squarepusher Oversteps - Initial Reactions (for real this time)

  On 2/23/2010 at 1:55 AM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

I love how whenever something has a pentatonic scale, people go on about how asian and chinese it sounds.

it's almost like east asian music frequently uses the pentatonic scale...

i must say, jessu christ this album is incredible. i'm only 5 tracks in and i'm wholly in love. this is what i've kind of been hoping they'd get to their entire career. wow. also, everyone hating on known(1)... fantastic track! dare say it might become my favorite.

  On 2/23/2010 at 1:55 AM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

I love how whenever something has a pentatonic scale, people go on about how asian and chinese it sounds.

This beat is, this beat is

This beat is Pentatronic

This beat is Pentatronic

There's the dance floor, get on it

  On 2/23/2010 at 1:55 AM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

I love how whenever something has a pentatonic scale, people go on about how asian and chinese it sounds.

I love when something sounds like it has Asian sounds people like to talk about pentatonic scales.

The artwork says they feel the same way. It's obviously Enso inspired

I cant get enough of this album! Its just such ear candy.

yeah after running through it fully it's fast on track to become my favorite of theirs. absolutely stunning!

download finished and listened to. yeah. this is so great. can't wait till the 12" gets here :)

  On 2/23/2010 at 2:11 AM, jules said:

The artwork says they feel the same way. It's obviously Enso inspired

That's pretty much how i interpreted it as well..

voices at the end of d-sho qub is my fav at the minute. release sounds much better than the leak.

yeah no comparison. a few tracks i didn't care so much for suddenly have come to life.

If you think the official release sounds infinitely better than the leak you are a moron. It is the same album with slightly better sound quality.

i like this album. i don't think it's as deep as confield/draft/untilted or as "autechrey" as quaristice, but i feel like it has a proper place in this big picture that is the ae discography. it's bustling with creativity, sporadic ideas that are more deliberate and aggressive than most of quaristice and have much more character upfront than any of their later releases. some of the melodies sound like pentatonic wankery, but there is still enough going on that it doesn't dominate the song.

as with all ae, your attention constantly shifts to different parts, frequencies, dynamics, but i feel like it lacks the..... subtlety. that's what i think i've decided. it's going to take time to get to know oversteps, and i'm suddenly feeling like b + b are sick of repetitive music (for this album).

ilanders hit me like a sack of bricks and then kept on smacking me around. this is probably one of the most interesting tracks they've done to date. yuop is so epic it's almost wisp-y, maybe they do pay attention to watmm... also really digging q-sho qub.

to conclude my first pass at oversteps review, i'm very happy with it. they've thrown a melodic itch at us that has been festering for some time now. it is fucking awesome hearing their progression from untilted-untiltedtour-quari-quaritour-oversteps. i can really hear rob playing some of the more sporadic lines exactly as he did on the last 2 tours, but with sean taking a break with the beats it created an very interesting dynamic. those who wanted a proper ambient release from autechre should be happy. some of the greatest beatless songs i've ever heard are from their past 2 releases. but probably the greatest thing about autechre is that no one expected oversteps to sound like it does. some songs might come close to predictable, but there is some fresh sounding shit up in this shit. that's the one thing ae are better at than any other musician/group that i've heard; the element of surprise.

cheers rob and sean! well done!

its better

srsly all these tracks are so aggressive, even the beatless/ambient

snare at 1:50 in treale is siiiiiiiiiiiiick

nice initial review Sun

  On 2/23/2010 at 4:06 AM, LCC said:

If you think the official release sounds infinitely better than the leak you are a moron. It is the same album with slightly better sound quality.

umm.. autechre are about TEXTURE and TIMBRE, not just merry melodies and notes.. a shitty transcoded mp3 compared to the official release makes a lot of difference in terms of hearing what they are deliberately doing and all the subtleties

review upon second listen of oversteps -

BITCHIN

  On 2/23/2010 at 4:08 AM, gl0tch said:

its better

apples are better than oranges

  On 2/23/2010 at 4:21 AM, lumpenprol said:

nice initial review Sun

agreed, probably the closest opinion on here to how i feel about Oversteps

  On 2/23/2010 at 4:24 AM, TwiddleBot said:

  On 2/23/2010 at 4:06 AM, LCC said:

If you think the official release sounds infinitely better than the leak you are a moron. It is the same album with slightly better sound quality.

