Exai reviews

not sure, but i would like to think theSun would be making threats involving knives

Well, needledrops review is up

Is aiight

lol at comparing T Ess Xi with Lone's Galaxy Garden

I like the point he makes about the long tracks though.

Ugh that guy. He knows what he's talking about, but I wish he'd stop with those awkward stutter edits and shitty jokes.

Lame,

He's not bad at all but the glitch reference is out of place with Ae.

  On 3/7/2013 at 6:18 PM, Friendly Foil said:

Ugh that guy. He knows what he's talking about, but I wish he'd stop with those awkward stutter edits and shitty jokes.

 

Lame,

I think it serves him well... he doesn't take himself too seriously.

Fantano sucks balls imo, i've seen other Ae reviews by this douche, his script isn't too bad (although it's not great) it's his childrens tv presenter brand of enthusiasm and delivery, as if he's talking to babies, it's just stoopid and unsuitable. Someone has told him he's awesome at some point and he's ran with it. I think he may have lost his soul along the way and we're left with this vacant shell of tardishness which he sees as a sufficient substitute.

  On 3/7/2013 at 10:56 AM, Awepittance said:

i think his reviews are thoughtful and decent. My only complaint about him is he seems to only review stuff thats relatively hyped up.

yeah i actually like the fact that he tries to explain his viewpoint, but i think he mostly just hits up all the main hipster spots like pitchfork, tmt, gorillavsbear etc and does his reviews based on those "trending" albums plus whatever the majority consensus hypes him towards

if you check his older videos, you'll notice he was trying to expose some lesser known artists- but too much of his audience now just wants to hear him talk about what they're listening to and he seems to be satisfying those needs now

btw: his cal chuchesta gag is now embarrassingly bad

I was subscribed to him for a long while, but the problem I had with him (though I liked the idea a lot of video reviewing) is that his reviews were all very very similar to each other. His Skrillex review is what tipped the scale though. (:

I really dislike how he's like, there are elements of Glitch on Exai, there are elements of IDM on exai, it's a meaningless reference. why can't he just talk about the sounds directly instead of using the genre-language reducing valve?

avant-garde techno....ambient...drum and bass....

it's a very hand-wavy way to talk about music.

The boy likes himself too much. He likes his own schtick, he likes his own appearance, and he clearly likes the sound of his own voice. I feel like I just watched a video of a guy masterbating for about 12 minutes in front of the mirror, and then he edited out some of the parts where things were going a little slow so it looks more passionate throughout the duration of 9 minutes. Although I agree with a few points he made, it could have been made more efficiently and with more insight.

Nothing I saw warranted a video. Even if it were written, it would have been about as bland as the typical music blog post. I've read more interesting points on watmm, is all.

hey let's review his review.

I give it a 7/10.

  On 3/8/2013 at 2:21 AM, modey said:

hey let's review his review.

 

I give it a 7/10.

Im feeling a strong 6 to a light 7. How'd you feel about the review? Love it? Hate it? Why? Anthony Fantano... theneedledrop... forever

Which review should we review next?

Lol, exai review thread turns into theneedledrop review of reviews thread

As far as reviewers go, Fantano does a good job. He can rub people the wrong way, sure, but he does make a point of actually describing the music. Plus he gave it an 8, so I don't feel like killing him.

rofl

I think it was a fine review, and that he speaks very articulately about the music -- not from a musician's standpoint (he doesn't talk about time signatures and triplets and stereo widening), but from a listener's perspective. He seems to like hip-hop and hard metal a lot, so if he wants to say 'glitch,' fine -- I know what he means, good enough. And I think a lot of the things he says about the music -- that it's expansive, detailed, cerebral yet still emotional, not necessarily hugely new for autechre, a 'feat' -- I think are true. I wish he'd picked up on how dubby some of the tracks are, but you can't talk about everything. But again, I laud his effort to really try to describe the music itself and the experience of listening to it -- so sick of reading reviews that devote 90% of their column space to the artist's and album's backstory instead of telling me what it sounds like. I find him a ton less 'hand-wavy' than a lot of the other reviews that have been posted to this thread.

Also, he speaks exactly like a good friend of mine, which is kind of uncanny.

  On 3/8/2013 at 8:49 AM, encey said:

rofl

 

I think it was a fine review, and that he speaks very articulately about the music -- not from a musician's standpoint (he doesn't talk about time signatures and triplets and stereo widening), but from a listener's perspective. He seems to like hip-hop and hard metal a lot, so if he wants to say 'glitch,' fine -- I know what he means, good enough. And I think a lot of the things he says about the music -- that it's expansive, detailed, cerebral yet still emotional, not necessarily hugely new for autechre, a 'feat' -- I think are true. I wish he'd picked up on how dubby some of the tracks are, but you can't talk about everything. But again, I laud his effort to really try to describe the music itself and the experience of listening to it -- so sick of reading reviews that devote 90% of their column space to the artist's and album's backstory instead of telling me what it sounds like. I find him a ton less 'hand-wavy' than a lot of the other reviews that have been posted to this thread.

 

 

Also, he speaks exactly like a good friend of mine, which is kind of uncanny.

Well said, you make a lot of good points. To add he does a good job of adding emphasis to things while also keeping a casual/chill vibe. The writing may be a lot less creative, but he gets to the point and doesn't try and make "impressions" feel anymore thought over than they should be. If I want to witness another person's perspective of a certain album/track I'd rather they draw/paint a picture or make a video that abstractly amplifies what a piece of music says to them; commonalities between one another and the musician. Kind of like looking at the exai vinyl as you listen to 11 is.

"For devotees who are willing to gaze into the digital abyss, Exai holds unfathomable depths"

popmatters review-spot on!

  On 3/7/2013 at 6:08 PM, coax said:

Well, needledrops review is up

 

Is aiight

cool review for this little time it has been out but lol how does one bop his head on exai?

  On 3/8/2013 at 9:21 PM, Ivan Ooze said:

 

  On 3/7/2013 at 6:08 PM, coax said:

Well, needledrops review is up

 

Is aiight

cool review for this little time it has been out but lol how does one bop his head on exai?

I was thinking that same thing. For anyone who knows music theory, does autechre even follower a time signature?

exai is possibly the easiest album to bop ones head to.

ever.

Most ae tracks are in 4/4. Actually off the top of my head I can only think of two which aren't: 777 and Cichli. Maybe some parts of Sublimit as well.

I'm not able to hear less obvious time signatures as much, but aren't Uviol, Maphive 6.1 and Hub examples of signatures other than 4/4? I'm sure there are others, need to check again