the ideal brooding music for moody would-be goths.

Listened to spl9 and was enjoying it, but now cloudline is playing and I'm enjoying that way more, wonder if it's going to appear here

voted for spl9
its not the most amazing track but its a lot of fun

last two graphics very apposite

31. Second Bad Vilbel - 87 points | 4 votes

http://i.imgur.com/mabehct.jpg

The part where this track comes back in but slower is immense

Bronchusevenmx was my number 2, i'm a goth!

goths don't use exclamation marks.

Second Bad Vilbel has worn on me but it's kinda iconic and not just because Radiohead ripped it off.

As someone who got into Autechre at the time of Chiastic Slide, worked my way backwards through everything before that, and listened to everything through Confield before hitting a wall and barely listening to them for the last decade, I've been really enjoying this poll - I didn't feel remotely qualified to vote, but I'm listening to everything here and wondering why the hell I haven't been listening to them since about 2003.

Great images, too!

I enjoy a lot of Oversteps and Move of Ten but feel both have utter duds, too. I have a "custom" album called "Move Over Ten Steps" that combines my favorites of the two. If I could have voted for that custom album, it might have made #3 or #4 in my album ballot.

― octobeard, Wednesday, October 1, 2014 12:01 AM

Would be interested in the tracklist for this (having failed to really get into any album since Confield).

Sure...

Move Over Ten Steps

01. r ess
02. rew(1)
03. Treale
04. pt2ph8
05. see on see
06. no border
07. d-sho qub
08. iris was a pupil
09. os veix3
10. yim0
11. st epreo
12. krYlon
13. Yuop

Total time: 1:04:41

It's an even more ambient record with this flow, and some of the transitions work really well naturally - d-sho qub going into iris was a pupil for instance. Obviously a subjective list, but these tracks to me make a really cohesive record, with a beginning, middle and end, sonically consistent and thematic... to the point where it's up there with Untilted and Chiastic Slide for having a strikingly unique sonic fingerprint - even more so than before. Some tracks I enjoy individually I kept off intentionally in order to maintain what I felt was a better "album".

Glad to see spl9 made it, btw. I had a tough time keeping that and Flep from Exai off my ballot.

voted for spl9
its not the most amazing track but its a lot of fun

half right. could've been my number one (was my number three), seems to be for me the perfect sweet spot between abrasive noise and dancefloor smash. it never stands still, every minute sees a switch in rhythm or texture. and again - again! a classic fade out, the beat stutters into oblivion over a hollow, deathless breath of air. they really are masters of the fade.

spl9 is HARDCORE. I would risk slipping it into a straight techno set perhaps.

Thanks octobeard - giving this a go right now, and I think it could be a good path for me into more recent Autechre - I'm really enjoying it, in fact.

skipping through oversteps again d sho-qub definitely a highlight but a couple of the more ambient ones stand out too, os veix3 and yuop. Curiously more than half of the tracks (and quite a few on move of ten as well) end abruptly but with about 10 seconds of ghostly reverb floating out over the end, giving an amazing sense of space.

redfall is the oversteps standout for me

the chords in dial. from gantaz graf, which seem to ascend forever, are an example of a shepard-risset tone:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepard_tone

not sure how dial missed my ballot, dj stingray working it into a detroit techno set at the autechre atp is unforgettable

am totally convinced this is the inspiration for dial (from the er dial to the rising tones at the end):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2dhD9zR6hk

Eidetic Casein sounds kind of Shepherds Toney to me.

New display name btw

Dial. is so good, I've overplayed it at this point and so even though it made my ballot, it's in the teens rather than near the top. But for a good couple of years it was definitely my favorite autechre song.

There is the Shepard tone which immediately draws you in, but there's so much more going on. The vocals, all those chaotic sounds which try to follow the main ascending tone throughout the song. In many ways a perfect autechre song.

dial. unplugged
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb19d08Lnec

http://i.imgur.com/rWKnPNY.jpg

30. Flutter - 91 points | 5 votes

They sure stuck it to The Man there.

Another one that's much better at 33rpm. I voted for it.

