Autechre Autechre - Oversteps (WARP210) [The MegaThread]

  On 3/19/2012 at 7:36 PM, eugene said:

to me autechre starts with chiastic slide/envane, i don't take their earlier albums seriously.

lol

really eugene? no amber love? tri repeetay? no love for garbage or anvil varpe??????? FLUTTER??? what is this???

nah, well i used to like amber a bit, it's sweet but it's really primitive and cheesy compared to later ones. tri repetae is just boring, don't think i ever got through it once. recury is the best ae track evers.

I Somewhat agree with Eugene, I love their earliest stuff a lot, but 1997 was the year they really took off.

I really like Oversteps for a coupla reasons: 1) for me, Ae seemed to lose a sense of direction after Draft (Quaristice with all the messy versions is the very definition of muddled clusterfuck), so in the sense of having a clear vision Oversteps is a return to form; and 2) like LP5, Draft, and Confield before it, it defines a totally new sound that I haven't heard anywhere else. So yeah, clear direction, and groundbreaking. As for the actual tunes, I too like the "twinkly bullshit", but I also realize that it lacks some of the hallmarks that we probably have all come to love about ae, meaning a sort of ruthless, intense asceticism. It's not "evil", "tough", "cold", "detached", "autistic", "machinelike", or any of the typical things you associate with ae. And Move of Ten went even further in the direction of harmless, goofy noodling. I think it's natural that as we age, we become less intense (in the way that only young people can be intense). So is Oversteps the best ae album? I think it is, for this stage in their development. Incidentally, i liked BoC's "Campfire Headphase" a lot as well, even though I think it also shows signs of "aging." In both cases it's much more graceful than, say, what happened to Orbital...

Eugene, how can you like r-ess and os veix3 but not like qplay? Or Treale? Eh, listening to the album again now, it's great...

because they seem very aimless, like some half-assed improv session, those aimless "twinkly" synth lines that come from every direction are just maddening to me. they do manage to create some sort of mood and atmosphere but it's just not enough, i'm used to ae that leads me somewhere while those tracks just don't go anywhere. ae said in some mid 00's interview that they would love to just fuck around with a couple of synths and drum machines and record an album out of it, while there's more than a couple here it definitely feels like that's the logic behind it, and i just think it turned out pretty bad.

r-ess and os veix3 are actually much simpler and minimal sonically but it seems like there's much more focus on structure and how the whole track is supposed to be, it's like working from within some idea to begin with rather than trying to develop it on the fly.

i have this constant underthough that i'm missing something about this album, which makes me come back to it more often than to any other album i don't like, but then i always leave it empty-handed.

As Obel said I see your point...I think the sort of random nature is what they were trying to achieve, which is also what makes the album stand out to me: it sounds like a bunch of notes have coalesced around a melody, rather than forming the melody themselves. I'm sure there's a programming feat that allowed them to achieve this, in the same way they used to talk about using some sort of generative algorithm to make tracks. I think it's neato, mostly.

But what about a track like Treale, it's not really twinkly at all, does it do anything for you?

i think we just define "twinkly" differently, it's full of aimless synth lines, it pretty much noodles around purposelessly for about 5 minutes with a boring beat and then it locks on some pretty but kinda cheesy melodic motive and that's the whole track basically.

Man, I love that cheesy melodic motive.

I resent that!

During the last few months I've grown massively tired of this album, I know it's good even though it inevitably comes across as 'ae lite'. Looking forward to wanting to listen to this again.

ilanders and st epreo are still classic ae though

I am gonna get the vinyl out and play this in about....oooooh...15 mins.

Yeah High 5 MoFo's!!!!

Holy fuck, I just played Ress at 45rpm. Mmmm tasty, proper mental.

  On 3/26/2012 at 11:46 AM, Obel said:

Man, I love that cheesy melodic motive.

 

I resent that!

Treale reminds me, structurally and sonically, right down to the melodic resolution, of 1996/1997 era Gescom and Ae. I have no idea how that could be a bad thing.

ace posting, lump!

  On 3/26/2012 at 4:59 PM, beerwolf said:

Holy fuck, I just played Ress at 45rpm. Mmmm tasty, proper mental.

qplay at 45rpm is fucking wicked

Regarding the random melodies, when I listen to the tracks a lot, it took me some time to build up a familiarity with them, and now they all make sense. When you get used to them and learn them, and you appreciate the general mood of the tracks all of that opens up a lot more. But gotta let go of the ideas of a standard melody and rather just think of it as sound? Or something. As far as 'random' goes the Oversteps melodies are a lot less random and better than a lot of other shit out htere. There are a lot of 'micromoments' in there that are excellent. Just need to learn it and build a personal emotional history with it I think :p

I think it's a masterpiece because 1. the production is flawless (i mean really, listen to the balance and mix, the amazing structure of each hit and noise, original arrangements etc) and 2. it goes into new territory and becomes its kind of own soundworld, Had they put more standard harmony melodies here it would not feel the same I reckon. Also I really love Yuop\s ending. It breaks apart layer by layer into a noisescape, which makes me think of a videogame world that is slowly dissolving or disappearing or something like that, and that kind of structured ending is just awesome.

