Autechre Why are they so intent on demystifying themselves?

I've spent far too much time reading lots of Autechre interviews (and interviews with loads of other artists), and one thing that's always puzzled me is their desire to make the whole thing seem as un-magical and and flippant and "it's just a laugh, innit" as possible. With the exception of a few interviews with Rob Brown alone, and perhaps a few moments in other interviews, it seems - when not being standoffish or minimal in their responses - the lads are intent on reducing what they do to nothing more than a minor extension of their graffiti and mix taping days, or something.

I'm not a snob. I'm absolutely cool with them not being boffins in white coats but Northern lads who have spoked a lot of weed and had some fun with bending the rules of music. In fact, some artists with the most to say, in the most eloquent ways of saying it, produce the most shitty, dull, academic wank you've ever heard. But you can be yourself and you can be from whatever background and still seem imaginative and open and keen on expanding what you're doing musically in words. For example, I'm not a big fan of Burial, really, but I've read a really cool interview with him likening his music to various experiences and images. It wasn't a philosophical treatise, but it did make me want to listen to his music.

If they were bad with words or shy or whatever, that's fine. Plenty of directors and musicians make cool shit and don't know how to talk about it. But their approach to interviews seems to be directly and deliberately opposed to the actual music they are making, and I don't know why they bother most of the time. It'd definitely not make me want to listen to them if I'd never heard of them before, and it doesn't really reveal anything new to people who are already fans of theirs, except maybe that we care too much about their music and they don't give a shit about us.

yeah the way they handle their speak, it'd be better if the persons Booth/Brown didn't exist… or at least didn't give interviews.

though there was this one interview which was kinda fun…. was it on the warp website somewhere as a chat transcript or something, and they replied with "[0-100% variable]" and stuff like that.. ..

  On 3/15/2010 at 9:44 PM, Lianne said:

the lads are intent on reducing what they do to nothing more than a minor extension of their graffiti and mix taping days, or something.

Probably because it isn't to them. It's more than likely that it's a natural progression.

Maybe the fact that they treat it so "flippantly" as you say, is what makes the music so great in the first place. To me they seem unrestrained in how they treat their music, they literally just tweak until they get something alien and good sounding. Sometimes the tracks miss, mostly they hit and it's their lack of obvious reference to other music that makes them so appealing.

I think most artists could do with less thinking so consciously about what they're doing.

  On 3/15/2010 at 9:44 PM, Lianne said:

With the exception of a few interviews with Rob Brown alone, and perhaps a few moments in other interviews, it seems - when not being standoffish or minimal in their responses - the lads are intent on reducing what they do to nothing more than a minor extension of their graffiti and mix taping days, or something.

maybe because that's exactly what it is?

  On 3/15/2010 at 9:44 PM, Lianne said:

If they were bad with words or shy or whatever, that's fine. Plenty of directors and musicians make cool shit and don't know how to talk about it. But their approach to interviews seems to be directly and deliberately opposed to the actual music they are making, and I don't know why they bother most of the time.

unfortunately it seems like you want to assign some kind of heightened pretentiousness to the lads themselves, when in actual fact most of the pretentiousness lies solely with the listener as you are so evidently proving.

  On 3/15/2010 at 9:44 PM, Lianne said:

It'd definitely not make me want to listen to them if I'd never heard of them before, and it doesn't really reveal anything new to people who are already fans of theirs, except maybe that we care too much about their music and they don't give a shit about us.

this statement is both extremely sad and contradictory to the first quoted statement. if your listening tastes are so swayed, you're not listening to music - you're subscribing to a scene.

lianne, does anything they do make you happy? it seems like you are always complaining. dont take this the wrong way either, just an observation

Maybe because the interviewers are mostly f*idiots! ...but last (Quaristice) interview for the Wire magazine was OK.

ae turn all the fucking lights off when they play live, I've always felt their interviews achieved a similar aeffect. sometimes, for whatever reason, they are engaging and revealing but for the most part they just seem to be doing interviews bc they have to and they are uninformative and awkward.

idk, When I was a teenager getting into making electronic music and listening to new things I read as many interviews w these blokes as I could find, sometimes several times over. and I think the over all influence kept me stimulated, intrigued, and ultimately focused on the music.

you can tell these guys are for real, I think it's more shitty journalists than anything. Sean definitely seems like a standoffish dude but I bet if you smoked a spliff w him and had a sincere conversation the results woud be different.

anyway, who fucking cares if they are boring subjects for the media? fuck you OP.

we're the audience, and we've got various expectations you're supposed to fill!

are you listening sean?????

Lianne, cheer up. They are really not that bad, though the majority of journalists are.

  On 3/15/2010 at 10:57 PM, jules said:

lianne, does anything they do make you happy? it seems like you are always complaining. dont take this the wrong way either, just an observation

I complain too much, probably. But what they do that makes me happy is amazing music. I still love their music, whatever they or anyone else might say in relation to it... I just thinks it deserves more, that's all. I think it's a shame that albums as magical and as deep as Confield and Draft 7.30 get the sort of interviews that they got when they were out.

I'm sure 90% of the problem is lame journalists, as others have said. But even a crap questions can be turned into something - visual artists are pretty good at that.

And no, like most Autechre fans, I'm not in this for any scene reasons. It's just about their music, for me. :) I just thought the contrast between their words and music and their approach to interviews odd and interesting.

