Autechre - Amber

Amber is actually pretty unique, there is/was a lot of stuff around that sounds like Incunabula (Black Dog indeed), and again a lot of IDM that sounds like the later stuff, but Amber (and largely, Tri Repetae) hits a sweet spot in between that hasn't really been imitated that much.

Garbage has the best melody ever in ae history

While I get that Autechre have long since moved away from this album artistically, I still think very highly of this record and still enjoy the hell out of it. While I'm listening to it, I don't think "meh, this is old shit and it sucks that it's not more like Exai", I enjoy it for what it is. It's where their heads were at at the time and they did a great job of it.

Otm

i actually have a lot of work to do today but how many youtubes would it take to convince people amber is not unique among its contemporaries in 1994 ambient electronica

years back, somebody on ILX talked about this album - https://www.discogs.com/Phthalocyanine-Navy-Warship/release/11956 , by Pthalocyanine.. it's pretty singular-sounding, though it def shares some qualities with Ae's music.

Lowell is a quality poster imo

idk did another group release an album called amber under the name autechre

*Phthalocyanine

the goal was not to show that somebody released the exact same album but to show that autechre was not particularly "advanced"

Fwiw, I don't care about advanced. What impressed me most about this period of Ae was how overwhelmingly emotional something like Yulquen or garbage or bronchsvnmx or GoSheep could be.

The Beatles made records that were more advanced than Please Please Me but I still enjoy that album for what it is, and it makes very little difference in 2018 as to how Please Please Me compared to more advanced music being made in 1963.

It's a similar deal for me with Amber. I don't give a shiny shite how "advanced" or "unadvanced" it is in comparison to other electronica albums put out in the same year - it's not relevant because everyone knows Autechre went onto make more "advanced" records and the fact that people still enjoy listening to Amber as well as appreciating it as an artistic stepping stone for Autechre basically justifies its existence.

xp yeah i agree that that's what they're good at

i would not agree that autechre went on to make more "advanced" records

This surfaced several years ago, and it's great. https://youtu.be/7uTUnTGb15c - Autechre - Kalpol Introl (Live) 1994 (apologies, OT)

I don't know man, I was pretty heavily into all this stuff back in 1994 and Amber immediately stood out amongst the likes of Joey Beltram, FSOL, Luke Slater, FAX etc - much more than Incunabula which fit right in there.

Whether or not they went on to go more "advanced" is a bit of a misnomer anyway - "abrasive" yes, with new plugins yes.

I was also pretty heavily into this stuff in 1994

here's a joey beltram track from the same year as amber that i think sounds more like amber and less like incunabula

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6v6BVkRYMQ

Idm it’s for the intelligent.

those ones aren't so bad. take out the "mx" and the numbers (which correspond to the % of the EP they take up) and you have a fairly normal tracklisting..."Garbage", "PIOB", "Bronchus Seven", and "VLetr"

And "Bronchus 7" refers to the seventh mix of "Bronchus," and in fact, I know of 3 other "Bronchus" mixes that've been released, which means of course we'll need to poll them.

Whether or not they went on to go more "advanced" is a bit of a misnomer anyway - "abrasive" yes, with new plugins yes.

― Siegbran, Friday, May 4, 2018 10:16 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i agree with this but i don't know how to broach without incurring the wrath of all the autechre fanboyz here

if youre looking for more early autechre type stuff, the late 90s/early 00s saw a TON of copyists.. check the Merck label for example... or like the first Arovane album?

I think I get where Vahid is coming from on this. If you take a synchronic slice of "electronic music" at any given point in time in the nineties then Autechre seem to be "on trend" more than out on their own. I don't think this is actually more true of Amber than the later material, it's just that Amber (and certainly Incunabula) can be more easily situated within a 'scene', whereas by Tri Repetae what had been ambient techno was going in a bunch of different directions - but that doesn't mean the latter album doesn't basically sound like the beat construction of Orbital's "Sad But True" crossed with the sound of LFO circa "Tied Up" and the mood of FSOL's ISDN.

None of which is to detract from how great an album Tri Repetae is - as with Amber, part of its greatness stems from how Autechre were exploring so many possible directions in tandem with a lot of different producers and carving out their own distinct sound within what was a dense field of innovation and cross-pollination.

