Amber / Garbage EP

With that six dollars Autechre could maybe buy a really used copy of Amber for themselves!

OK, I've given Garbage a full listen now. Garbagemx36 is such an amazing jungle of percussion, and yet it still has a great deal of ambiance and emotion. I never really liked POIBmx19, but today it sounded unexpectedly good.

Now here's where it gets really, REALLY awesome. The last two tracks on this EP are some of the greatest pieces of music ever written. Bronchusevenmx24 is like being exiled in the icy, desolate wastes of Antarctica. Merely listening to the first few seconds of it puts me in mind of bioluminescent deep sea creatures swimming through the ambient waters. You swim up to the surface, and the dim tinge of the northern lights shine upon the barely visible midnight landscape of icebergs, plains of snow and translucent, jagged chunks of ice. You realize that, in this blinding darkness, you're missing the stunning beauty of Antarctica, which you know you'll never live to see again as your hands and feet get colder and colder. Your life seems to drift further and further away from reality as the sky turns into an inky blue.

VLetrmx21 starts playing. As your body loses all feeling, and your mind slowly fades out of existence, the darkness in the sky gradually starts to lift. Now you can just about see stripes of cloud in a pinkish blue haze. You suddenly become aware of the miracle of nature, of life, the universe and everything in it. Everything in existence seems to flow with importance, you are only just starting to become aware of this infinity.

Just as the sun pokes through the hills of ice, it's already too late.

^I can write that shit because the Garbage EP is so fucking brilliant.

Last day for this week! Holy shit! I am thoroughly pleased with this chunk of music though. The entire Garbage EP never gets old, Bronchusevenrmx is clearly the highlight though.

TearTear is also really fucking brilliant

  Quote

Week one: Incunabula/BasscadEP/Anti EP

Week two: Amber/Garbage

Week three: Tri Repetae/Anvil Vapre/Peel Sessions 1

Week four: Chiastic Slide/Envane

Week five: LP5/Cichlisuite

Week six: EP7/Peel Session 2

Week seven: Confield

Week eight: Draft 7.30/Gantz Graf

Week nine: Untilted

Week ten: Quaristice/(Versions)

bronchussevenmx24, damn I love this tune. So relaxing, so beautiful. I was in a mall today, way too much noise, i turned my ipod on, played this song, perfect.

bronchussevenmx24 is one of the best songs you could ever play to get rid of tension

edit: and you Goum, don't even think of tryin to make my thread for week 3 tonight. I'm watchin you

I've been super busy this week (first week of college classes) and thusly haven't had the time to give these releases much listen, but I've read some of the thread and there's some good analysis. Foil, Yulquen, and Garbagemx are my favorite tracks from this weeks'

  On 9/27/2009 at 2:41 AM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

why does cichlisuite go with LP5 if all the tracks are "remixes" of a chiastic song?

MY GOD MAN!

We must remedy this situation immediately. I would say that its better to compress a bit and go with all 3 on the one time and do ep7/lp5 in one week is anyone else against this alteration?

the other option is to kick peel sessions out of this week and put it with lp5

Can't we just leave the listing as it is? I know I originally suggested a different listing, but now I'm certain that Cichlisuite should go with LP5, followed by an EP7/Peel Session 2 week. It just makes more sense, given the distinct styles of music on those releases.

Ok final amber thoughts.

Well this is the first Autechre I understood. The second I bought. (first was gantz graf)

This album was always about space. From the opening vibrato of foil, to the fade out of teartear, it's a trip through the cosmos. It's similar to adventures beyond the ultraworld, except with the human intervention. Amber is the vacuum.

When brought up to incunabula, this album (while much more a favorite of mine) has overall many more incredible tracks, yet some weaker ones than on incunabula, for all it's consistency. Piezo and Teartear being the weakest tracks IMO. HOWEVER, amber represents a huge leap forward in Autechre's feel and their concept. Many more syncopations, MANY more reverbs, and a concept of spacial music is much more further developed. The davis credo "play what's not there" rings true on amber, you get this sense of incredible space, large areas filled with minimal sound. I've always felt Amber to be ae's reverb album, or least where it's used to most obviously. tri rep is much more up front and present, while amber is lurking in the shadows of sound decay.

Foil is a great opener, setting the stage well for what is to come. It's key in that it doesn't give too much away. It establishes the "space" feel with a warbling note, but only one note. The sounds are similar to the rest of the record but not too advanced. It established the heavy syncopations, but it does not develop them as much as montreal or slip.

