Exai reviews

The Quietus' review

http://thequietus.com/articles/11482-autechre-exai-review

would not agree with everything here, but it is considerate and well written as most of their reviews

started off well written but..

  Quote

 

For now, the duo are still at the top of their game, but they should be wary of slipping into complacency and being caught-up by the new guard.

wtf? I kind of doubt Sean and Rob care about whether or not they are perceived as cutting edge. In any case the parental scolding tone of the comment is a bit odd...

'Instead, it can be assumed that Exai has been designed to be dipped into and out of at random, possibly only one or two tracks at a time. The important thing is to give each tune the full attention it rightly deserves, preferably on decent headphones or good quality speakers. Anything less and it's just a load of crunching noises. Anything more and you risk serious aural fatigue.'

I'm finding it harder and harder to find any reason in reading these reviews. :|

I actually agree with what Charlie says there. I find myself listening to Exai in 3–4 track chunks. Anything more and I kinda get a bit lost.. at least this early on.

to me it's very much all or nothing.

like, with any album, listening to songs/chunks is fine. but there is definitely a certain flow to the album that can be appreciated only in listening to the whole thing. or um, there's something about the style of the songs that make it works better only once you have immersed yourself in the whole album.

i guess it's a bit of an ask & a bit demanding, being a two hour listen. but to me it's a rewarding listen:)

(also, the psychedelic nature of the album + the demanding length. the album can definitely be described as a 'trip' to me.)

i think it more annoys me that it's someones occupation to write down their impression of an album and release it to audience in printed form as if it were valid information. when it's ... just some body's opinion of something very very subjective. and it truly does not mean anything.

music reviews confuse me.

They confuse me too. I would like it if they contributed towards me seeing/feeling/thinking about the sonics of the music in a different or deeper or more appreciative way (like criticism can in other mediums) - whether they are more negative or positive. But often so many other unnecessary angles and assumed narratives invade these reviews. They seem to be about something else, with the music being the least relevant aspect.

On a more basic note, I'm just not understanding how this new one is fatiguing or too noisy, or 'random', or whatever else. It has the best flow and most accessibility of any of their albums in a very long time. Did 'Confield' garner such harsh responses? Can't remember. What do these people want, anyway? Exai isn't THAT extreme, and there's lots of straight-working electronic music out there. Why can't a band do it a bit differently, and do it with quality and cinematic flair to boot? Maybe if exai had more brokentape low-fi shennanegans going on and was more painfully self-aware and referential (but 'original' at the same time) it would get those higher scores. Whatever... :-)

I don't think it's extreme/fatiguing, I just don't have the time to listen to the entire thing. My longest stretch of uninterrupted music listening time is my walk to work, which is around 1 hour 10 minutes. My social life/music writing time gets in the way most of the time!

That one earlier review nailed it, all the other ones have been varying degrees of "okay, but I think you're missing the mark." Ae love making sounds, and to me at least, it's abundantly clear this album is overflowing with the love of making sounds. Whether or not you see that as music, or repetitive, or annoying, is up to you. In other words, the one unforgivable sin I see artists committing is when their creations seem tired and phoned in. I really find it hard to buy it when a reviewer says that about Exai. Eh, whatevs...

I'm waiting for a reviewer to say "this album works great as background music while you're studying or working". I think it's true, and not really an insult. I've spent many a productive day with Exai burbling away in the background, soothing my subconscious...

  Quote

 

but if they are to continue as groundbreakers, perhaps a new tack should be considered for the future.

what about irlite, completely ignored in this review ?

...aaaaaand another review

http://thefourohfive.com/review/article/autechre-exai

also, this german review claims that deco loc "prominently and obviously" samples The Human Leagues Being Boiled

(still waiting for my exai vinyls for first listen, so )

http://www.auftouren.de/2013/02/25/autechre-exai/

  On 2/26/2013 at 9:50 AM, kieselguhr kid said:

also, this german review claims that deco loc "prominently and obviously" samples The Human Leagues Being Boiled

(still waiting for my exai vinyls for first listen, so )

 

http://www.auftouren.de/2013/02/25/autechre-exai/

I'll have to relisten, but I've heard Being Boiled a ton and I never picked up on that in Deco Loc. Not sure what the "obvious" sample is.

i don't hear it either, there isn't a part in the song where the vocal sample resembles what they're sampling. I would expect it to be slightly more obvious just based on the stuff they've sampled in Sublimit and the Plc

i believe it was sampled from this

(3:36, when they snatch his ass with a beartrap)

lol

new review roundup (in case anyone still reads these):

http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/7602

http://thefourohfive.com/review/article/autechre-exai

http://www.normanrecords.com/records/138052-autechre---exai-

http://boomkat.com/downloads/664373-autechre-exai

http://de-bug.de/reviews/53156.html

  On 2/28/2013 at 4:17 PM, kieselguhr kid said:

new review roundup (in case anyone still reads these):

http://www.normanrecords.com/records/138052-autechre---exai-

  Quote

‘Exai’ is a mix of dark and light, ranging from pure Aphex acid ‘irlite (get 0)’ to deep dubstep ‘jatevee C’ and beyond, the duo’s interplay with varying tempo and sound is pure genius, there’s lots of nods toward past releases here, ‘T ess xi’ is like something straight from ‘Incunabula’ with its deep house sound and ‘Flep’ a typical AU glitch like the now classic album ‘LP5’, a real standout track from disc one is ‘bladelores’ a lolloping hip-hop beat which eventually builds to a melodic drone that hypnotises you for its entire 12 minutes!

Oh, Norman, whatever you're doing stop it. Not to be typical AU fan but...

what is a lolloping?

one more:

http://hearfeel.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/autechre-exai-2013/

  On 2/28/2013 at 4:28 PM, phling said:

what is a lolloping?

Lazy 'Haters gonna hate' walk

I saw the words glitchy, random, noise and disjointed a lot... but none of those apply to most of Exai's tracks at all... :-/

  On 3/1/2013 at 12:18 AM, usagi said:

 

  Quote

deep dubstep ‘jatevee C’

 

RAAAAAGH

wub. woop wow, woop wub, woop wow

fucking love that track

I actually do think that jatavee C is Autechre chanelling dubstep. I think the comparisons are valid. It's not a dubstep track, but there are points of reference there.

Agreed, few things I hate more than an over-generalization of terms. Techno and dubstep have always pissed me off when it's related to music that has nothing to do with it, particularly when it's someone who has no idea what they're talking about saying "I fucking love/hate techno/dubstep" and they're not even talking about the right thing.

I'm not a big fan of "rock music" (putting that in quotes makes me sound like an 80 year old man) but I'm not going to hate on every band that resembles rock because U2 and Creed suck wang. People need to table the labels and open up their damn ears.