Quaristice

  On 12/24/2012 at 2:21 AM, lumpenprol said:

  On 12/23/2012 at 4:43 PM, StocKo said:

I really don't think that they sound "similar". They definitely have the same feel (lush, deep, icey, etc. it's been said thousand times) but they're different enough. Probably the closest thing they did as a concept album...

you're insane. LP5 or Confield are much more concept albums than this. In fact I'd say most of their albums are more concept albums than Quari. But those first two inarguably.

Never listened to those albums in their entirety, could explain my statement. Totally agree with the Donuts-like structure tho !

The concept of a "concept album" is murky at best. After all, to my knowledge Quaristice is the only album where they've been open about the process by which it was made (largely live jams). Does that make it a "concept album"?

Also, I occasionally see people claim that "Sean does the beats and Rob does the melodies". This seems ridiculously simplistic, is there any justification for it? I believe if this formula were correct their music would sound pretty terrible.

in 2009 i went to see a kraftwerk concert (radiohead played later) and before they came up on stage one of the tracks played was Altibzz. pure joy.

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Also, I occasionally see people claim that "Sean does the beats and Rob does the melodies". This seems ridiculously simplistic, is there any justification for it? I believe if this formula were correct their music would sound pretty terrible.

theres an interview where they say that

  On 12/24/2012 at 5:19 PM, qnio said:

theres an interview where they say that

link?

  On 12/24/2012 at 5:34 AM, lumpenprol said:

Don't know about J Dilla Donuts but I always imagine it's the first album where we see Sean and Rob splitting apart a bit, with Sean (presumably the "beats" guy) taking drugs and getting ADD and making a bunch of short sketches and Rob (presumably the "melodies" guy) retreating into more mellow sci-fi flavored ambient melody space. I could be totally off base tho.

from what they've said about Quaristice, you are. Quaristice is apparently the first album they made via fully collaborative real-time jam sessions instead of trading back and forth material at the inception of a track idea. So in that sense at least via the process, it is probably more of a concept album than any of their previous work. As far as a cohesive concept-album sound like OVersteps it's the farthest away from that at the same time.

  On 12/24/2012 at 5:10 PM, Joseph said:

The concept of a "concept album" is murky at best. After all, to my knowledge Quaristice is the only album where they've been open about the process by which it was made (largely live jams). Does that make it a "concept album"?

 

Also, I occasionally see people claim that "Sean does the beats and Rob does the melodies". This seems ridiculously simplistic, is there any justification for it? I believe if this formula were correct their music would sound pretty terrible.

So first off, I think it is false that Quaristice is the only album they were open about the way they made it. That SoundOnSound interview with Sean has him giving some fairly detailed bits about the Max stuff and some of the analog bits where a volume nob drives a step sequencer when is itself driven by a separate synth.

  On 12/24/2012 at 7:06 PM, Joseph said:

  On 12/24/2012 at 5:19 PM, qnio said:

theres an interview where they say that

link?

Here is a link to a WATMM thread with a transcript of the interview:

http://forum.watmm.com/topic/30687-interview-with-sean-booth/

There you find Sean say:

"Though I do tend to slightly lean towards percussion and Rob tends to slightly lean towards oblique sound design and textures. That’s what we do in the live set, it’s always been a big part of what we do"

I've also found someone who uploaded the actual interview, where you can hear these words from Sean;s mouth, if you feel like words lie.

I'll look for that link later

  On 12/24/2012 at 11:30 PM, fizzkinz said:

  On 12/24/2012 at 5:10 PM, Joseph said:

The concept of a "concept album" is murky at best. After all, to my knowledge Quaristice is the only album where they've been open about the process by which it was made (largely live jams). Does that make it a "concept album"?

 

Also, I occasionally see people claim that "Sean does the beats and Rob does the melodies". This seems ridiculously simplistic, is there any justification for it? I believe if this formula were correct their music would sound pretty terrible.

 

So first off, I think it is false that Quaristice is the only album they were open about the way they made it. That SoundOnSound interview with Sean has him giving some fairly detailed bits about the Max stuff and some of the analog bits where a volume nob drives a step sequencer when is itself driven by a separate synth.

I don't think this really tells us that much about the album as a whole though, at least not as much as "it was made from live jams".

  On 12/24/2012 at 11:30 PM, fizzkinz said:

  On 12/24/2012 at 7:06 PM, Joseph said:

  On 12/24/2012 at 5:19 PM, qnio said:

theres an interview where they say that

link?

Here is a link to a WATMM thread with a transcript of the interview:

http://forum.watmm.com/topic/30687-interview-with-sean-booth/

There you find Sean say:

"Though I do tend to slightly lean towards percussion and Rob tends to slightly lean towards oblique sound design and textures. That’s what we do in the live set, it’s always been a big part of what we do"

1. slightly

2. Live set /= studio work

Still, thanks, point taken that there is some precedent for the claim I was questioning.

Yeah there is that level of ambiguity, with terms like "tend" and "slightly". I mean the notion of Rob never doing drums, or Sean never doing synths seems silly. Otherwise Rob would have been phoning it in on Untilted, and Sean phoning it in on Oversteps... But I don't believe that one bit.

Just for completeness, here is the audio of the interview (hope the person who uploaded it is cool with me linking it)

I think the notion of "live jams edited down" as a concept is a bit slim, as it's almost like saying "it was made by Autechre" is the 'theme' of the album.