Montreal maybe the best track made with two notes. (maybe Daft punk's alive wins too) the third kick is what signals ae's intentions with this record. It's placed on the "e" of the three-e-and-a if one were to subdivide the measure into 16ths. the other clicks and snaps are all placed in non-obvious downbeats (or even straight upbeats for that matter) the heavy heavy use of syncopation is really killer on this track.

Hmmm.... Silverside. Never really understood this one. I've tried. It's ok. I hate the synth strings in this capacity. I think that's what they mean when they say "our music from this time seems really cheesy." Yep synth strings, instant cheese factor. Granted, the rhythms are ok, but this belongs on incunabula if that at all. Also the bonus ending is turrible.

Slip's melody was determined (by rook i think) to be in 29/8. Now the song may not be in 29/8 (in fact it's in 4/4) but i adore how the melody floats around and lands at different points on the rhythm track's downbeat each measure. It's never the same. Really fascinating. I also love the really really low second drum kick on the upbeat. You have to have good headphones to pick that one up! A very lovable song. the fluttering hi hats are incredible. they have a repetition rate of 0.

Glitch is one of my favs, such an amazing groove. How this track builds is fantastic. Each syncopated click is introduced quietly, without much fanfare, and just when you think they couldn't add another element, it slowly meanders its way into the mix. And yet, this track manages to stay focused on the "glitch". however i like to pull back, not focus on one element, and listen to the entire mix. Great sounds.

Amber loses it's way a little at peizo. I feel this 'groaning' track is a little to similar to glitch in it's gimmick and not enough new ideas to warrant 8:00+ minutes. They had better melodic ideas on nil and better rhythmic ideas on every other track and better timbrel ideas on glitch. it's the weakest track by far.

Nine is 3:42 minutes of bliss. The echoes and reverbs make me think of a large nebulae. Beautiful.

Further was the first autechre track truly loved. Great feel. I've always imagined space icicles dripping down, in the "ice cave system your majesty" (I was an orb fan before ae ) Even tho this is the longest track, i've never felt like it was a whopping ten minutes. Even though there is tons of repetition in it.

Yulquen is an excellent track, if you have the right sound system. I have amber in my truck, and each time yulquen comes on, the 7th, 8th and 9th notes are extremely loud. kinda makes the track unlistenable in certain places. to bad cause it's quite soothing. ae CAN do ambient well, they just have more important things to do.

Nil is great, and I only recently discovered how excellent it is. Sand castles. that's all i'll say. Great melodies and build up.

Teartear i've also never understood. It sounds like it belongs on chiastic slide and not on amber. the space feel is still here a little, but it sounds like a less mature version of nuane. hmm. don't get why people like it so much.

In summation: Amber is one of my favs of ae's. Not as consistent as Incunabula but the feel, the rhythms, everything is higher. The leap from incunabula to amber is MUCH much greater than from amber to tri rep. Amazing.

I agree with almost everything you say here except that for me Piezo is probably my second fav on this album after Montreal. Teartear is ranked pretty highly for me too, its funny that you don't like that one because it has tons of syncopation also.

Piezo is the best for me, almost tear inducing.

I hadn't listened to vletrmx for ages because I didn't like it, but after revisiting it because of this thread I thought I could hear a female voice where I previously thought it was a keyboard.

It scared me so much I had to turn it off but it made me appreciate the track more.

having fun relistening to this album, but I know for a fact that the only song I ever come back to on here is Slip, which I rate among the top ae tunes. Rest is less awesomer imo. Vletrmx21 is a classic of course.

Also they must have been on some crazy drugs when they made Slip as it's probably the only upbeat track in their discography (I can't think of another at any rate). It's positively life affirming.

  On 9/21/2009 at 1:03 AM, thehauntingsoul said:

woah holy shit I know where I'm going next vacation

 

 

if anyone wants a good desktop background the 1500x resolution of that pic is here

Great pic.

I've been there - a terrific place to hike. Friendly people. Sci-fi IDM scenery ;-)

  On 9/21/2009 at 7:15 PM, thehauntingsoul said:

When the marble-beat drops for Montreal, that's when this album gets serious. The chords towards the end of Montreal are absolutely one of my favorite and most emotional Autechre moments ever

Nice to hear someone say this. Montreal is my favorite Autechre track, and Amber is my favorite and definitely most listened to Autechre album. Montreal is indeed when that album "gets serious".

I personally regard these two the best records Autechre has made, Garbage taking the first spot because it's more consistent overall and tighter. I don't know if I'm alone with this, but I think Garbage packs a lot of emotion in its melancholiness. I never knew before this that mere beats could be outright sad.