 

 

umm.. autechre are about TEXTURE and TIMBRE, not just merry melodies and notes.. a shitty transcoded mp3 compared to the official release makes a lot of difference in terms of hearing what they are deliberately doing and all the subtleties

Texture and timbre don't magically appear out of thin air when a WAV becomes available. You can hear texture and timbre even in shitty MP3s. My first genuine appreciation of Autechre occurred when I was listening to shitty MP3s on my iPod in public. Most of the music I have fell in love with over the past 10 years I fell in love with listening to shitty MP3s. Shitty MP3s convey the essence of an album well, Autechre is no exception.

I am currently listening to the 24-bit WAVs on audiophile headphones and soundcard. The improved sound quality is impressive, but not so mindblowing that my initial impressions from the leak have changed.

  On 2/23/2010 at 4:49 AM, LCC said:

  On 2/23/2010 at 4:24 AM, TwiddleBot said:

  On 2/23/2010 at 4:06 AM, LCC said:

If you think the official release sounds infinitely better than the leak you are a moron. It is the same album with slightly better sound quality.

 

 

umm.. autechre are about TEXTURE and TIMBRE, not just merry melodies and notes.. a shitty transcoded mp3 compared to the official release makes a lot of difference in terms of hearing what they are deliberately doing and all the subtleties

Texture and timbre don't magically appear out of thin air when a WAV becomes available. You can hear texture and timbre even in shitty MP3s. My first genuine appreciation of Autechre occurred when I was listening to shitty MP3s on my iPod in public. Most of the music I have fell in love with over the past 10 years I fell in love with listening to shitty MP3s. Shitty MP3s convey the essence of an album well, Autechre is no exception.

 

I am currently listening to the 24-bit WAVs on audiophile headphones and soundcard. The improved sound quality is impressive, but not so mindblowing that my initial impressions from the leak have changed.

you are strange

I have quite a bit to say about it. I made a pretty good page of notes and I think I'm going to compile it into a (fanboy-biased ) review, and probably just post it on my blog and link to it later.

For now I have to throw in another vote for the audio quality making a big difference. There's transients and high frequency content that got pretty squashed in the preview.

One huge change is how smooth this album sounds. Not like synthetic smooth, like biological smooth. It flexes and breathes like an animal.

Also the end of Treale made me cry this time around. It's one of those musical moments that perfectly illuminates an emotion I've had countless times but couldn't describe.

Demanding Listening! I waited....Way better that Q...

...thatisall...

  On 2/23/2010 at 5:23 AM, theSun said:

  On 2/23/2010 at 4:49 AM, LCC said:

  On 2/23/2010 at 4:24 AM, TwiddleBot said:

  On 2/23/2010 at 4:06 AM, LCC said:

If you think the official release sounds infinitely better than the leak you are a moron. It is the same album with slightly better sound quality.

 

 

umm.. autechre are about TEXTURE and TIMBRE, not just merry melodies and notes.. a shitty transcoded mp3 compared to the official release makes a lot of difference in terms of hearing what they are deliberately doing and all the subtleties

Texture and timbre don't magically appear out of thin air when a WAV becomes available. You can hear texture and timbre even in shitty MP3s. My first genuine appreciation of Autechre occurred when I was listening to shitty MP3s on my iPod in public. Most of the music I have fell in love with over the past 10 years I fell in love with listening to shitty MP3s. Shitty MP3s convey the essence of an album well, Autechre is no exception.

 

I am currently listening to the 24-bit WAVs on audiophile headphones and soundcard. The improved sound quality is impressive, but not so mindblowing that my initial impressions from the leak have changed.

 

you are strange

sounds pretty reasonable to me. if a track is good, its going to sound good in a variety of mediums.

Knowing it's Autechre doesn't change my opinion of the content. It's still dull and in almost all cases awful. As another person said: 'there's always the next album'. The ever-changing duo... thank Christ.

This is classic autechre shit, boys and girls. Those of you that don't realize that fact yet just need to actually listen to the album.