Fwiw, I can remember back in the dark days of ilx starting a thread that was "tearjerking techno" top 100 or some such. And started off with Microlovr and Dexter and then people started posting things that were not techno and were "tearjerking" because they had sad lyrics, which wasn't my intention for the thread at all. My intention was to think about very emotional techno (without lyrics/vocals) and I remember the late great getting annoyed about that. I was too, actually. It's quite tangential but I do think that Ae in this stage were making sometimes "tearjerking techno" and I still yearn for more of that. Maybe that's what tlg is getting at. I think, maybe it is.

It's what I still yearn for. I wouldn't find it with the current iteration of Ae though.

Not that I want to project what tlg is getting at

garbage is supremely sad

It is.

latentcall from elseq gives me a similar feeling and has jerked a tear or two from me.

it's so crazy to think it's been 24 years since amber. that's equivalent to 1974-1998!

None of which is to detract from how great an album Tri Repetae is - as with Amber, part of its greatness stems from how Autechre were exploring so many possible directions in tandem with a lot of different producers and carving out their own distinct sound within what was a dense field of innovation and cross-pollination.

― Tim F, Friday, May 4, 2018 4:54 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tim otm

it’s not necessarily that i think autechre were “advanced” at this point in their career as much as amber as a whole accesses a v specific mood for me. it’s definitely connected to other contemporaneous dance music but it’s special via the particular approach

This was my favorite AE album and in some ways probably still is. These days the old FM patches grate a little and I wonder why nobody else points out that a lot of the tracks don’t “go” anywhere but that’s probably more about how I’ve changed and not about this record.

going places is overrated

Also how come someone on this thread is asking for other IDM albums from this time frame that sound like this and nobody said B12

“Nine” is basically straight off Time Tourist ffs

true but i didn’t bring it up because time tourist was two years after amber

i’m listening to rihanna needed me at the taco shop and it sounds like she’s singing over autechre

if you want a straightfaced recommendation for “sounds just like amber” it’s not going to be 100% easy because they nicely carved out a niche for themselves - there’s a lot of darker ambient electro from the era that dhares the atmospheres and synths but not the beats, there’s plenty of stuff with the intricate beats but the atmospherics are different (b12 would fit here). the closest i can think of is higher intelligence agency but that doesn’t have the steel grey aesthetic ... so yeah, reiterating my sense that the most special thing about autechre is their manipulation of mood and atmosphere

dhares = has

torta fingers

if you want a straightfaced recommendation for “sounds just like amber” it’s not going to be 100% easy because they nicely carved out a niche for themselves

hm sounds pretty advanced

Whether or not they went on to go more "advanced" is a bit of a misnomer anyway - "abrasive" yes, with new plugins yes.

― Siegbran, Friday, May 4, 2018 10:16 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i agree with this but i don't know how to broach without incurring the wrath of all the autechre fanboyz here

it wasn't so much new plugins as it was gradually moving to max/msp and an object-oriented programming approach to composition though, right? at least that's how i always think of their transition from more conventionally arranged music of the amber era to their amoebic morphing (but always readily identifiable as autechre) recent music.

I haven't heard torta fingers fwiw but I trust you.

ah yes i forgot that these two guys making syncopated industrial with delay units are such an important totem that bringing up other artists not named Richard is just silly I mean why bother

dhares = has Was a banger tho.

The niche was carved in Tri Repetae / Garbage / Anvil Vapre - Amber is not as special for its time as some people are making it out to be

i don’t really think we’re making it out to be special

unless oh damn, these dudes aren’t special!!!

tlg just paused mid-sandwich to explain how nothing else sounds like this record

jeez dude take a chill pill

you’re a special and valuable person, whether or not the music you like is

that is not tlg’s point at all

tombot u mean richard h kirk right?

i’m just confused about why we have to spend so much time determining why autechre is not special especially during this record

i’d be totally fine with talking about contemporaneous work if it wasn’t framed with this bullshit

I still can't figure out what it is about Quaristice that doesn't work

― Sade of the Del Amitri (dog latin), Friday, October 18, 2024 11:23 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

for me, it's the track lengths. I don't think bite-sized Ae works at all. It's the only album in their discography I don't love and never bothered to buy

yeah I think that's why I prefer quaristice.quadrange

I probably would have voted for Slip or Montreal - kinda surprised neither it nor Montreal got any votes (especially since the first response is just "Montreal")

Further for me, it's so atmostpheric and disturbing

fucking NO ONE voted for Slip???

I think I would have. Piezo edged it out perhaps