I voted for two-thirds of that EP. Is the microscopic fadeout a sound-engineering feat? Because it's pretty damn awesome.

http://i.imgur.com/zrQ9fba.jpg

29. Krib - 94 points | 5 votes

In the lower reaches of my ballot along with pir; a firm personal fave but didn't feel meaty enough for the top ten.

I love that graffiti spray can rattle.

spl9 is a bomb.

As someone who got into Autechre at the time of Chiastic Slide, worked my way backwards through everything before that, and listened to everything through Confield before hitting a wall and barely listening to them for the last decade, I've been really enjoying this poll - I didn't feel remotely qualified to vote, but I'm listening to everything here and wondering why the hell I haven't been listening to them since about 2003.

this is true for me too, and i did vote without being remotely qualified. i suspect it's probably true for a lot of people coming at them from a similar place. something about how the internet and electronic music broke open post-2000 made what ae were doing not as exciting as playing catch-up or getting into various areas of "realer" shit for dilettantes like myself. i agree it is very pleasant to pick them up again and realize that they haven't necessarily changed anything about what it is they do but aren't stale, they've grown with the music and it can still sound very exciting even with the relative duds which seem pretty subjective anyway.

Krib = Carrib as in Caribbean as in steel drums

It's also a fish

Of the cichlid family

Wah!

does anyone rate or care about the album sean booth did with mika vainio and kouhei matsunaga (nhk) a few years ago

Looking at some reviews, nope. I don't really care about the hafler trio stuff even though I bought it.

its not really going to appeal to idm people

which is a good thing

its more like asmus tietchens later stuff than rephlex

its not like the hafler records either, those are fairly unexceptional drone stuff although i should probably revisit them

idm people drive like this

was listening to all the stuff from the rly early EPs to place here of late. it's cool music but doesn't hit my intense synaesthesia zone quite hard enough rly - back on cap.iv now and yeah I mean

maybe the early stuff needs perseverance as much as the later stuff tho

I think the latest thing I voted for was from confield. Some of the later stuff I find perverse, even grotesque but mostly I didn't vote for it because I just don't care about it. I became more of a homo at that time also although I'm not blaming rob and sean for that although Sean is cute.

it needs appreciation of dope phat and/or tight beats iirc xp

thats what i referred to in the prior post, a lot of people here voting heavily for the 90s idm period when autechre defined that term more than were defined by it, and a lot of that was very good music so it's not really a pejorative lest anyone consider a wounded another response

lol jed i also became more gay after confield thus developing an aversion to electro

haha.

there is at least one track on the early lps that deserves consideration with their later works and which will probably appear here

but do you agree that Sean is cute, more to the point?

xpost (or is it?)

got that north face swag

truth

sean, as above, has crazy messageboard sass. enough for me.

i'd north his face

I think this thread could use some focus.

http://i.imgur.com/S53FtmO.jpg

28. Draun Quarter - 97 points | 3 votes | 1 #1 vote

is this the one nakh was talking about i wonder

Probably not, since it's from Envane (an EP).

oh he said LP, ffs haha

i know which one he means then

who's gonna hang draun quarter then

yeah i actually meant to write ep
envane i got to go back to
mostly envane/chiastic/cichisuite seem quite of their time
they remind me a lot of that late 90s stuff on the scaruffi poll
sort of very 'crunchy' early software music era

I think this thread could use some focus.

I think it could use some sass

IS IT WASHAPOLL? - ILM ARTIST POLL #57- an autumn tea dance, 2014

*vogues*

Loving the thread - lots of stuff I've not heard enough. Krib is my highest to chart, if not the only one. I've only had a couple more that I placed low down.

What are the early LPs, the first two? Cos I placed a few from the third quite high and am still expecting to see them.

