Am I a gullible twat for buying Draft7.30 or not? (or am I just a twat? no, wait don't answer that)

Nope.

any one who *Likes* odd time signatures is a priori a pretentious twat. go join a laptop drummers circle...with all the other new-tech tabla players.

buying 'draft' at Aquarius when i get off from work in about 5 minutes

Ninety-nine percent of their output, to me, is crap. I find Phoenecia to be of higher quality, esp. on their last outing. It's a sad day when your spawn have outdone you, and Richie Devine passed up Ae a long time ago in my book. This whole bit you folks keep going on about with 'melodies' and whatnot has somehow completely escaped my notice. Since when is a nigh-random series of sad spooky noises automatically a 'melody'?

Eh. I prefer something with at least a semblance of a cadence, that can get stuck in my head. Pass the Speedy J.

when it's arch carrier.

That sort of codebreaking etc. etc. and constant speculation as to what UTTER GENIUS the pair of them are "up to this time" has always been what completely turns me off about the music. It's not as if they are out there wielding some magical tools- same as the AFX mystique - the guy sequences samples together. Get over the fucking method and listen to the tunes. I'm sorry if it doesn't apply to anybody here specifically but this is exactly the kind of parp that made me unsub from IDML.

I listen to Aphex completely differently from Autechre. Aphex I find the most entertaining because of his ability to chameleonise himself to many very original styles of music and do it with a sense of humour and lots of fun ideas to keep you entertained. He's the most accessible and succesful because he's punk rock and appeals to rockists who find the idea of bands like Autechre too scary. I listen to Autechre for purely aesthetic purposes - the nonsensical names, the facelessness is all intentional. They are not a comedy project (no they're not!). It sounds cliched but with Ae one has to leave all sense of humaness behind and concentrate only on the sounds - not their haircuts or whether they found it a bit of a laugh or if they're making a big political statement (which they have done with the Anti EP). It's just so difficult to discuss Autechre - there as big a puzzle as their music and trying to figure just why they're good throws up as many non-sequitors and paradoxes as ever. I'm sure it's intentional. Like how the four inlay cards that come with Draft7.30 look like they should fit together but don't quite. It's as if they're simultaneously trying to egg you on, half genius half having a laugh at your expense but not really telling you...

Hey, just because you can't feel it if it's not in 4/4, don't ruin my fun (I love the idea of a laptop drummers' circle btw)

Since when is a nigh-random series of sad spooky noises automatically a 'melody'?

When it's Gelk, or especially when it's Cichli (god that song is genius...yeah, it's in 5/4 and the melody is made up of 3 beat units and it all lines up every three bars, but you don't know have to know that to know that it's pretty).

I just don't understand why what Ae does is so wonderful compared to, I don't know, the entire Schematic records posse.

(am I being serious?)

Mike: You mean I have to take NYC seriously now? WTF.

(do I mean The DFA or NYC?)

In the realm of IDM autechre were the kings of melody - one of the main reasons that there was a time when 90% of IDM was comprised of people ripping off autechre's first three albums. Just to add to the list of obviously melodic autechre songs: garbagemx, leterel, krib, goz quarter.

And I said "far more amusical" than - autechre's musics has far more structure than merzbow - incunabula to chiastic slide it was loops and loops, lp7 to ep7 saw a little randomness thrown in, confield moreso, but even then , it was a slow mutatation of loops and usually not just random bleep bleep.

Obv. not including Plaid, Black Dog before them, AFX, Bola, Cylob, Squarepusher, Speedy J, Orbital, anybody from Detroit ever even Kenny Larkin, LFO, Mouse on Mars, Sabres, 2 Lone Swordsmen, the list goes on and on of people who I would say have much more to do with 'melody' than Ae ever have and were around before them or around the same time.

But I'm tired of this argument, I was on IDM-L for six years, and for what it's worth the final nail in the coffin for autechre is that they have gone beyond 'undanceable' well into anti-funky territory (like many of their spawn) and why this is any sort of achievement (like Masonna topping Merzbow for sheer unlistenable audience-abuse) is quite beyond me, possibly because I'm not as entertained by "Godel-Escher-Bach" as some people.

is it really so hard to grapple with two aesthetics (yrs and ae's) diverging? doesn't this kind of shit happen all the time?

the problem seems less to do with autechre than with a listener's inability to accept that they aren't making tri repetae (or lp5, or whatever you like) anymore. you don't have to like confield, but sean & rob aren't out to spite you.

my favorite stuff of theirs remains 'lp5' and 'ep7', that was just a breakthrough year for them. I was impressed with the simple fact that 'confield' went even further out, but it seemed like a transitional record: it was as if their sound vocabulary had gotten so abstract that they had to let go of the melodic counterpoint that had been a strong point on every single previous album. There were a few nicely composed lines and chords here and there but no melodic development, probably because the sounds and structures had been emphasized to a point where traditional development would have seemed out of place alongside... so 'confield' seems a bit dashed off to me in comparison to previous albums, it sounds great but doesn't have any depth.

too early to tell about the new one but so far I'd agree with the party line, it's 'confield' with more time spent on it, more elaborate, more odd details. even less to hum along to then ever before, and yes they're still using the same softsynth sounds that they discovered around the time of lp5, but it seems like there's a lot more to this record than the last one, it's still difficult but somehow more seductive.

re: Confield being the sixth aelbum, look at track 1.

but what about Chiastic Slide?

also helpsuit is OTM

AUTECHRE ROXXOR U R ALL GAY!

"just"

other thoughts: the cover should have ae and co dressed nazistyle hence living up to the 'arid idm' hype: ("sa ss"!) or they should call it "sass" and try and be sassy!

quite impressed.