But maybe now I'm just being silly

no ur not

  On 12/25/2012 at 5:26 AM, fizzkinz said:

I think the notion of "live jams edited down" as a concept is a bit slim, as it's almost like saying "it was made by Autechre" is the 'theme' of the album.

But maybe now I'm just being silly

maybe in terms of the way other musicians work but i've always seen AE even back in the early days as having a very clinical and deliberate approach. In quaristice it was the first time they seem to let out stuff that was practically "finished" moments after the inspiration struck them. In a way i could see why people hate it as an album , but it has grown on me quite a bit. Not all of the tracks have this feel to them but I'd say 50% of them seem almost improvisational (as much as someone using a sequencer and midi gear could improvise in real time). It's an odd beast of an album considering that it's still characteristically AE but very rough around the edges but deliberately. Even an experimental album like the Gescom Minidisc release seems extremely clinical and hyper edited to me in comparison

  On 12/25/2012 at 5:26 AM, fizzkinz said:

Yeah there is that level of ambiguity, with terms like "tend" and "slightly". I mean the notion of Rob never doing drums, or Sean never doing synths seems silly. Otherwise Rob would have been phoning it in on Untilted, and Sean phoning it in on Oversteps... But I don't believe that one bit.

 

Just for completeness, here is the audio of the interview (hope the person who uploaded it is cool with me linking it)

http://share.thomascolliers.com/ae/Ae_Interview_Reverb_24-01-08.mp3

 

I think the notion of "live jams edited down" as a concept is a bit slim, as it's almost like saying "it was made by Autechre" is the 'theme' of the album.

But maybe now I'm just being silly

Haven't they always said they worked together pretty well because they'll sometimes try to emulate what the other does in a competitive sense? Hence the "tend" and "slightly?" Like, maybe they both really are more geared towards one, but they do try to emulate each other at times giving interesting results.

How do you not enjoy IO, plyPhon, any of the versions of Tankakern, or any of the beat ones? They have amazing background textures and hit hard.

i have a feeling we will really never know, i think they intentionally obfuscate which AE member is responsible for what. Remember when Mark Fell had to change his podcast after it was about to be posted to the web since it had a solo Sean Booth track in it? I have a hunch that it wasn't so much that he (mark fell) didn't have permission to put it out there but that by doing it so it might ruin some of the mystique of autechre for people. I could be completely and utterly wrong, but part of the fun about AE for me is that i have no clue who does what on each song. For all we know some of the tracks (since sometimes they are just totally 180s) are solo tracks on actual AE records.

edit: the only instance where i can think of that we've heard Sean and Rob working separately is the Sean Booth contributions to one of the Mira Calix albums in the linear notes. I can't remember which album or which songs but I'm sure that i remember his name being on the album credits. Has there been another time where only one member of autechre was credited as being a composer/remixer?

  On 12/25/2012 at 10:25 AM, Awepittance said:

i have a feeling we will really never know, i think they intentionally obfuscate which AE member is responsible for what. Remember when Mark Fell had to change his podcast after it was about to be posted to the web since it had a solo Sean Booth track in it? I have a hunch that it wasn't so much that he (mark fell) didn't have permission to put it out there but that by doing it so it might ruin some of the mystique of autechre for people. I could be completely and utterly wrong, but part of the fun about AE for me is that i have no clue who does what on each song. For all we know some of the tracks (since sometimes they are just totally 180s) are solo tracks on actual AE records.

That is indeed part of what's fun about listening to them. It seems like they work so harmoniously together that it's a bit unfathomable (though I've never been in a band nor worked too well with others, so perhaps I'm a bit detached). The track might not have been able to go up because of an uncleared sample too (maybe?), but who knows.

i'd be surprised if it was an uncleared sample, as far as i know none of the samples (at least official on the linear notes) were cleared for the last 2 Gescom records

Perhaps Quaristice is not their best album, but, for autechre fans it's quite fascinating, having, for once, so many versions of the tracks. I'd say it was a risky album to release (weird moments here & then, short tracks & remixes being better than the originals ) but it's a "project" that i like a lot.

  On 12/25/2012 at 10:22 AM, Xyrofen said:

  On 12/25/2012 at 5:26 AM, fizzkinz said:

Yeah there is that level of ambiguity, with terms like "tend" and "slightly". I mean the notion of Rob never doing drums, or Sean never doing synths seems silly. Otherwise Rob would have been phoning it in on Untilted, and Sean phoning it in on Oversteps... But I don't believe that one bit.

 

Just for completeness, here is the audio of the interview (hope the person who uploaded it is cool with me linking it)

http://share.thomascolliers.com/ae/Ae_Interview_Reverb_24-01-08.mp3

 

I think the notion of "live jams edited down" as a concept is a bit slim, as it's almost like saying "it was made by Autechre" is the 'theme' of the album.

But maybe now I'm just being silly

Haven't they always said they worked together pretty well because they'll sometimes try to emulate what the other does in a competitive sense? Hence the "tend" and "slightly?" Like, maybe they both really are more geared towards one, but they do try to emulate each other at times giving interesting results.

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I think there's only a few great tracks even if you add up all the extra ones.

Otrou9x, the subranges, simm and a couple of the ambient ones, maybe wnsn and rale, but Quar was and is a disappointment to me, I don't ever listen to it.

 

How do you not enjoy IO, plyPhon, any of the versions of Tankakern, or any of the beat ones? They have amazing background textures and hit hard.

 

Yeah, I think I exaggerrated a bit, it does have some great tracks, but for some reason I don't have the urge to listen to them, maybe because despite what someone else said, I do think a lot of them sound the same.