Oy, this is a serious thread, take your flouncing to the Radiohead poll.

jks obvs.

http://i.imgur.com/c14q6C0.jpg

27. V-Proc - 99 points | 5 votes

my #12

the build-up - the first 2 or 3 minutes - is absolutely extraordinary. the rest is just celebration laps really

V-Proc is unstoppable! Seriously funky

i once mixed it into Parliament during a set - that's how funky it is.

it maketh one to pop the body

just catching up with the poll. vose in really should have placed higher. what i love about lp5 is how clean it is. they manage to rinse a ton of emotion from these actually quite simple saw-tooth wave forms on this one. something about the way the 'melody' wraps around those chords.

http://i.imgur.com/G3NBJI4.jpg

26. Second Scepe - 100 points | 4 votes

what i love about lp5 is how clean it is

― Shepard Toney Album (dog latin), Thursday, 2 October 2014 00:44

yeah

voted 'second scepe' very high, it just, i never get tired of it. the click-it sound makes me shiver.

oh shi i meant second scout wah wahhhhh

maybe anvil vapre will all make it!

Scepe is the unsung hero on Anvil Vapre IMO, with that spooky vocal sample getting cut up in a way that is very reminiscent of the Garbage sound.

(Bad Vilbel gets most of the attention, of course.)

http://i.imgur.com/YniujEO.jpg

25. Silverside - 104 points | 5 votes

http://i.imgur.com/b8BX7M2.jpg

24. Leterel - 105 points | 4 votes | 1 #1 vote

http://i.imgur.com/WPJq9qd.jpg

23. Drane2 - 108 points | 5 votes

http://i.imgur.com/nQQpOz8.jpg

21T. Recury - 110 points | 4 votes

http://i.imgur.com/aAaEfWH.jpg

21T. Stud - 110 points | 4 votes

this is getting a bit closer to the essence

not sure i even remember what recury and stud sound like, but i love the first three of those. drane2 is their answer to bouncing bucephalus ball. leterel does that cool chord thing they do that i like.

"Leterel" used to be my favorite just because I used to be dead-simple to impress with strings. Plus, that wheezing percussion.

I was so proud of liking "Drane2" in the early '00s.

"Stud" is cool, it always sounded like a metal chain rippling across asphalt.

"Leterel" used to be my favorite just because I used to be dead-simple to impress with strings.

lol, yeah me too.

stud is cool actually... not really what i listen to autechre for, but it's got a nice stalky groove.

god i used to love the strings in leterel, otherwise its a little bit plodding and diagrammatic
cant imagine how great it would have sounded in 1995

jeez have people forgotten how to enjoy trip hop?

really surprised stud and leterel got more votes than rsdio too

here are some tracks i voted for

vose in - for me comes down to the melody. just one of the most straight-up beautiful songs (riffs?) they've ever written. especially the killer synth solo 3:00 mins in. and the part where it all falls apart at about 3:40 sounds really incredible on a system with a good soundstage. sounds bouncing around in the room in 4d.

flutter - i remember when this came out i was pretty blown away. it's got a beautiful melody and amazing drums. and at the time i couldn't have told you this but it's like the first "skittery beats" autechre i heard (presaging lp5 sound) and also some of the earliest stuff i might tag "drill and bass"

as noted by dj food, "flutter" goes down well with "laughable butane bulb"

whoops "butane bob"

i did not vote for either of the envane tracks mentioned so far but i remember the first time i heard it like people remember stuff like assassinations

played in store at m-theory records in berkeley by early allmusic contributor s34n c00p3r to a small crowd of awed skaters with tortoise in their record bags

what i love about lp5 is how clean it is

yeah this is part of what i like so much about vose in. don't remember where or who but someone said hearing lp5 was like seeing the polished chrome skeleton beneath the layers of sound from chiastic slide

I had draun quarter at 2 and leterel at 6, second scepe and silverside down the bottom. guess i'm still a sucker for simple & emotionally manipulative strings - but y'know leterel has those fat synths and the dentists drill going on too.

the nearly three minute long "gravity defying wind down ending" ((c) nme 1997) of draun quarter is hands down my favourite of their many many excellent fades.

love drane2 as well. stud and recury two holding pattern tracks that don't do so much for me.

