XI year old Autechre Album Released: Exai (WARP234)

I'll try to explain what I like about Jatevee C

I like how the bassline has both a really low end and the inside-a-pipe echo on the higher end, which is mirrored nicely in the kind of reverb that's on the pads. And I love how the bass climbs and wanders polyrhythmically up the arpeggio until it peaks by switching from E to F in the sixth bar.

I like how they drop the pads just before the drums kick in, and the drums have such a huge attack on them so it gives the track a lot of rhythmic energy that drives it forward, and sounds awsome when there are multiple snare hits in a row. I think the open hi-hat sounds are brilliant in the way they fill in the subdivisions of the beat when the kick and snare are kind of going awry, especially the hilarious part where they speed up the kick-snare combo and then the two open hi-hats keep the beat locked down. As with many autechre beats, if you count or tap the sixteenth-notes along with the drums, you can hear how they fit really interestingly into the subdivisions, even though without counting or tracking the beat, they can sound sloppy or random. (This is easiest to hear at the end of the track when the pads drop, and at 2:43 where the bassline and hi-hats line up in an awesome way.)

2:47 is an example of the awesome crackly lightning pads sound. They swirl around your head like static iridescent fireflies trailing multicolored geometric lysergic penumbras behind them. Those plus the pads give the track a strange combination of a very insistent drumbeat and a super-floaty atmosphere.

And even though it's just those parts the whole track, they do a nice job of (to my taste) introducing and dropping out the bassline and modulating it with filters to keep the track feeling like it is changing and has a beginning, middle and end. The ending is just enough: the synths drop out, and the awesome rhythm comes to a close, and it's done, and it sets things up perfectly for the transition to T ess xi with a similar tempo and key (the key being implied by the 'wub's that swell in after the snare hits), but the contrast of the huge drum hits with the tiny synths and blips that start the next track; that's my favorite track-to-track transition on the whole album.

Here's another way to think about it: Imagine it's not synths and electronic drums but The Roots with just a bass player, drums being smashed in the hardest, funkiest way, with those jazz cymbals that have little screws around them that make it keep ringing out, distortion on the whole drumset, and a Bootsy Collins wah-wah on the bass, and they're just rockin' the fuck out.

(I feel like a complete idiot writing all of that!)

LOL theres an Exai review on pitchfork. 5.9/10

I hate pitchfork

I totally agree with others who have said the album sounds totally different on speakers and headphones. I had been listening to on a bassy sound system a lot, and was really feeling the album through the bass / rhythm. For example, tuinorizn is a mega head-nodder with the kicks / hats guiding the way.

But I gave it a headphone listen last night, and some tracks were totally transformed. There was so much variation and lush detail under the beautiful reverb-sky, that I've never heard before in nodezsh. That is seriously my new favorite track!

I've only been listening on headphones so far, and yes nodezsh is fucking great!

Gonna give it some speaker play time this weekend firing out into the back yard. Bonfire and all, proper inauguration of the exai will be had.

  On 2/20/2013 at 10:20 PM, StephenG said:

LOL theres an Exai review on pitchfork. 5.9/10

 

I hate pitchfork

To hell with critics' reviews in general. I trust only the reviews and criticisms by real fans.

"To hell with critics' reviews in general. I trust only the reviews and criticisms by real fans."

I don't even trust that! That would lead to problems such as discerning which fans are real and which aren't, not to mention giving my own ears less credit than I think they're due.

  Quote

But for all their influence, energy and innovation, Autechre have never been very good editors. Their EPs are the length of most bands' albums, while their albums run about as long as short feature films.

 

These qualities dovetail to the detriment of Exai, the band's eleventh record-- and, by a margin of about 40 minutes, its longest. Though it's often interesting, Exai is insufferably exhausting, a record imprisoned by the obsessions of those who made it.

 

Just one of its 17 tracks doesn't break the four-minute mark, and many slingshot between various sounds and schemes, meaning that the transitions within the album and the songs themselves are weak, if not nonexistent. Pieces shift into bridges that lead nowhere ("T ess xi"), suddenly mix their metaphors and mechanics (the end of "recks on") and wallow in aesthetic indecision (tone-setting opener "FLeure").

 

Some of its songs deserve to be cut into halves, while others should have been chopped wholesale.

Really enjoying the nodezsh/runrepik/spl9 sequence!

nodezsh & spl9 is classic autechre, refined down but aint lost its spikiness

runrepik is kind of a new sound for autechre. The beats have plenty of humour and I like the progressively wonky placings they have. The backdrop of weird atmospherics is great, would like to hear a longer version of this/more of this.

spl9 is really the old autechre shining through! Plenty going on, and everything placed perfectly husting and bustling your mind into warm perfection. cloudline comes in perfectly on the horizon after this monster of a tune.