Lianne, you dont understand them at all. They say they just make tunes and do what feels right. They got good ears and musical intuition. They´re sculptors of sound and have that special ability to give synthetic and mutated sound a lot of soul and depth. They don´t need a reason, philosophy or anything, cause they are truly abstract artists with a very special talent.

BTW bouth Four Tets new album and OMG does it sound boring and 2 dimensional compared to similarly chimey Oversteps. It´s beyond me how he gets such good reviews.

  On 3/16/2010 at 12:31 AM, Lianne said:

  On 3/15/2010 at 10:57 PM, jules said:

lianne, does anything they do make you happy? it seems like you are always complaining. dont take this the wrong way either, just an observation

 

I complain too much, probably. But what they do that makes me happy is amazing music. I still love their music, whatever they or anyone else might say in relation to it... I just thinks it deserves more, that's all. I think it's a shame that albums as magical and as deep as Confield and Draft 7.30 get the sort of interviews that they got when they were out.

 

I'm sure 90% of the problem is lame journalists, as others have said. But even a crap questions can be turned into something - visual artists are pretty good at that.

 

And no, like most Autechre fans, I'm not in this for any scene reasons. It's just about their music, for me. :) I just thought the contrast between their words and music and their approach to interviews odd and interesting.

maybe they dont want to sound pretentious and snobby. they probably dont want to talk about the music at all so its easier to have a laugh and such than to go into great detail. a magician doesnt go on and on about how they do the trick, its for you to think about, enjoy, dissect or whatever you like.

yeah, i actually like their interview style (most of the time). i think what they say is very genuine: they've even admitted they like it when people talk about the music and visualize/verbalize interesting things, but that they themselves don't have an overriding agenda or "ism" behind what they do. im sure that in the micro-moments of creation (working on one small section of a piece) they do develop guiding ideas behind the pieces--in fact, just hearing them say they wanted to do less beat stuff, and how different oversteps is, kind of proves that. but that map is probably being created as they go along, intuitively.

spoking weed is awesome.

Have you heard the 45 min interview with Sean that was floating around here from the Quaristice interviews? Seems like a sound bloke, and they chatted about a lot of interesting stuff. Try and track it down, it's definitely worth the listen.

  On 3/16/2010 at 1:44 AM, Sam said:

Have you heard the 45 min interview with Sean that was floating around here from the Quaristice interviews? Seems like a sound bloke, and they chatted about a lot of interesting stuff. Try and track it down, it's definitely worth the listen.

Where could I hear this?

My OP was a bit too unbalanced, as usual. They have done some good interviews, and I suppose there's nothing much to say when you're just making stuff as opposed to conceptualizing about stuff.

Would be very glad to hear this interview.

I can't stand the poncey academia or egotistical popularism that surrounds a lot of music (which is one of the things that got me into electronic) and if anything Rob and Sean are leading testaments of being innovatively creative without the need or reliance of leeching or stale self gratifying establishments. I also hate it when artists have more talent at verbally articulating the ideas behind their work then they have at creating what they like to rant on about (e.g. Genesis P-Orridge, Terre Thaemlitz)

I like the way electronic music forms establishments rather than adheres to them but most abstract electronic music isn't about love stories, saving the world, high sales or trying to be cool and famous so it's no wonder a lot of electronic artists aren't comfortable trying to justify their work for a journalistic format not really accustomed for the field of work they are doing, in this respect I tend to find interviews in most music tech magazines more revealing (unless your a Mr Richard D James).

http://www.soundonsound.com/search?section=%2F&Keyword=autechre

Personally I'll dance and take Autechre's music for what it is at one of their gigs instead of standing scratching my chin which is so much of a stigma with "IDM" type stuff it makes me laugh when I see people do it (you know who you are).

Not sure where you can find it, it's actually the audio from an interview that ism (i think) did and then stuck up a few months later. I'd upload it, but it's on a fucked hard drive :(

It's not that they're attempting to demystify themselves, the media mystifies them.

needs more pics of sean and rob frolicking in the snow

Back at Lianne's orig comment, I don't know, I've found that Autechre usually offer up the most interesting observations about the reception of music and sound that I've come across. They may not talk directly about their own music, but whatever they comment on seems to amount to indirect commentary on it to me.

Things that have stuck in my mind from Autechre interviews include memory/nostalgia (why your old cassette of a song you taped off TV ends up attracting you more than the clean, official release once you finally get it) – the value of flexibility lest you end up like Stockhausen – the realisation that mixing horizontally can sound awesome (play sounds end to end, rather than over each other) – and thoughts on distinguishing between randomness and quantifiable complexity.

These are all really fundamental issues around this kind of music that often don't get talked about with any articulation. Aphex Twin's loopiness and, I don't know if he's still into total subjectivity ("no one can attribute values to anything, because it's all taste"), have stymied his interviews. I read a really good interview with Clark recently, but I don't like his music much.

I like it when any musician is articulate, because most aren't (THOUGH I AM!), and Autechre certainly are. I agree that they draw a harder line around any description of their own music than some other artists, conceding that they can't predict how anyone will receive it, but that doesn't bother me when what they say is a lot more useful to me than that kind of description anyway.

  On 3/16/2010 at 8:01 AM, xxx said:

 

and my favorite, when Sean was asked about his influences and how they were all just blurring together but one thing was for sure:

"I don’t own a single record that sounds like ‘Oversteps’.”

we should keep telling him it sounds like Plaid until he kills himself.