I should be asleep, but here's a little bonus for our British/European friends.

not sure what to say about "second bad vilbel". guess you had to be there?

http://i.imgur.com/IXPdXw5.jpg

19T. Piezo - 115 points | 4 votes

http://i.imgur.com/EWHxIef.jpg

19T. Gescom - Keynell 4 - 115 points | 4 votes | 1 #1 vote

these are coming at some chaotic times of day :D

ooh columnar jointing i was just learning about that

YES. Keynell 4 is a goddamned minimal masterpiece of a chord progression. Looking forward to finding who picked that as their #1

Was my #6

Never cared for Second Bad Vilbel much. Noisy fecker though, possibly better @ 33. I got the second 12" first and I don't think it was labelled so what I assumed was the lead track, and the one I've voted for here, turned out to be the last one.

Piezo and Keynell 4 at #9 and #8 for me. Two more excellent long drawn out endings. It's a simple trick maybe, fading out the percussion to leave the harmonic & melodic elements hanging there but damn it works well. Plus Keynell 4 ultimately drops out all the elements one by one, a mirror image of the beginning where they all get individually introduced.

I had 'Stud' at #3, that's one I really came around to while putting my ballot together - conjures up the image of some sort of tiny mechanical creature burrowing through layers of earth.

I like 'Leterel' but when the string melody changes at about 4:45 I always want to start singing the chorus of 'The Mercy Seat' over it.

'Piezo' was my #2, it's one of those classic 'whole album condensed into one track' songs.

This poll is wiping me out. I sit at work all day and nothing, then as soon as I leave it all kicks off and I end up staring at ILM all night as well. Oh well, can't be helped.

Piezo is one of my favourite early Ae tracks. A real highlight off Amber, and it's all about that wolf/owl/howling noise that rises and falls from over the sand dunes.

I don't know Keynell. How is this? I guess I never really invested in Gescom all that much. Really like Go Sumo though.

go sumo is ok but go sheep's where it's at

YES. Keynell 4 is a goddamned minimal masterpiece of a chord progression. Looking forward to finding who picked that as their #1

hi!

I guess most people didn't vote for non-AE tracks in the main poll seeing as there was a separate poll for non-AE stuff. So maybe I had a different voting strategy than other people (i.e. who didn't want to vote twice for non-AE tracks, even though the rules specifically allowed for it) but I honestly can't think of a better AE/non-AE track (or EP) than this one.

People have been praising LP5 for sounding so "clean", but I prefer Autechre when they're sludgy, foreboding and intimidating. "Teartear" was my #2 , the hyper-aggressive "Basscadet (Bcdtmx)" was my #3, and two tracks from "Anvil Vapre" made my top 10.

"Keynell 4" is a kind of successor to "Teartear" with its chunky, lurching beats and then the synth parts pile on and on, striking this odd balance between peaceful sounding church organs and horror movie sound effects. The beats drop out far too soon (the best tracks are always the ones you wish would go on for another ten minutes, and since they don't, you have play them on repeat endlessly) but it's just the start of the second half of the song -- the most beautiful coda they ever recorded. And despite what I said earlier, this track technically never ends btw (the vinyl finishes with a locked groove).

go sumo is ok but go sheep's where it's at

oh no, that's the kind of farty jazz I just can't deal with.

Keynell is far and away the most definitely ae sounding of all the gescom releases from that period and 4 is the obvious highlight, no question 4 wasn't going in my top ten.

the vinyl finishes with a locked groove

really, what with? the cd version ends with a kind of digital insect buzz that zooms off into a high pitch, and there's a tiny coda of piston effects.

Go Sheep sounds exactly like a screensaver or a level on a point and click adventure involving a sheep.

Ha, I think I might have got Go Sumo & Go Sheep mixed up earlier. Go Sheep is OK but yeah, Sumo.

I'm sure I wrote a track back in 2000 that ripped off Go Sumo note for note. Good techno!

really, what with? the cd version ends with a kind of digital insect buzz that zooms off into a high pitch, and there's a tiny coda of piston effects.

It's the same as the CD version, but with the piston effects in the locked groove.

So I can't help but indulge in some top ten speculation. Lack of incunabulera so far worryingly suggests it might dominate.

Hmmm, doubt it. Not hearing a lot of Incunabula love ITT so far. What are the standout tracks on there? I like the jazzier moments personally but it's the album I've listened to the least out of all of them.

