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March 28, 2024, 08:20:44 PM

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Autechre - Rae

Started by Crenners, November 27, 2021, 09:48:37 AM

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Crenners

I love and rate Autechre very highly without classing myself as very knowledgeable about them. I've listened to probably 90% of what they've released, but my tastes definitely tend towards the more accessibly structured, immediate stuff. Tri Repetae and Chiastic Slide are my most listened records by very far.

I don't know if they've ever done anything better than Rae from LP5 to my personal taste. You've got that military piston beat in the first half which goes like fuck, thrusting through the bips and tones. You can feel it move through the gears, brand new oil and fresh polish, smooth gears and tempered surfaces. And then suddenly something snaps, and the belts fail, and the gears get sticky, and you have that slow, agonising, gradual wind down of the machine. The yawning tones and clipped beeps take over and the movement comes to a halt. I think it's the only Autechre track that's ever brought me to tears.

I prefer this kind of thing to their more abstract stuff.

Norton Canes

Rae is stunning. The first time I played it it was raining, but at the moment it decelerated and that beautiful slow section took over the rain eased off and a rainbow appeared. Swear down.

buttgammon

We have similar tastes in Autechre. Rae is great because there's something improbably melodic about it beneath it all. There's something about those stammery, stop-start tracks from that time that's so seductive. Cichli is probably my favourite all-time track of theirs but I have a real soft spot for Second Peng from the Anvil Vapre EP too.

There's still plenty that I like about the more recent stuff but I find the formlessness much less listenable, whereas Tri Repetae, Chiastic Slide and LP5 are things I'll never get bored of.

chutnut

Autechre are my my favourite producers of all time, I've seen them live 6 times theyre all probably my top 6 live experiences (acid definitely helped with a few of them). When they're on form they're genuinely the most creative people around, and they've basically created their own genre of music in a way that even someone like aphex twin hasn't managed.

Rae is indeed a high point and one of my favourites tracks, but I think their real peak was from confield to untilted, just pure headfuck. They've done a few weak things since then though (quaristice and oversteps) and pretty much everything since the exai tour might as well be all the same album. Still better than most other stuff though.

chutnut

Lp5 and chiastic slide just got repressed on vinyl too, need to grab lp5 as it's one of the few i don't have

Sean Ymphs

Quote from: Crenners on November 27, 2021, 09:48:37 AMYou've got that military piston beat in the first half which goes like fuck, thrusting through the bips and tones. You can feel it move through the gears, brand new oil and fresh polish, smooth gears and tempered surfaces. And then suddenly something snaps, and the belts fail, and the gears get sticky, and you have that slow, agonising, gradual wind down of the machine. The yawning tones and clipped beeps take over and the movement comes to a halt.

I like how you've put this. A lot my favourite tracks of theirs evoke a similar kind of emotional story. Like LCC from Untilted gives me this sense of someone struggling, getting more and more frantic and then just giving up and accepting their fate.

Another one along the same lines as the others mentioned in this thread is Tilapia from the Cichlisuite EP - a masterpiece.

Twit 2

Love Autechre, especially Amber and Tri. I find "Slip" to be a pretty unbeatable, quintessential track. Also big fan of their slower/quieted stuff like "Overand."

The Crumb

It's a beautiful track, I love those thin music-box type melodies on LP5. Pir on ep7 is a similar sort of loveliness.


Johnny Yesno

Quote from: chutnut on November 27, 2021, 11:43:54 AMLp5 and chiastic slide just got repressed on vinyl too, need to grab lp5 as it's one of the few i don't have

lp5 is my favourite and I have a dj promo of the vinyl I picked up somewhere. In particular, the track Fold4, Wrap5. It's not only clever but it's beautiful too. I lost interest in Autechre around Untilted. Even under the effects of acid, I found that album incredibly dry.


chutnut

Yeah it took me a while to warm to Untilted, I didn't really enjoy it when it came out and thought it was more of a step backwards than forwards. It wasn't until I saw them almost a year later that I got it, just relentless machine gun rhythms pounding you

Norton Canes

LP5 is Autechre's best album - it hits that sweet spot between the conventional electronica of their first few long players and the more avant garde stuff which followed. It's just so delicately woven, each sound is layered and incorprated with such a lightness of touch. Rae and Fold4, Wrap5 are two of the highlights of course, butt ake something like Under BOAC, an atypical track which on the surface sounds like something Stomp would create with dustbins, but it's so intricately constructed (grown?), so light, there are even bits of it that make me want to laugh.

A definite all-time top five album.

Johnny Yesno

Quote from: Norton Canes on November 29, 2021, 11:54:54 AMLP5 is Autechre's best album - it hits that sweet spot between the conventional electronica of their first few long players and the more avant garde stuff which followed. It's just so delicately woven, each sound is layered and incorprated with such a lightness of touch. Rae and something like Under BOAC, an atypical track which on the surface sounds like something Stomp would create with dustbins, but it's so intricately constructed (grown?), so light, there are even bits of it that make me want to laugh.

Yes, that's another one of their both clever and highly listenable compositions, and I know what you mean by it making you want to laugh. It's constantly evolving yet the shuffly groove is present throughout.

purlieu

I only got into Untilted last year, not sure I can think of another album that's taken 15 years. I was surprised at how melodic it is, even if those melodies are often hidden away. One of my favourites now.

