Autechre live streaming on Twitch

[Sean Ymphs]

I posted this in the Musicians Corona thread, but I thought it was maybe worth its own thread.

There is a live stream that has been running for several days of some continually evolving generative music allegedly from Autechre:
https://www.twitch.tv/4utechre

On the Clips tab there are snapshots of the stream from various times.

It certainly does sound like them, Richard Devine seems to think so too. They did announce a little while ago that they recorded 750 hours of live material: https://www.residentadvisor.net/news/72301
So maybe this is from that.

[Sean Ymphs]

Gone now. That's a shame, there was some nice stuff in there, even if it only significantly changed every twelve hours or so.

[Excellent_Biscuits]

Doubt it was them.

I kept checking every day and it had barely changed at all.

Would have thought they would make it a bit more variable if it was really them no?

[Sean Ymphs]

It's back on! It's livelier now, and there's some nice interactivity with the chat.

[purlieu]

It's just Sean, he's experimenting with audio/visual generative stuff. Some of it's pretty interesting, nothing you can sit down and watch for hours on end expecting huge variation but nice to tune into every now and then.

[Excellent_Biscuits]

It's gone again.

But this version seemed to be feeding off the chat /emojis etc.

That was pretty interesting! I'm useless at computers but I'd love to know how that is all working aside from the music itself.

[Dewt]

That was pretty interesting! I'm useless at computers but I'd love to know how that is all working aside from the music itself.

Knowing Autechre it's almost certainly involving Max. This kind of thing: https://www.instagram.com/p/B_N80K6hvJN/

Autechre have written about using Max before.

I enjoy this stream. I wouldn't want to listen to only generative music, but this is the generative music I want to listen to.

[purlieu]

I think he's using Jitter, which is an a/v side of Max, as well as OpenGL.

[McFlymo]

Sean (if it's really him) is chatting away to people on the stream at the moment, giving away all the tech stuff. Very kind of him. This whole thing is utterly class.

[Excellent_Biscuits]

I'm suspicious of that. Autechre never seemed the "chatting away'  type.

I could be completely wrong and if so I will eat a lot of humble pies. So very very humble. But delicious all the same. Pies are good. Even humble ones. Goodnight.

[Dewt]

I'm suspicious of that. Autechre never seemed the "chatting away'  type.

They're definitely the type to talk about their interests though - that's how I know they use Max.

I'm not too worried about it - somebody successfully pretending to be them is as good as it actually being them.

[Excellent_Biscuits]

It does sound like them.

It's good whatever it is.

I've not listened to them for a while but always wondered how far they could take it, as their albums always gradually morphed towards weirdness. I think Confield was the moment I though fuck this it just sounds like Autechre now. Everything before I thought was amazing

[purlieu]

I'm suspicious of that. Autechre never seemed the "chatting away'  type.

You never saw the 'Ask Autechre Anything' thread on WATMM then? https://forum.watmm.com/topic/81109-aaa-ask-autechre-anything-sean-and-rob-on-watmm/

Also Sean did some mixes and general playing of random tracks on the Ae mixlr page before the Twitch thing started and spoke quite in depth about various things, including mentioning they've delivered two albums to Warp. They're generally very chatty, especially Sean. https://forum.watmm.com/topic/97841-autechre-mixlr-active-again/

[peanutbutter]

Cheers for the heads up on this, was a pretty nice thing to stick on at lunch. The conversation looked really nice too, only had like 60 streamers and maybe 5 or so in the chat. Seemed to be giving pretty solid answers to anything that was asked, more than happy to share stuff, like.

[McFlymo]

I was delighted, he answered all the questions I could think of (all of them kinda dorky technical things) but it was genuinely very cool, no one was being a dick and asking lame stuff. Although I did ask about the difference in their outlook pre-Confield that led them to that change in direction and Sean said something along the lines of, "why do people say Confield is weird? It's not that weird an album, just the first song and maybe the last." I honestly wasn't trying to go down that path, I think it's a class album, but for me it marks a real distinct turning point, when they stopped being in the electro / glitch / beats realm and moved more to abstract and "sonic art" territory. I was wondering was it them wanting to push things, did they feel they'd done everything they could, on the technical level, or was it their interest in advancing the tech side of things (getting into Max / MSP) that opened things up.

Anyway, that was the only point I felt Sean was maybe a bit annoyed with the questions, but I think it was generally good bants.

He talked about the stream and how it was oscillators in synths that had been swapped out with oscs in jitter to create the visuals and the audio is feeding off the visuals, so colours of emojis in the chat, when being brought into the visuals, can alter the sounds (and filtering) in the audio. Fun stuff!

