XI year old Autechre Album Released: Exai (WARP234)

I'm still not sure I get the bladelores hype, mostly because I was expecting something super amazingly proggy from what someone said a while ago pre-release. Something about a pixelated crescendo.. made me think of chip arps cascading everywhere

sound design wise it's lovely. not a lot of melodies tho, or melodies fighting with beats.

  On 2/8/2013 at 4:30 AM, baph said:

so it would seem that this album is amazing

vekoS at 2:20 is badass

Sean is beats Rob melodies right? I'm listening to this stuff having a hard time imagining them sitting down like "yeah keep that, that sounds good".. don't know how to get across what I am trying to say other than it sounds alien. Would love to be a fly on the wall during the creative process

  On 2/8/2013 at 3:51 AM, jules said:

this is a watmm triumph.

I think it was said on here at one point that they do either job but typically stick to that, and that some tracks are even all Rob or all Sean, they don't necessarily work on each track together. The percentage was what, 30% or something like that?

This is just off-the-cuff recollection, I could be totally wrong.

That makes sense. I just cant picture them going back and forth on anything here... actually, much of their later discography for that matter.

Is this Autechre's most difficult album? Seems that way to me, makes me surprised and happy so many people are immediately loving it.

  On 2/8/2013 at 3:49 AM, thehauntingsoul said:

lumpenprol, basically the only person to say anything less than it's awesome.

Listen harder

incorrect, i was offering slight criticisms about it even though I mostly love it on first listen

one of the main ones i still feel is even though it's just as dense and fucked up as Draft or Gantz Graf it doesn't feel as impressive sound design wise. Maybe it's just because those eras were some of their most fiercely clinical and surgical. This feels similar but a lot more freeform, not in a bad way just no really solid drum fart rhythms (but i already knew we weren't going to get those). I really appreciate that every single song on here has beats, i just don't know if these are the kind of beats I hold in high regard by AE. I'm really feeling almost every track on here that doesn't have an overt hip hop beat. Might take me a little longer to really absorb myself in the more b-boy aesthetic of the album.
In some ways some of the density and convolution going through the whole thing reminds me almost of Richard Devine or Phonecia, which is odd considering how much both of them owe to AE.

WOW! After fighting with Bleep most of the morning I am now on cloudline. WOW! This is why I love Autechre. Now can I shit on Quaristice? hahaha

I only managed to get halfway through T ess xi before my girlfriend came home and threw Ru Paul's Goddamn Drag Race on the TV at full blast and the cat ran out of the bathroom with shit clinging to his asshole again and I'm going to have to dip into this again later (edit: the album, not the cat shit); but I had about a half hour of happiness there, so that was good; thanks, rob 'n' sean.

Awepittance - I'm glad to hear you're feeling it. Was the second listen more revealing?

i haven't managed to do that yet, my sub woofer keeps going into protect mode. Until i figure out how to stop it im going to hold back on another 2 hour continuous listen. Maybe ill do headphones tonight while i partake in my nightly 2 paper spliff regiment

Gl0tch, you getting a Phonecia /Richard Devine vibe from this too? I don't mean that in a negative way, but the sound bed and the sort of cold darkness of it mixed with all the convolution and FFT fuckery sounds very Schematicy to me

irlite (get 0) is like what you would get if you explained what psychedelic prog music was to an AI and that computer tried to create music like that with only midi instruments.

this album makes me wish I still smoked

VekoS totally has a The Trees vibe (especially from 4:15 onwards in both tracks). Minimalist yet sharp beats over a thin layer of reverb. I really dig the fact that Exai seems to melt together the best elements of the three last releases.

Exai wabby fist impressions while having first listen:

FLeure - Hard to find first impression because every time I try to think there is a new sounzzzzzxx38:&38jwi8;8

irlite (get 0) - This is shaping up to be my favourite AE release. Outstanding! :)

prac-f - I know this one, it's a pinball game isn't it?

jatevee C - Knights in full armour engaging in some spank-play during a sun-shower at Venice Beach.

T ess xi - Naughty B-Boy frogs and toads are playing a game of marbles in a vat of purple acid gruel. Suddenly shit gets medieval. The King does not approve. Everyone has to clean up the mess and go home.

vekoS - Foldable tables and chairs are manufactured in a dank warehouse by massive swarms of illegal mosquito workers.