LP5 I've always had an odd relationship with, I can totally appreciate its importance, but it maybe seems a bit too playful for my taste, totally missing the atmospheric melancholia of my favourite Ae material. That said, Rae is a stunner and I love Arch Carrier too.

kidney

I think that Draun Quarter from Envane EP has the same kind of warm-but-bittersweet sound that Rae has. It's become a favourite of mine.

chveik

Autechre's peak was 1997-2005 imo

Dickie_Anders

Draft 7.30 is their best album I think. The behemoth that is Elseq may be a close second. 90s Autechre is nice enough but 00s/10s AE is the real deal imo, nothing else quite like it. Wasn't keen on the last couple of albums they released though

My top 5 all-time Autechre tracks:
Cap.IV
pendulu hv moda
foldfree casual
bqbqbq
Surripere

wrec

Having never paid them a whole lot of attention I got very quickly obsessed with Autechre about 7 years ago and they're by far my most listened to artist ever since. Went over to the UK on my own to see a couple of gigs even (though as they play in total darkness I didn't "see" a whole lot). Funnily enough Rae was one of the first tracks of theirs that really hit me, was amazed at how it seemed to be grinding to a halt but kept going. Fold4,Wrap5 was another, with it's seemingly constantly download-spiralling tempo.

There's no AE I really dislike but I think Amber is their weakest. In their earlier stuff the hip hop influence gives it some character, then Amber feels a bit aimless and uncommitted, and lesser than a lot of other Warp albums of the time. With Tri Repeatae they get into something way more original and Chiastic Slide is a further step forward.

Exai was the current one when I got into them and I love everything since. I suppose 20-minute tracks of generative electronics can only be so accessible but I think the difficulty of their later work tends to be a bit exaggerated, it's mostly just less repetitive.

kidney

Quote from: Dickie_Anders on December 04, 2021, 09:22:54 PMMy top 5 all-time Autechre tracks:
Cap.IV
pendulu hv moda
foldfree casual
bqbqbq
Surripere

That's a fantastic top 5. It's tough to only pick 5 but off the top of my head mine would be:
Surripere
Bladelores
Latentcall
Garbagemx36
Sublimit

The Crumb

Go on then

Pen Expers
Tt1pd
1 1 is
Ipacial Section
Vletrmx 21

Twit 2

If I want to list my favourite Autechre songs, I get my cat to run over my keyboard.

chutnut

That would certainly be easier than trying to type them out on a phone with predictive text


Mine are

Gantz graf
Lentic catachresis
Tac lacora
Stud
That bit that starts about 30 mins into the untilted live set lol

I would have included Rae too if the thread wasn't already about it


purlieu

Piezo
444
Stud
13x0 step
Second Scepe
Surripere
recks on
Rae
Arch Carrier
rew(1)
Perlence
Metaz form8
LCC

Hmm, not managing this top 5 thing very well am I?

Twit 2

Cool moment from my primary school teaching career: you have to do dance as part of PE, so blasted out "Eutow" and got them choreographing moves to it. They loved it.

Nice to see Ipacial Section get a shoutout. I return to that one quite a bit.

I'll throw in Theme of Sudden Roundabout, Bine, Clipper and fol4.


buttgammon

This is difficult!

Cichli
Arch Carrier
Clipper
Second Peng
Rae

M-CORP

Goz Quarter
P.:NTIL
Nuane
444
Eutow

Not as familiar as I should be with their post-90s stuff. But they've been so prolific that everything up to Draft 7.30 is enough for me. (Except 'Amber'. It's a bit dull imo, the basic Warp sound worked on Incunabula but oddly not the second time around - likely because it was a contractual obligation album?) Nice that a track like 'all end' exists though, I guess. Oh, and I've just remembered the Warp Tapes from a few years back - the 17-minute mark of Part 1 is heavenly, and it's available as a free download.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RQFxBFhGl4

The Crumb

Quote from: M-CORP on December 09, 2021, 11:03:23 AMGoz Quarter
P.:NTIL
Nuane
444
Eutow

Not as familiar as I should be with their post-90s stuff. But they've been so prolific that everything up to Draft 7.30 is enough for me. (Except 'Amber'. It's a bit dull imo, the basic Warp sound worked on Incunabula but oddly not the second time around - likely because it was a contractual obligation album?)

There's a few lovely tracks on Amber, Slip sounds like proto BoC.
But it is a bit much as a 70 minute whole. The Garbage EP is great though, more concise but long enough to be a satisfying listen. Kind of amazing that you'd have a substantial and high quality Autechre discography just from EPs

purlieu

Surprised with the negative Amber remarks on this page, it's been my favourite Ae since I first heard it. 'Piezo' is an all-time top ten ever track for me, 'Slip' and 'Nine' are utterly gorgeous too. It's always struck me as a very different album to Incunabula, a bit rawer in the drums, lots more reverb, definitely hints of what's to come in there. Garbage is almost a halfway house between it and Tri Repetae. I think you can kind of trace their entire sound through to Untilted, with each release feeling like a halfway point between the two surrounding it. After that it's a bit more jumbled, mind.

chveik

really hard to only select five

Gelk
Pen Expers
Garbagemx36
Cichli
Fold 4, Wrap 5

chutnut

I was never really a big fan of Amber either tbh, it's like Incunabula but without as much character. Anything by Autechre is worth listening to but I think Amber would be at the bottom of my list