Autechre japanese ae interview (from oversteps booklet)

It's interesting he says that the album has a lot of depth to it, so it might take people awhile to understand, and that they both had more control over the sounds than in previous Autechre albums. To these untrained ears, the sounds on this one are actually more garish and less refined, and the effects (especially the reverb!) less nuanced than they have ever been since Tri Repetae. Even the most balls-out, in-yer-face tracks on Untilted seem to have more control and delicacy in terms of sound design than most of the tracks on Oversteps. Yes, I mean that: even though it's harder and drier and more percussive, the degree of control and tightness (take the subtle synth sounds in that hard but totally delicate ending to LCC, for one example of many) constantly amazes me.

Not that any of this makes the new one rubbish, it's just that I thought there was a more playful, less refined, blatantly lush, sparkly, old sounding vibe going on (following on from Quaristice, which already surprised me how open and referential sounding it was at the time), but clearly I was wrong. The only track that links in my mind with what he's saying is pt2ph8 - now that's got some delicate, super anal stuff going on behind all the beauty, and each synth sound modulates in really cool ways, even if sounds a bit "is that it?" at first.

From the Clash interview...

“It’s funny, that,” Sean realises. “I wonder how it fits in with the diary world. I’ve tried not to think about it too much. It’s like, ‘Oh, you are a bit older! Your album’s a bit softer!’”

Yeah, he might say that mockingly, but there is some truth to the idea. A few guys have gone softer and a bit goofier musically - Aphex, BoC, Squarepusher... There's definitely an older-age thing going on with this album. I hasn't got the ruthlessly beautiful, youthful, tortured genius of Lp5, or Confield, or Draft. I couldn't imagine 'Oversteps' being something that would have come out when they were younger and trying to really explore things. It just suddenly hit me how silly Treale is, for example. Actually it's a friend that said it - what's going on with those cheesy, odd, jazzy synth solos? That and 0=O and loads of other bits - it is softer and more daft. Maybe r ess, Ilanders, pt2ph8, and st epreo are a bit more on the deep and refined side, but generally it's the sort of thing I'd imagine would happen when artists loose a bit of something that made their stuff edgy in the first place - and is very much in keeping with what's already happening musically to other older electronic artists that were once exploding our brains.

it's rare that you read an ae interview that is so open and thoughtful