Autechre Autechre - Oversteps (WARP210) [The MegaThread]

Posting in mega thread not know where new post will land. epic

Thread broke here

me again

If a WATMMer posts in a thread and no one's able to see it, does it still induce facepalm?

fake

i love this broken thread

  On 2/9/2010 at 9:52 PM, HWNDarkside said:

Just found this

 

http://www.plong.com/page_pid_85_release_115862_lang_3.aspx

 

If these are real this album is going to be awesome.

 

I've already pre-ordered the vinyl and the CD, and just booked tickets to see them in Birmingham

Altered: Carbon?? Might go and see them instead then!

guess hooooooow

ITT: write-only access.

until its fixed use this one

If this leak really is Oversteps then i'm wondering what happened to the Designers Republic???

They have designed one of the best album covers ever...covers that fit to music very good.

But this.. is..fffffF

I've listened to known(1) a few times now, in a hope to start liking it more, but I've now decided it is possibly the worst piece of music ever. Horrible melodies, horrible synth sounds, horrible production, and hardly any development.

Even though I've been defending Oversteps over the last few days, it's actually growing *off* me. I must have been on some weird high when I was rabbiting on about how great it was. I shall now just wait for the higher quality thing.

  On 2/10/2010 at 1:17 AM, Lianne said:

I've listened to known(1) a few times now, in a hope to start liking it more, but I've now decided it is possibly the worst piece of music ever. Horrible melodies, horrible synth sounds, horrible production, and hardly any development.

 

Even though I've been defending Oversteps over the last few days, it's actually growing *off* me. I must have been on some weird high when I was rabbiting on about how great it was. I shall now just wait for the higher quality thing.

Which is your favourite then?

something that is weird and sort of disturbs me in an unquantifiable way is that this is actually the first autechre release that does, in places, reminded me in any way of aphex twin. obviously, some of the melodies have that naive quality which dicky jimjams uses a lot. but also:

the track at 24:20ish has whip-cracky noises very reminescent of omgyjyaswitch

the beat in the track at 49:00ish is basically waendowlaecker...

same track also has glitchy spectral stuff scattered throughout which are very reminescent of windowlicker and a stab at about 52:45 which is straight out of richardsville

there are also other bits which remind me of too, if i could be arsed going through the album obsessively cataloguing them, which i am not.

the new thing with this album is that it's autechre wanting to be your friend is all. so of course that's making people think of plaid and aphex twin.

all that's doing is hurting oversteps feelings. I hope you're all happy. That big black circle on the cover was a spot for you to crawl in and cuddle up but now it's just a hole in it's heart. the next album is going to sound like nick drake.

  On 2/10/2010 at 1:34 AM, Jacck said:

  On 2/10/2010 at 1:17 AM, Lianne said:

I've listened to known(1) a few times now, in a hope to start liking it more, but I've now decided it is possibly the worst piece of music ever. Horrible melodies, horrible synth sounds, horrible production, and hardly any development.

 

Even though I've been defending Oversteps over the last few days, it's actually growing *off* me. I must have been on some weird high when I was rabbiting on about how great it was. I shall now just wait for the higher quality thing.

 

Which is your favourite then?

It's a toss up between a few - r ess, ilanders, pt2ph8 and qplay are all good. see on see is also quite a beautiful track. The rest are all afflicted, to one degree or another however, by things that sound similar to those horrid, cheap sounding synths on known(1).

I'm not just being critical for the sake of it. I so want to love this album and to be excited about it, and I was before - it must have been excitement mixed with an addiction to the album's few good tracks, a lack of sleep and too much coffee. If anyone else had put out an album with sounds and melodies like those, I'd think they didn't know what they hell they were doing. There's ugliness in music which is challenging in a good way, like the brutality of Gantz Graf, and then there's the general sound of synths on Oversteps, which is video gamey (in a bad way) and undeveloped sounding to the point of sheer ugliness.

  On 2/10/2010 at 1:55 AM, taphead said:

the new thing with this album is that it's autechre wanting to be your friend is all. so of course that's making people think of plaid and aphex twin.

nope, i can see the plaid comparison as a vague sort of blanket covering all the melodies on the album

but the aphex twinny bits, they're very specific. i can point out specific bits of tracks as being aphex twinnier than the rest, let's put it that way.