Flep - The sound from inside a Pringles can in transit. A young Pringle mistakenly interprets the company slogan: "once you pop, you can't stop" to be a paean to body popping.

tuinorizin - Military formations of AIBO-like dog robots being watched over from an observation tower by Kim Jong Un.

bladelores - Squirming subterranean larvae control the weather patterns. A big storm is brewing. It is discovered that extreme weather events are happening more frequently because of the powers of the larvae. We know not what havoc the subterranean larvae may reap with their squirming or when it will end.

1 1 is - The two greatest supermarket trolley collectors of all time battle it out in a never to be repeated grand arena spectacular.

nodezsh - RIVERDANCE: ON ICE.

runrepik - Ska-Punk Professional 7.0

spl9 - It has been discovered that everything we have done thus far has been wrong and we'll have to start all over again. It's really frustrating.

cloudline - Digital slinkies ricochet ironically as the real David Bowie devilishly plays a trollish dupe in a chat room dedicated to fans of the film Labyrinth.

deco Loc - Relentlessly bashing on someone's door to be quiet even though you know they're not home, except instead of a door it's a cruise vessel.

recks on - The instrumental from a Jay-Z and Nas collaboration called "Real Heroes".

YJY UX - A rare coin collector is mystified when his coin collection becomes magnetised. He finds he has developed superpowers like Magneto the X-Men villain except it only works on rare coins. The rarer the coin, the more able he is to manipulate it's movements. He is officially banned from coming within a 10 km radius of historical museums.

  On 2/8/2013 at 5:14 AM, wabby said:

Exai wabby fist impressions while having first listen:

 

FLeure - Hard to find first impression because every time I try to think there is a new sounzzzzzxx38:&38jwi8;8

 

irlite (get 0) - This is shaping up to be my favourite AE release. Outstanding! :)

 

prac-f - I know this one, it's a pinball game isn't it?

 

jatevee C - Knights in full armour engaging in some spank-play during a sun-shower at Venice Beach.

 

T ess xi - Naughty B-Boy frogs and toads are playing a game of marbles in a vat of purple acid gruel. Suddenly shit gets medieval. The King does not approve. Everyone has to clean up the mess and go home.

 

vekoS - Foldable tables and chairs are manufactured in a dank warehouse by massive swarms of illegal mosquito workers.

 

Flep - The sound from inside a Pringles can in transit. A young Pringle mistakenly interprets the company slogan: "once you pop, you can't stop" to be a paean to body popping.

 

tuinorizin - Military formations of AIBO-like dog robots being watched over from an observation tower by Kim Jong Un.

 

bladelores - Squirming subterranean larvae control the weather patterns. A big storm is brewing. It is discovered that extreme weather events are happening more frequently because of the powers of the larvae. We know not what havoc the subterranean larvae may reap with their squirming or when it will end.

 

1 1 is - The two greatest supermarket trolley collectors of all time battle it out in a never to be repeated grand arena spectacular.

 

nodezsh - RIVERDANCE: ON ICE.

 

runrepik - Ska-Punk Professional 7.0

 

spl9 - It has been discovered that everything we have done thus far has been wrong and we'll have to start all over again. It's really frustrating.

 

cloudline - Digital slinkies ricochet ironically as the real David Bowie devilishly plays a trollish dupe in a chat room dedicated to fans of the film Labyrinth.

 

deco Loc - Relentlessly bashing on someone's door to be quiet even though you know they're not home, except instead of a door it's a cruise vessel.

 

recks on - The instrumental from a Jay-Z and Nas collaboration called "Real Heroes".

 

YJY UX - A rare coin collector is mystified when his coin collection becomes magnetised. He finds he has developed superpowers like Magneto the X-Men villain except it only works on rare coins. The rarer the coin, the more able he is to manipulate it's movements. He is officially banned from coming within a 10 km radius of historical museums.

Excellent

Just finished the sit and listen with earphones in the dark. When I get up to walk to bed, this is how it's gonna go...

http://vimeo.com/amcb/timeremap

This album is so fucking good that I am losing my mind.....

i think we all are to an extent, this is folie a deux on a massive scale

Bladelores is like listening to the birth and death of a universe.

Am I the only one who thinks Netlon Sentinel could easily be a track on this album

There's something about Recks On that makes me want to go drive around and scare white girls again!

spl9 mothafuckaaaaaaas