XI year old Autechre Album Released: Exai (WARP234)

Also how is trying to figure out what equipment they used "demystifying" the sounds? It's really only about 1% of the story.

it's going to take a while to really digest the whole thing, but what a fantastic and overwhelming record. i love the way the beats stumble over themselves but still flow very smoothly. i'm also impressed by the sound design. i can see where awepittance is coming from (the sounds feel somewhat more familiar than those on draft or confield) but i still think it's wonderful. very dark and sparkly at the same time. i think that's why a lot of it feels outer spacey (as others have said)

I'm very impressed that they managed NOT to disappoint. I mean I've never seen high expectations like theses AND so good critics...Can't wait to hear it.

  On 2/8/2013 at 9:37 AM, Awepittance said:

this album feels very hypnogogic to me, listening to it for the 3rd time now and i feel like im listening to practically a different album. anybody else getting this effects? No effect like this on Quaristice or OVersteps

 

and i agree about the analog feel to it but not warm or soft like most analog centric music, it's sparkly. It reminds me a lot of what you can do with the Analog 4 or Arp 2600 with FM filter modulations. I feel like almost every bass line sound is being FM modulated to some extent, but not digital fm synths.

 

and i agree with digit about the mixing/engineering aspect of the album. For having such a chaotic noisy feel it's mixed beautifully. Nothing is muddy, even though at first glance it may seem that way on the surface. My qualm with the sound design wasn't that I think it has bad sound design, i think it's great it's just a sound palette that is used for almost the whole album. I prefer the more varying sound palette quality of Quaristice or Untilted personally. This is alot more focused on a singular aesthetic

 

yep, but I often listen to music in hypnagogic states (call it free psychedelics without the drugs) and this album sits particularly well with that. actually re: repeat listens what you mentined is why i liken this more to ep7 and less to quaristice or draft (even if I do hear obvious quaristice samples in some of the tracks). ep7 is the last time that listening to an autechre album repeatedly had that kind of effect on me. it's partially the choice of sounds themselves (their tonality might not be obviously apparent on a first listen) and partially the way they are mixed with a lot of the tuned content heard differently depending on where or how you're listening, eg track one on disc 2 is a completely different experience listening on my mdrs from that of my studio monitors because some of the textural details are so fine that any shift in the reproduction of the frequencies is going to change things: the 'tonality' of some of the sloshy beats only really jumped out on my headphones with the right frequencies highlighted. I find from a synesthetic perspective this album is amazing. the shapes, taste and colors that jump at me out of these tracks is so palpable. this is the kind of subtlety that really drew me into autechre in the first place, and I've sorely missed it in their past few albums.

 

it's a similar aesthetic across the board but it does shift slowly. I find the change from disc 1 to disc 2 keeps my ears interested.

Edited February 8, 2013 by TwiddleBot

Heard all disc 1 and a bit of 2 last night. Amazing... The first three quarters of disc 1 in particular made me feel things I've never felt before, what with the dark, detailed, smooth and sparkly yet utterly bizarre and surprising atmospherics. It's like the music I've always wanted to exist but never found, that first tree quarters. Can't wait to dig into disc 2 properly. Reminds me a bit of the Oversteps live tour, but is totally fresh too. Beautiful production and sense of space - much more so than any other Autechre album on headphones, to me. No weird mono-ey buisiness.

  On 2/8/2013 at 3:38 PM, auxien said:

 

 

  On 2/8/2013 at 3:31 PM, jules said:

im not sure i have ever been this giddy or amazed at an album so immediately

Lateralus!

 

 

that was not an immediate love for me. it took a bit.

Awepittance, you mentioned physical modelling a few pages back, can you elaborate on that and point out the specific spots in Exai where it shows up? I'm curious to figure out what it sounds like, how it works etc

  On 2/8/2013 at 4:21 PM, jules said:

 

  On 2/8/2013 at 3:38 PM, auxien said:

 

  On 2/8/2013 at 3:31 PM, jules said:

im not sure i have ever been this giddy or amazed at an album so immediately

Lateralus!

 

that was not an immediate love for me. it took a bit.

yeah, i can see that happening for sure. i know it took some of my friends a bit to really sink in.