I been playing the original Deus Ex for the first time and I have to say, a lot of the music reminds me of Oversteps. EDIT: And I like it.

  On 3/30/2012 at 12:25 AM, coax said:

Regarding the random melodies, when I listen to the tracks a lot, it took me some time to build up a familiarity with them, and now they all make sense. When you get used to them and learn them, and you appreciate the general mood of the tracks all of that opens up a lot more. But gotta let go of the ideas of a standard melody and rather just think of it as sound? Or something. As far as 'random' goes the Oversteps melodies are a lot less random and better than a lot of other shit out htere. There are a lot of 'micromoments' in there that are excellent. Just need to learn it and build a personal emotional history with it I think :p

I think it's a masterpiece because 1. the production is flawless (i mean really, listen to the balance and mix, the amazing structure of each hit and noise, original arrangements etc) and 2. it goes into new territory and becomes its kind of own soundworld, Had they put more standard harmony melodies here it would not feel the same I reckon. Also I really love Yuop\s ending. It breaks apart layer by layer into a noisescape, which makes me think of a videogame world that is slowly dissolving or disappearing or something like that, and that kind of structured ending is just awesome.

This album underwhelmed me initially, but after my brother started raving about it a few months back proclaiming it one of AE's best I decided to give it another go.

And I'm hooked! It makes much more sense to me now, and I like it a lot more than when it was first released. This is just crazy. Only Autechre has me changing my opinion of albums radically years after release... I still haven't unravelled all of Untilted or come to terms with Quaristice. Maybe they're next?

  On 3/30/2012 at 3:20 AM, Poiman said:

This album underwhelmed me initially, but after my brother started raving about it a few months back proclaiming it one of AE's best I decided to give it another go.

 

And I'm hooked! It makes much more sense to me now, and I like it a lot more than when it was first released. This is just crazy. Only Autechre has me changing my opinion of albums radically years after release... I still haven't unravelled all of Untilted or come to terms with Quaristice. Maybe they're next?

Thats the magic of Autechre.

how sick would a symphony covering yuop be?

very sick, you fucks

oversteps, to me, has the least 'depth' of their last 5-6 albums. Treale's monotonous beat is a huge turnoff (doesn't go ANYWHERE, similar to that of RALE's throwaway beat).. qplay is an odd one.. track sets up w/a nice atmosphere and good sounds, but it doesn't MOVE. the percussion elements lack any sense of propulsion -- it feels like a static ambient track with "beats." highlights for me are r ess, pt2ph8, os veix3, and d sho qub. a lot of the rest just feels like a setup for thin, aimless atmospheres. It's a baffling album, and as eugene says, I keep returning to it with hopes of taking something away.

  On 4/1/2012 at 6:11 PM, barbara planar said:

oversteps, to me, has the least 'depth' of their last 5-6 albums. Treale's monotonous beat is a huge turnoff (doesn't go ANYWHERE, similar to that of RALE's throwaway beat).. qplay is an odd one.. track sets up w/a nice atmosphere and good sounds, but it doesn't MOVE. the percussion elements lack any sense of propulsion -- it feels like a static ambient track with "beats." highlights for me are r ess, pt2ph8, os veix3, and d sho qub. a lot of the rest just feels like a setup for thin, aimless atmospheres. It's a baffling album, and as eugene says, I keep returning to it with hopes of taking something away.

fuck yeah twinkly bullshit

  On 4/1/2012 at 6:11 PM, barbara planar said:

oversteps, to me, has the least 'depth' of their last 5-6 albums. Treale's monotonous beat is a huge turnoff (doesn't go ANYWHERE, similar to that of RALE's throwaway beat).. qplay is an odd one.. track sets up w/a nice atmosphere and good sounds, but it doesn't MOVE. the percussion elements lack any sense of propulsion -- it feels like a static ambient track with "beats." highlights for me are r ess, pt2ph8, os veix3, and d sho qub. a lot of the rest just feels like a setup for thin, aimless atmospheres. It's a baffling album, and as eugene says, I keep returning to it with hopes of taking something away.

stop trying so hard.

the beats are pretty steady and simple because the melodies are so complex and constantly moving all over the place. the focus of this album is definitely on the melodic lines. at any given time there are multiple different overlapping melodies that barely ever repeat. this is where all the typical autechre evolving complexity is occurring.

if the beats AND the melodies had all been super complex and constantly moving, the album would have been a mess. the rhythms are just an anchor to help you focus your attention on the melodic elements. it's clear that all the work on this album went into 'composing' the synth parts.