  On 2/20/2013 at 4:18 PM, Roksen Creek said:

 

  On 2/20/2013 at 1:12 AM, jules said:

 

trying to tell if there is digital noise in 1 1 is or if my copy is fucked up. I don't remember hearing it for a long time but now it's all I can hear.

Are you listening on speakers or headphones? On speakers I can hear like a digital noise, a bit like when a CD is scratched. I can't hear it on headphones, which would suggest it is supposed to be there but comes out odd on my speakers :/

listened only on headphones until the other day loud in my car and that's when I noticed it.

  On 2/21/2013 at 1:27 AM, AJW said:

runrepik is kind of a new sound for autechre. The beats have plenty of humour and I like the progressively wonky placings they have. The backdrop of weird atmospherics is great, would like to hear a longer version of this/more of this.

check out the boots from the Oversteps tour. runrepik is straight out of their Oversteps live set.

I LIKE DIS RECORD

Listened five times so far and it keeps getting better. I'm just a little worried I will wear it out before the vinyl arrives.

Recks on is a beast.

I swear these files have some weird thing that alters the music in subtle ways every time you listen to them It seems every time I listen to this album I hear something new. Right now it's runrepik, where at 0:46 this distant sound appears that sounds like a field recording or my laptop fan speeding up that I just haven't noticed before. What is this wizardry?

  On 2/21/2013 at 10:26 AM, azatoth said:

I swear these files have some weird thing that alters the music in subtle ways every time you listen to them It seems every time I listen to this album I hear something new. Right now it's runrepik, where at 0:46 this distant sound appears that sounds like a field recording or my laptop fan speeding up that I just haven't noticed before. What is this wizardry?

I totally get this.

I am sure autechre have mastered the arts of self-generative .wav files, listened to disc 1 last night and at least 4 of the tracks sounded completely different from how I remember them.

Are they witches?

Can we burn them?

  On 2/20/2013 at 9:54 PM, encey said:

I'll try to explain what I like about Jatevee C

 

I like how the bassline has both a really low end and the inside-a-pipe echo on the higher end, which is mirrored nicely in the kind of reverb that's on the pads. And I love how the bass climbs and wanders polyrhythmically up the arpeggio until it peaks by switching from E to F in the sixth bar.

 

I like how they drop the pads just before the drums kick in, and the drums have such a huge attack on them so it gives the track a lot of rhythmic energy that drives it forward, and sounds awsome when there are multiple snare hits in a row. I think the open hi-hat sounds are brilliant in the way they fill in the subdivisions of the beat when the kick and snare are kind of going awry, especially the hilarious part where they speed up the kick-snare combo and then the two open hi-hats keep the beat locked down. As with many autechre beats, if you count or tap the sixteenth-notes along with the drums, you can hear how they fit really interestingly into the subdivisions, even though without counting or tracking the beat, they can sound sloppy or random. (This is easiest to hear at the end of the track when the pads drop, and at 2:43 where the bassline and hi-hats line up in an awesome way.)

 

2:47 is an example of the awesome crackly lightning pads sound. They swirl around your head like static iridescent fireflies trailing multicolored geometric lysergic penumbras behind them. Those plus the pads give the track a strange combination of a very insistent drumbeat and a super-floaty atmosphere.

 

And even though it's just those parts the whole track, they do a nice job of (to my taste) introducing and dropping out the bassline and modulating it with filters to keep the track feeling like it is changing and has a beginning, middle and end. The ending is just enough: the synths drop out, and the awesome rhythm comes to a close, and it's done, and it sets things up perfectly for the transition to T ess xi with a similar tempo and key (the key being implied by the 'wub's that swell in after the snare hits), but the contrast of the huge drum hits with the tiny synths and blips that start the next track; that's my favorite track-to-track transition on the whole album.

 

Here's another way to think about it: Imagine it's not synths and electronic drums but The Roots with just a bass player, drums being smashed in the hardest, funkiest way, with those jazz cymbals that have little screws around them that make it keep ringing out, distortion on the whole drumset, and a Bootsy Collins wah-wah on the bass, and they're just rockin' the fuck out.

 

(I feel like a complete idiot writing all of that!)

!!

Great post. If you didn't write something like that I would have, it's probably still topping my list of favourites from Exai. The opened up hi hats reigning in the beat is my favourite thing about the track.

jatavee C. Brilliant.

  On 2/21/2013 at 5:36 AM, digit said:

 

  On 2/21/2013 at 1:27 AM, AJW said:

runrepik is kind of a new sound for autechre. The beats have plenty of humour and I like the progressively wonky placings they have. The backdrop of weird atmospherics is great, would like to hear a longer version of this/more of this.

 

check out the boots from the Oversteps tour. runrepik is straight out of their Oversteps live set.

date/time of this? i've heard a lot of the Oversteps bootlegs, more than once or twice, and this doesn't sound like anything from there. i'm curious what i've missed if runrepik is 'straight out' of the set.

