Exai reviews

  On 2/19/2013 at 12:30 PM, trananhhung said:

Frankly, I'm a bit shocked by the intolerance of some regarding negative reviews, implying the reviewer doesn't know shit about music. It sounds like those kids on Eurogamer when their favourite Xbox game doesn't get a 10/10. He likes Hecker, though. http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/17468-chimerization/

As I said, It's not the fact that the review is negative. It is negative without supporting evidence. I'm fine with your opinion as long as I'm convinced that you're convinced. This guy, with his refusal to actually describe his negativity in any other way besides "the music is too long and confusing" without giving coherent examples of the music being such, is not convinced.

I wasn't interested in being the devil's advocate here, but the score isn't negative. It's slightly above average, and that's what I get from the review. He's basically saying that they didn't edit the album to what he thinks should be a reasonable length (half of what it lasts?) That in itself justifies the score. To us, Autechre fans, 2 hours of Autechre jamming with delay effects is the greatest thing on earth, to a professional music reviewer it's probably just exhausting and redundant.

  Quote

 

Though they don't turn many new tricks, Autechre have once again proven to be top-notch sonic magpies and brilliant technicians. "Irlite (get 0)" makes a synthesizer sound like a church organ overrun by the ghosts in the graveyard, while "T ess xi" employs fluorescent soul keyboards as its basic building block. "deco Loc" turns someone's voice inside out, creating beautiful textures and themes from a sound salvaged and forcibly repurposed. The drums splashed over the surface of "Runrepik" suggest sun-warped crunk singles. ...

There's nothing actually wrong with the sounds on Exai: ... perhaps Autechre is once again ahead of a curve that we barely recognize.

Am I the only one who thinks that this review reads much more positively than the headline score? 'Top-notch', 'brilliant', 'beautiful'... these aren't the kind of adjectives I'd be flinging around in a hatchet-job review. The main gripe (length) seems insufficient to drag the review down to a measly 5.9/10, (while the same website is listing 'Bat for Lashes' on their Best New Music page...)

Has anyone here reviewed for Pitchfork in the past? Does the critic specify the score themself?

Did they give a lower score to any other Autechre release?

  On 2/19/2013 at 2:02 PM, CurlyAngryman said:

Did they give a lower score to any other Autechre release?

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/363-ep7/

omg lol

  On 2/19/2013 at 2:02 PM, CurlyAngryman said:

Did they give a lower score to any other Autechre release?

Ha, yeah - just checked:

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/363-ep7/

5.7!

(Kind of like back-to-front Top Trumps, this...)

Arrg. Beat me to it, trananhhung.

So Tauboo wins the predicted Pitchfork Exai Review Score Sweepstakes. The bets were as follows:

Obel 6.7
Eugene 8.2
Kavinsky 4.5
SpanishGuy 8.3 (9.2 if ae were black)
Disoriental Express 2.1
Ceerial 7.8
Bubbhasdance 8.0
Tauboo 5.9

Congrats Tauboo!

For those writing reviews who wouldn't usually listen to this kind of music, it might be a real headache trying to say something meaningful. Hence the; "Exai is insufferably exhausting" comment. It's easier to project their discomfort onto the album than acknowledge their inner wat.

Is he reviewing based on some criteria for what makes a good sit-through and listen in one go album, maybe compared to other albums? What's the criteria for what's too much music? At the base level, an album is as good as the amount of individual tracks people want to hear in their entirety, on a higher level, you can get into construction of the album as a whole, the flow, and the message / atmosphere it may send. The reviewer gets into a lot of high level stuff, but doesn't touch on how the tracks make him feel, which is a problem. To me, Exai on first listen was an exhaustive listen, but that's because I had to learn the tracks, and start to deconstruct them, only then will I get a better grasp of what the album is and isn't, to me. Surely a good album can't just be cutting out the parts that you don't like, or? We're never going to agree on which tracks are good / best, so how can something like that even be qualified. I also fail to see where the dubstep is in spl9.

Here's a good illustration of Pitchfork's lack of consistency:

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13896-rifts/

That is a long double-CD album. Yet it garners an 8.0. The reissue from Software gets an even higher review, and it's even longer. So the main point of detraction cannot be that "Exai" is too long. The reviewer probably just doesn't like the music, maybe because it is meandering at times and asks a lot of your attention-span. These are OK criticisms, I suppose, but then again, I find that Lopatin does the same thing on "Rifts", so there's this glaring inconsistency across those two reviews.

Perhaps Pitchfork shouldn't be viewed as an institution with a consistent internal criterion for album evaluation. But then what's the point of visiting Pitchfork, if it's just a collection of people who might or might not give similar reviews to the same album? We might as well visit these little douchey reviewers personal blogs, and then they would have to pay the bills by working the third shift at the local liquor store. That sounds like justice to me, actually. But so long as there is an expectation that Pitchfork will provide its collective perspective on new and important art, they should strive for some consistency. In which case, the main point of detraction from "Exai" should not be its length.