I think LP5 will dominate - Fold4 Wrap5, Rae, Arch Carrier and UnderBOAC are bound to place, right?. Surprised to see some Confield dead-certs already appearing but Pen Expers for all its horribleness will no doubt make it. Uviol is my fave off that album though and it's the one people tend to ignore.

Would love to make an Autechre ambient playlist - Overand, Uviol, Vletrmx, VI Scose Poise, Rettic AC - could be gorgeous!

VI Scose Poise is a sleeper favourite of mine, regret not voting for it now.

UnderBOAC (my #2) surely up there, I agree; Sublimit & SURRIPERE also.

No Untilted would annoy me. Think there is one with a chance (partially because I gave it a lot of points)

One more Draft is a cert, one Confield (outside chance of two), two Gantz Graf (reckon one of these will do VERY well)

lol xp well that's the Draft one. Went for a different Untilted tho

Shit sorry, meant two Confield, outside chance of 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04flJC_4pv8

just got three minutes into this

is that rn a fusion of chexy with some organic compound

dn even

Still some more early EP tracks to come I'm sure.

xposts to nakh - haha that guy. i'll be looking forward to watching that over lunch.

I work on the phones and quite often I come across some on-hold music that sounds remarkably like something off of Incunabula.

My picks from Garbage, Amber, Anvil Vapre, LP5 and Confield, as well as one from Incunabula have not placed yet. I haven't ignored Uviol.

Listening to some of those upthread. Leterel is v pretty but feels like a completely different band to the Autechre I love. The outro is way the best bit, when it starts fucking around with the prettiness

Drane 2 builds nicely, but it's not got its namesake's moves. Feels a bit like an extended Mogwai electronics exercise or something ;)

Goes without saying but Confield is definitely the watershed album for fans isn't it? Parallels with Kid A.

I do like isolated bits from the early material heaps. Nakh turned me onto the aforementioned Drane (not 2) and it was crazy intense, gave me the similar mind-expanding buzz to the later stuff (while obviously being much simpler in composition). Looking forward to getting into more Chiastic Slide stuff as well.

Also, apparently the Gantz Graf EP was from the same period as LP5 and Chiastic, but was held back because they didn't know what the hell to do with it - soon all their music was at that level, though

But yeah, I think that most voters' ballots will reveal a strong preference for either earlier or later stuff

(earlier + oversteps/exai, I could add ;))

Wonder how many Quaristice songs got any votes at all...

I think comparing pre-Confield Autechre with post-Confield Autechre is a bit futile, imago. There's a definite change in what they were doing. It's hard to compare an album like LP5 with later Autechre because for one something like Drane2 was pretty-much unimaginable when it came out, and secondly I don't believe LP5 is trying for the same synaesthesiac effect as those later records. Something like 6IE CR makes me imagine THINGS - quite solid images, landscapes, caverns, icicles, geometric shapes or what have you, but LP5 - it's like listening to pure code. For the most part it's music for the sake of music and that's why I like it so much because I really can't think of anything else that does this. Arguably all music is supposed to be evocative of a setting or emotion or a time whereas LP5 doesn't really do this much at all.

lp5 segues nicely into confield, has the same glossy software sound and pellucidity deployed with different musical languages

xpost: I voted for Perlence. I've really warmed to Quaristice, more as a collection rather than specific tracks, voted it 7th on my LPs/EPs ballot ...

well yeah it works much better as a suite

I also voted for perlence. Perlence is my cell phone's ring tone.

lp5 segues nicely into confield, has the same glossy software sound and pellucidity deployed with different musical languages