 

i was sold with the scream/end of The Grudge

that is my favorite tool moment of all time.

i love the particle/granule sounding pads in bladelores. they make such nice patterns with them towards the end, esp when the delay between granules syncs up and goes in tune with the track. i suppose it's not a new technique but it's just one of those things you'd never hear if you were just listening on a casual stereo, you'd be more apt to hear it on headphones with the lights turned off or when in altered states. it just kind of represents the attention to timbral detail across the board on this album that I'm hearing so far. lush indeed.

Redownloaded the 24bit WAVs this morning. Listening on speakers for the first time (headphones first 3 times).

 

Mother fuck.

loud as FUCK on speakers is the only way. shit is cataclysmic

  On 2/8/2013 at 5:22 PM, disoriental express said:

loud as FUCK on speakers is the only way. shit is cataclysmic

I wish I lived in a place where I could do that - I've so many albums that I want to be able to physically feel that headphones just can't replicate.

I was listening on shitty headphones yesterday and listened through my over-ear AKGs on the bus this morning. With the bass it's like a completely different record. Cannot wait to blast this on my monitors this weekend.

My only criticism currently is the first few seconds of the opener, Fleure. I think its a perfect track that sets the tone of the record, but I can't shake feeling like the very first part sounds like tingy RealAudio streaming buffering stuff.

 

I just wish they had a minute at most of some ghostly stuff like at the very beginning and then switch it up and pound your skull in.

the end of 1 1 is....i cant believe what i am listening to. same with recks on, i cant believe they finally just fucking did this.

really nice album, I had it on repeat last night and woke up from a nightmare while track 2(irlite [get 0]) was playing. What I remember was extremely trippy visuals for a few minutes as if I was on way too much mushrooms and had my eyes closed. Just shapes & fractals, but very dark, sharp & stretched out. Only colors were silver/grey/black/red. And they were moving and reacting to the beats like a winamp visual plugin inside my head. I had to get up, turn it down, and put on a peaceful ambient/meditation shoutcast so I could fall back asleep. I've only listened to it through my mackies, but I'm about to take a 60mile trip into town to get groceries & I burned a copy to listen in the ride. As other said, I believe the bigger system will only improve the quality of these tracks. This is definitely my favorite ae album since the 90's and I cant wait to hear this on my drive with my 2 x 15's.

 

Standouts in my opinion are:

jatevee C

bladelores

nodezsh

recks on

 

But I really think each track has something flavorful to offer. There also seems to be a lot of live jamming.

  On 2/8/2013 at 5:33 PM, jules said:

the end of 1 1 is....i cant believe what i am listening to. same with recks on, i cant believe they finally just fucking did this.

 

 

It seriously sounds like what an acid trip come down feels like. How they pulled that off is beyond me.

Meh. Prefer Oversteps.

  On 2/8/2013 at 5:27 PM, gl0tch said:

My only criticism currently is the first few seconds of the opener, Fleure. I think its a perfect track that sets the tone of the record, but I can't shake feeling like the very first part sounds like tingy RealAudio streaming buffering stuff.

In a way I think that 'tingy RealAudio streaming buffering stuff' is the perfect introduction to the album. It seems to pretty much cement the idea of 'look guys, there's gonna be a lot of spectral manipulation and FFT processing going down in this album, are you really up for this shit dawg ?'

I didn't checked this topic for ~25 pages

 

Did you made the vekoS lyrics yet?

  On 2/8/2013 at 5:38 PM, gl0tch said:

 

  On 2/8/2013 at 5:33 PM, jules said:

the end of 1 1 is....i cant believe what i am listening to. same with recks on, i cant believe they finally just fucking did this.

 

 

It seriously sounds like what an acid trip come down feels like. How they pulled that off is beyond me.

 

 

im actually having trouble containing myself and listening to tracks in full. i keep listening to the end of 1 1 is. i keep starting recks on over. ah. but the whole way through is such a rewarding experience too. i did the headphones in the dark last night and it was surreal.

Edited February 8, 2013 by jules

After just two listens this album sounds pretty fucking dark and like being blasted into some alien dimension. Pretty intense and interesting stuff, but it`s definately gonna take me a while to decide if I really like it or not.

LOL @ people saying there's no hiphop in Exai. T ess xi is about as b-boy as shit gets. And recks on. C'mon.

  On 2/8/2013 at 5:38 PM, gl0tch said:

 

  On 2/8/2013 at 5:33 PM, jules said:

 

the end of 1 1 is....i cant believe what i am listening to. same with recks on, i cant believe they finally just fucking did this.

 

It seriously sounds like what an acid trip come down feels like. How they pulled that off is beyond me.

^This.