I think the comparisons to Plaid are a little unfair to Plaid. When Plaid use cheap MIDI-like bell sounds on their melodies, there's often something charming about it. It just works very nicely in the context of the track and the album (and they know when to pull back on it.) Plaid would never use noises as horrifically cheap and cheesy sounding as those on known(1).

that's what makes known(1) so great, is that it goes so far into that sound. if something is powerful enough to horrify you, then it's powerful enough to be someones favorite track (mine, for instance).

which bits are the aphex twinny bits?

  On 2/10/2010 at 1:55 AM, taphead said:

the new thing with this album is that it's autechre wanting to be your friend is all. so of course that's making people think of plaid and aphex twin.

 

all that's doing is hurting oversteps feelings. I hope you're all happy. That big black circle on the cover was a spot for you to crawl in and cuddle up but now it's just a hole in it's heart. the next album is going to sound like nick drake.

lol! spot on

Oversteps is one of their best albums imo

  On 2/10/2010 at 2:04 AM, Lianne said:

I think the comparisons to Plaid are a little unfair to Plaid. When Plaid use cheap MIDI-like bell sounds on their melodies, there's often something charming about it.

if i was to deconstruct why plaid have a unique sort of sound i think it comes down to the fact that they have a weird, innate sort of understanding of some elements of music theory, especially some really cool circle of fifths/counterpoint stuff (in a similar way to the way that snares can effortlessly produce log after log of shit in 7/4 or 13/8).

the real 'plaid quality' comes from two things:

plaid will typically have two melodies going at once - a lead, and a backing. one or both are often in an odd and different-to-each-other meters, which produces polyrhythms

the backing bass, pads or both will often cycle through four, five, or six different keys equally spaced on the circle of fifths whilst the lead stays in one key (sometimes vice versa). this produces nice/odd harmonies.

together they produces that odd plaid thing where it's really difficult to tell what key it's in (you will know what i mean if you've listened to even one plaid album; as you would know this album is autechre if you've listened to even one autechre album).

i don't think it's fair to plaid either. the melodies on oversteps have a similar 'wandering' quality, but for an entirely different reason; and that's where the comparison ends. plaid took the long, 'handmade' way round, and made it an artform along the way.

  On 2/10/2010 at 2:06 AM, taphead said:

which bits are the aphex twinny bits?

  On 2/10/2010 at 1:46 AM, kaini said:

the track at 24:20ish has whip-cracky noises very reminescent of omgyjyaswitch

 

the beat in the track at 49:00ish is basically waendowlaecker...

same track also has glitchy spectral stuff scattered throughout which are very reminescent of windowlicker and a stab at about 52:45 which is straight out of richardsville

 

there are also other bits which remind me of too, if i could be arsed going through the album obsessively cataloguing them, which i am not.

Fair enough people like it - much it just sounds limp to me now. It doesn't scare me, it doesn't excite me, nor does it put me in a strange 'in between' place of hybrid or alien emotions like the stranger bits of EP7 might. It just makes me think, 'meh. What a pathetic, cheap sounding synth line." I feel embarrassed about going on about how great it was on here. At least I won't be too disappointed once it arrives, though! Anyway, I should stop posting. Just venting disappointment.... Sorry guys.

And kaini, thank you very much for that deconstruction of Plaid's music. I've always felt there's far, far more to their music than people on 'IDM' forums let on - or than they let on themselves! (They're so modest and self-depreciating in interviews.) I now see what you mean about their use of countermelodies and how their melodic content, while sometimes wondering, has a much more satisfying feel than the lazy shit Autechre have spewed out on moments on this album.

Heres to the new Plaid album!

oversteps is autechre's 'just a souvenir', lol.

  On 2/10/2010 at 2:24 AM, kaini said:

oversteps is autechre's 'just a souvenir', lol.

Kind of true. I love JAS but I think this is better. I haven't been this blown away from an album in awhile. Are you guys listening to the mp3s?

i'm still on the m4a. but i too love this album (i also loved JAS). i've listened to the m4a <checks> 8 times in the 36ish hours i have it.