  On 2/20/2013 at 7:35 PM, Amen Lare said:

 

  On 2/20/2013 at 6:05 PM, qnio said:

proto-tuinorizn @ 1.16.40 (last track): http://soundcloud.com/recman/26marzo2010

 

I agree. interesting how they choose what needs to be done in album-format.

thanks!! tuinorizn is one of my faves

I need more 2010 sets HELPPPP!!!!

  On 2/21/2013 at 12:06 PM, Obel said:

 

  On 2/20/2013 at 9:54 PM, encey said:

I'll try to explain what I like about Jatevee C

 

I like how the bassline has both a really low end and the inside-a-pipe echo on the higher end, which is mirrored nicely in the kind of reverb that's on the pads. And I love how the bass climbs and wanders polyrhythmically up the arpeggio until it peaks by switching from E to F in the sixth bar.

 

I like how they drop the pads just before the drums kick in, and the drums have such a huge attack on them so it gives the track a lot of rhythmic energy that drives it forward, and sounds awsome when there are multiple snare hits in a row. I think the open hi-hat sounds are brilliant in the way they fill in the subdivisions of the beat when the kick and snare are kind of going awry, especially the hilarious part where they speed up the kick-snare combo and then the two open hi-hats keep the beat locked down. As with many autechre beats, if you count or tap the sixteenth-notes along with the drums, you can hear how they fit really interestingly into the subdivisions, even though without counting or tracking the beat, they can sound sloppy or random. (This is easiest to hear at the end of the track when the pads drop, and at 2:43 where the bassline and hi-hats line up in an awesome way.)

 

2:47 is an example of the awesome crackly lightning pads sound. They swirl around your head like static iridescent fireflies trailing multicolored geometric lysergic penumbras behind them. Those plus the pads give the track a strange combination of a very insistent drumbeat and a super-floaty atmosphere.

 

And even though it's just those parts the whole track, they do a nice job of (to my taste) introducing and dropping out the bassline and modulating it with filters to keep the track feeling like it is changing and has a beginning, middle and end. The ending is just enough: the synths drop out, and the awesome rhythm comes to a close, and it's done, and it sets things up perfectly for the transition to T ess xi with a similar tempo and key (the key being implied by the 'wub's that swell in after the snare hits), but the contrast of the huge drum hits with the tiny synths and blips that start the next track; that's my favorite track-to-track transition on the whole album.

 

Here's another way to think about it: Imagine it's not synths and electronic drums but The Roots with just a bass player, drums being smashed in the hardest, funkiest way, with those jazz cymbals that have little screws around them that make it keep ringing out, distortion on the whole drumset, and a Bootsy Collins wah-wah on the bass, and they're just rockin' the fuck out.

 

(I feel like a complete idiot writing all of that!)

 

!!

 

Great post. If you didn't write something like that I would have, it's probably still topping my list of favourites from Exai. The opened up hi hats reigning in the beat is my favourite thing about the track.

 

jatavee C. Brilliant.

gangsta beat

After spending a long time listening to this, I gave it like a 4 day break, and then when I picked it back up it was even more spectacular than before, I really think this will keep a high position in the overall Autechre discography in the future. Runrepik is especially a highlight for me. Honestly, while obviously I hear influence from nearly all of their releases on this, I think it's closest to Untilted/Quaristice, which I'm very pleased with.

  On 2/20/2013 at 10:20 PM, StephenG said:

LOL theres an Exai review on pitchfork. 5.9/10

 

I hate pitchfork

lol, i am not surprised, they never understand electronic music

OK, after 12 million listens to nodezh I will now listen to 1 1 is for like 42000 times. Loving the kind of machine sound part starting at 4.20 kinda Lentic Catachresis 2013. LC + Murcof Urano: My absolute favourite "not traditional music" peaces.

  Quote

2:47 is an example of the awesome crackly lightning pads sound. They swirl around your head like static iridescent fireflies trailing multicolored geometric lysergic penumbras behind them

Thanks for your thoughts on the Java tea Listened to this just on poor PC speakers, on my real stereo I listened not properly to it... Seems like it works best with headphones.

In surprised reviewers are finding this hard going/ challenging. To my ears it's the easiest Ae listen for ages... In fact since tri rep (apart from 1st track and spl9.) Even Oversteps is a stranger album. It is polished and accessible much of the time.

  On 2/21/2013 at 10:32 PM, zleep said:

 

  On 2/20/2013 at 10:20 PM, StephenG said:

LOL theres an Exai review on pitchfork. 5.9/10

 

I hate pitchfork

lol, i am not surprised, they never understand electronic music

I think the reviewer's on there are just hyper critical. It's like they take pride in somehow being able to tear great albums down, as if that puts them higher than the music like they're smarter than the artists.

I don't know why but I always get this impression from pitchfork reviews, like the guy on the other side of the review has a serious inferiority complex.

Fuck Pitchfork