― C21H23NO5 (nakhchivan), Thursday, October 2, 2014 1:58 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's true to an extent - there's not a lot of difference on the surface, but I feel as though Confield's tunes harbour a sense of narrative that (especially LP5 and to an extent EP7) don't.
It's hard for me to describe the way I feel towards the two albums, but if you take VI Scose Poise, it draws from a similar sine-wavey palate as Drane2. However the former song has always evoked, for me, some sort of glittering underground cave replete with rose-tinted crystal formations. Cfern represents the surface atmosphere of whatever planet these caves belong to - all bumpy rocks and barren landscapes. Uviol is a night marshland with amphibious fauna around it.
I get these highly-subjective 'visuals', if you will, from a lot of latter-Autechre whereas that mid-period is more about 'phwoar that chord sequence makes me feel emotions I didn't know I had' or 'how do they do that speed-up/slow-down thing on Fold4,Wrap5?' or 'Did he just say 'Is it washable?'.
In essence LP5-era Ae is 'pure music', with very very few moments actually making me visualise anything more tangible than a light pattern or geometric shape.
This might invite accusations of LP5 being a clinical record or lacking in emotional heft, but for me it's the opposite. The dearth of visual stimuli (the CD packaging is 100% charcoal grey with no artwork at all) amplifies those moments of emotion for me - like suddenly breaking down infront of an algorithm, a literal eureka moment.

xp Was tempted to vote for Altichyre off Quaristice (versions) - gorgeous fat synth chord progressions a la Leterel, untainted by any beats, but it's too slight for serious consideration.

I'm guilty of xposting ITT

Yeah there are no real standouts on Quaristice, it's just a bunch of great, relatively short, relatively lighthearted tracks strung together and it made a nice change after the onslaught of Untilted for me.

The one from the quaristice era that I voted for very high in my list is "The Plc ccc" off of Quaristice.Quadrange.ep.ae. The way the song just completely opens up a couple of minutes in is an amazing trick and is something that I can't really figure out. It's one of those things that autechre have done that I've never heard anywhere else.

I don't know how many people actually listened to quaristice era eps (I myself only got to them a couple of years after they were released), but I think they are actually better than the album. The reworked versions of the quaristice tracks give them a lot more depth and intensity.

Maybe I'm looking for something that isn't there but I always found "Is it washable?" to be hilarious because the music at that point sounds like a brick thrown in a washing machine.

VI Scose Poise is a sleeper favourite of mine, regret not voting for it now.

Yeah, me too, I regret not voting for this, something from "Envane", and maybe "Drane2".

I will be surprised if one or two more "Incunabula" tracks don't place. Maybe "Basscadet" or "444"? I voted for "Basscadet" and "Eggshell".

lp5 segues nicely into confield, has the same glossy software sound and pellucidity deployed with different musical languages

This is a really nice description. It took me a while to appreciate that "Confield" wasn't as big a departure from their earlier work as I thought at the time. The melody in "VI Scose Poise" could have appeared on "LP5", but the complicated interplay between the melody and the rhythms (and the subtleties of the rhythms) are nothing like what they'd done before.

by the way, where is the list of upcoming polls??

Maybe I'm looking for something that isn't there but I always found "Is it washable?" to be hilarious because the music at that point sounds like a brick thrown in a washing machine.

― Maggie killed Quagmire (collest baby ever) (frogbs), Thursday, October 2, 2014 2:45 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's such a great WTF LOL blink-and-you-miss-it moment on this otherwise ostensibly austere record. Actually UnderBOAC is one of the few that does make me think visuals, but I'll get round to that once it appears, if it does appear.

xp Was tempted to vote for Altichyre off Quaristice (versions) - gorgeous fat synth chord progressions a la Leterel, untainted by any beats, but it's too slight for serious consideration.

― If a job's worth doing it's worth doing, Horatio (ledge), Thursday, 2 October 2014 14:21 (34 minutes ago)

this is a stupid post, exquisite miniatures are quite as worthy as anything else

voted for both altibzz and altichyre

exquisite miniatures are quite as worthy as anything else

i respectfully disagree.

architectonic integrity is as valid a principle whatever the duration

single ideas can approach the asymptote of formal perfection in a way complexity queens and seriousness mavens with their love of the distended, the baroque and the top-heavy seldom do

one of my favourite pieces by franz liszt is an album leaf that is about 50 seconds long

pink flag is a hundred times more valuable than anything in 'progressive rock'

&c

I don't know how many people actually listened to quaristice era eps (I myself only got to them a couple of years after they were released), but I think they are actually better than the album. The reworked versions of the quaristice tracks give them a lot more depth and intensity.