Oh, usagi, I can understand your frustration with the reviewers, but using childish terms like "faggots" is really uncalled for. I thought this community and website was trying to be better than that.

  On 2/19/2013 at 3:25 PM, apriorion said:

. I thought this community and website was trying to be better than that.

You were mistaken.

I just find the arbitrary addition of a number hilarious. No justification whatsoever. I'd love to see the in depth mathematics required to come to that number in the end.

Has that annoying prick Antony Fantanos shown his cards yet?

  On 2/19/2013 at 9:35 AM, compson said:

As they show little consistency or an attempt to be consistent. A good example is them giving 5.0s to Ariel Pink early material and now doing a 180 because of the "chill wave" or "lo-fi" trending that was/is surfacing.

I was about to say, if Exai had some seapunk-vaporwave crossover synths and with Azelia Banks rapping unintentionally hauntological rhymes about legos and feet and 80s graffiti this would be a 8.7 easily.

Pitchfork were big apologists to all forms of then popular electronic music when they first started - big beat, late 90s IDM, trip-hop, noise, etc. They went from trying to review overlooked electronic music to embracing now discarded fads in the mid-2000s (when I started reading them) like dance punk, disco throwback "indietronica" and electroclash (remember that?). Now they are tastemarkers, albeit fairly lazy ones. I wouldn't be shocked if they skim over other electronic music sites to pick who to highlight or hype. They do seem less prone to completely scrap artists they embrace though (they now make music videos and throw concerts for their fav artists after all), it's really who they pick to critically acclaim early on that seems so...calculated

my mom gave exai 4.9

who cares

So that's his name. I don't know how I got there, but I've seen some of his reviews. He has the ability to make me feel embarrassed by how generic and annoying he is. He is respected or something?

  On 2/19/2013 at 3:45 PM, trananhhung said:

So that's his name. I don't know how I got there, but I've seen some of his reviews. He has the ability to make me feel embarrassed by how generic and annoying he is. He is respected or something?

He's popular on youtube: I don't want to misuse and therefore change the meaning of "respect" by deeming his popularity that.

I seriously wonder how many people find themselves questioning if they are listening to something simply because it's popular or their peers like it - and then if it becomes an Abilene paradox where the listeners, the press/reviewers, the venues and festivals, and even the band all kind find themselves catering to a sound and aesthetic none of them actually like that much. I dunno, pitchfork perhaps more than any other entity made me realize years ago that you really just like certain music or not and that sometimes hype and critical acclaim is utterly meaningless and absurd. I think this occurred when I was trying to listen to Xiu Xiu or Dresden Dolls or some shit.

Don't forget he also said 'dubstep'!

i think you guys are getting a little bent out of shape over this

This pizza is delicious! But...there's a lot of it so I don't like it anymore.

I would totally love this record if my mother's maiden name was Fuantleroy.

I would totally love this record if I had gotten it on a Thursday, but I didn't, so that's that.

pitchfork, you so silly.

  On 2/19/2013 at 4:34 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

i think you guys are getting a little bent out of shape over this

part of me wants to think this is a cover art reference

  On 2/19/2013 at 3:25 PM, apriorion said:

Here's a good illustration of Pitchfork's lack of consistency:

 

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13896-rifts/

 

That is a long double-CD album. Yet it garners an 8.0. The reissue from Software gets an even higher review, and it's even longer. So the main point of detraction cannot be that "Exai" is too long. The reviewer probably just doesn't like the music, maybe because it is meandering at times and asks a lot of your attention-span. These are OK criticisms, I suppose, but then again, I find that Lopatin does the same thing on "Rifts", so there's this glaring inconsistency across those two reviews.

 

Perhaps Pitchfork shouldn't be viewed as an institution with a consistent internal criterion for album evaluation. But then what's the point of visiting Pitchfork, if it's just a collection of people who might or might not give similar reviews to the same album? We might as well visit these little douchey reviewers personal blogs, and then they would have to pay the bills by working the third shift at the local liquor store. That sounds like justice to me, actually. But so long as there is an expectation that Pitchfork will provide its collective perspective on new and important art, they should strive for some consistency. In which case, the main point of detraction from "Exai" should not be its length.

 

Oh, usagi, I can understand your frustration with the reviewers, but using childish terms like "faggots" is really uncalled for. I thought this community and website was trying to be better than that.

Excellent point. And we all know pitchfork does not care about anything remotely cutting edge or adventurous. There's no built in audience for stuff like that.

I just noticed that they corrected the "Untitled" typo. That was kinda irksome.