Loads of other stuff about gear and software. To be honest, that has been the absolute highlight of 2020 for me: Actually getting to chat away to Autechre on a Sunday afternoon, while listening to this endless evolving A/V generative thing. It was nerd heaven, like.

[peanutbutter]

Surely Confield was just a pivot drastically towards working directly with software on a computer as opposed to various kinds of hardware? This isn't stuff I'd have much of a clue about but around that time period seems about the point where computers would've gotten powerful to handle just about everything audio wise by themselves?

[McFlymo]

I think they still used hardware for Quaristice, (see here for some lovely patches they gave away for the Elektron Monomachine and Machinedrum around 2008) but that might have been the last time. Otherwise, I'd agree completely: It was a move to Max MSP and using computers more, I reckon. I was surprised that they hadn't moved to other code stuff, when I asked if he used Java and that sort of thing, he said that they've just stuck to Max/MSP.

[popcorn]

God I'd like to get into these guys but I never have any fucking idea how.

[Dewt]

Tri Repetae in my opinion

[purlieu]

Everything you hear on Draft 7.30, Untilted and Quaristice is hardware (triggered by computers in many places, admittedly), and Oversteps / Move of Ten had some hardware too. It's only since Exai that they've been completely computer based.

In terms of getting into them, I'd honestly just approach it chronologically. The '93/'94 stuff is lovely melodic early Warp-style stuff, then they gradually became more challenging with each release. Until last decade, anyway, which is probably very slightly more accessible than the '00s material, in sound if not length.

[McFlymo]

Everything you hear on Draft 7.30, Untilted and Quaristice is hardware (triggered by computers in many places, admittedly), and Oversteps / Move of Ten had some hardware too. It's only since Exai that they've been completely computer based.

That sounds about right, Exai and everything after has sounded very much in the "generative music" world, to me.

In terms of getting into them, I'd honestly just approach it chronologically. The '93/'94 stuff is lovely melodic early Warp-style stuff, then they gradually became more challenging with each release. Until last decade, anyway, which is probably very slightly more accessible than the '00s material, in sound if not length.

Yeah! I heard a couple of songs around 94 or so and didn't think much of it at the time. My next experience of them was Confield. So it was slightly odd hearing their pretty abstract, challenging stuff, then jumping back to the "straighter" ambient electro sorta stuff of the early 90s, but some of that stuff is amazing. I still get shivers at that bass-line in Clipper.

If the early stuff isn't doing it for you, I'd recommend LP5 (1998) - their 5th album.

To me it's an incredibly underrated album, combining the glitch and complex rhythmic stuff that was happening around that time with Aphex and Squarepusher et al, but with more coherence and less chaos, plus their very well developed melodic elements. It's almost like an exclusively digital version of Geogaddi by Boards of Canada - hooks aplenty.

[The Crumb]

Their EPs can be a great introduction point - Anti and Garbage both have a pretty approachable early 90's Warp sound, and are a more manageable length than the albums. They have some of Autechre's best early music on as well, Flutter and Vletrmx are both amazing.

Seconding the lp5 recommendation as well, it's a really great album and a great bridge between the old and newer stuff. Plus I love those beautiful alien music box melodies.

[purlieu]

LP5 is a strangely playful Ae album. You wouldn't get a track like 'Melve' on any of their other albums.

[Viero_Berlotti]

LP5 is a strangely playful Ae album. You wouldn't get a track like 'Melve' on any of their other albums.

One of my absolute favourite Autechre tracks is 'Stop Look Listen' exclusively released on a Warp compilation album in 1998, the same year as LP5 was released. It's got that playful feel jazzy feel in bucket loads:

https://youtu.be/FbTAM_G2ci8

[Norton Canes]

Another shout for LP5, one of the best albums ever.

[Sean Ymphs]

https://www.twitch.tv/4utechre

Back on again. I did not foresee this development.

Spoiler alert

They are playing Sonic. There is also a Max patcher in the corner but no idea what it's doing.

[close]

[popcorn]

Is the Max patch somehow playing Sonic? it would explain why they seem to be completely shit?

[McFlymo]

One of my absolute favourite Autechre tracks is 'Stop Look Listen' exclusively released on a Warp compilation album in 1998, the same year as LP5 was released. It's got that playful feel jazzy feel in bucket loads:

https://youtu.be/FbTAM_G2ci8

Oh this is delightful! Cheers :)

[ASFTSN]

Another shout for LP5, one of the best albums ever.

And another here, it was my intro and I really think it's more representative of what they sound like generally than Tri Repetae (which I also love, natch).

[peanutbutter]

Autechre are playing primavera 2021 so decent chance they'll be touring next year