― Larminard Darzingargle (silverfish), Thursday, 2 October 2014 14:33 (36 minutes ago)

there was probably some sort of via media to be found between the fragments of quaristice and the freeform nature of the eps

autechre post 2008 seem to be less about formally integrated releases than file dumps of material that you can sift through

the highpoints are still very high though and thats what matters most

pink flag is a hundred times more valuable than anything in 'progressive rock'

LJ bait

of course it's easier to be formally perfect in a smaller space. less room = less room for error.

even if i find, say altichyre to be the most emotionally moving harmonic progression in their catalogue, given the choice i'd still pick a piece that had more ideas. but this is only a matter of opinion, no more or less than pink flag v prog rock.

autechre post 2008 seem to be less about formally integrated releases than file dumps of material that you can sift through

Yeah I can imagine a future collection being released on USB stick - possibly with updates sent via the web, like a piece of software.

of course it's easier to be formally perfect in a smaller space. less room = less room for error.

― If a job's worth doing it's worth doing, Horatio (ledge), Thursday, 2 October 2014 15:20

very slow golf clap for u

this is only a matter of opinion, no more or less than pink flag v prog rock.

― If a job's worth doing it's worth doing, Horatio (ledge), Thursday, 2 October 2014 15:20 (1 minute ago)

*searches for xanax on deep web*

frog, here is the most recent full list: ILM Ballot Polls for 2014 and beyond -- order, timing, "I would have voted if I'd known about it," etc

pink flag is a hundred times more valuable than anything in 'progressive rock'

― Shepard Toney Album (dog latin), Thursday, October 2, 2014 2:19 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nah I p much agree

wire are one of the greatest bands in the history of music

pink flag isn't my preference but if nakh had said 'send' i'd possibly agree w/o qualification (aside from claiming that vdgg weren't rly prog qua prog, haha)

theres an inverse relation between concision and the sort of dialectical.....complexity....that extended durations can achieve, there is no 90 second grosse fuge, but the notion that 'slightness' is inimical to or incompatible with greatness is fatuous

'it's easier to be formally perfect in a smaller space' is exactly an argument for the virtues of concision rather than an expression of its limitations

same reason i had gantz graf #1 over any of their albums

Gantz Graf is overrated.

It's true that with a band like Boards of Canada, the shorter tracks are as important as the longer tracks, but I don't think this is necessarily true in Ae's case.

outside of Quaristice and "Rettic AC", what shorter tracks

The best thing on GG is itself pretty maximal, tbf ;) & one of the reasons for its greatness is that every idea it has is straight fucking inspired. the rest is clinical execution, synthesis, hyperliteracy

xp ^^ - they're not known for them, so using up a precious vote on an ornamental piece of fluff, no matter how lovely, might seem like a waste. I entirely understand the logic.

GG itself packs an incredible number of ideas into 4 minutes. Length-based arguments of concision fail. It's about synthesis of ideas

You do know they made it by attaching a contact mic to a mortar and pestle and just spent 4+ mins grinding up mustard seeds, don't you?

pls. trenchancy and autechre separate

dog latin you have never entirely understood anything and this is why i like you

Gantz Graf works brilliantly as a piece of audiovisual art and I find listening to it without the video a bit like steak without chips.

^^ Agree strongly with this. Never quite enjoy it when it's just the audio. CapIV on the other hand ...

Spotify playlist for those who use it:

http://open.spotify.com/user/gcwright/playlist/1Pk2WQhUw0flBVYpNXRXhi

i'm not sure it's fair to say later autechre is more complex than earlier autechre

isn't a lot of the "complexity" of later autechre just semi-automated dsp doing its own thing?

http://i.imgur.com/BpfrcVj.jpg

18. Acroyear2 - 123 points | 6 votes

isn't a lot of the "complexity" of later autechre just semi-automated dsp doing its own thing?

afaik only confield made use of their generative patches in max/msp, still, they're the ones that built the patches, and were directing their behaviour with parameters.
i don't see why that means complexity needs scare quotes, both the process and the results are more complex than the earlier work