AAA - Ask Autechre Anything - Sean and Rob on WATMM!

Hey guys, ever consider doing something acoustic, with non electronic instruments?

  On 11/2/2013 at 5:02 PM, apriorion said:

Your work seems to lead some music journalists to really go off the deep end with speculation and bullshit. I've always imagined that this is due to the largely abstract nature of your work, and they way you guys leave a lot to interpretation. But are there any articles that really stand out to your mind as being the most full of shit? I instantly think of a couple, but I'm curious whether you guys give any thought to what these "professionals" say about your work, if at all.

can't remember

it's hard for any pro writers to get too deeply into things cos their job makes it difficult to specialise

that and SEO

  On 11/2/2013 at 5:02 PM, LimpyLoo said:

What advice or criticism would you give to today's electronic musicians? Like, what are we doing right and wrong? What important elements are being underrepresented?

only advice i can give is do what you want

  On 11/2/2013 at 5:03 PM, MastaN8 said:

Sure. How do you feel your music has been received over the years by fans/critics?

in various ways

when you made track x, did you feel y?

  On 11/2/2013 at 5:02 PM, apriorion said:

Your work seems to lead some music journalists to really go off the deep end with speculation and bullshit. I've always imagined that this is due to the largely abstract nature of your work, and they way you guys leave a lot to interpretation. But are there any articles that really stand out to your mind as being the most full of shit? I instantly think of a couple, but I'm curious whether you guys give any thought to what these "professionals" say about your work, if at all.

it looks like none have the time to sit and try to enjoy it - they get so much to check out weekly, i can't imagine they get even close to the situation we anticipate our proper listeners reach. so mostly blunt surface level face valuations occur

In one interview/documentary in the 90's you said more or less that "in ten years, music will be nothing like nowadays". Do you still think that same affirmation, or do you now feel that, seeing 80's and 90's revivals and people getting samples from old songs and imitating previous styles, music is becoming "lazier", repeating or lacking originality?

Did you guys ever record anything with the late Peter christopherson and jhon balance of coil? Am I mistaken?

Have you already started work on a potential new release? Are the sounds you're experimenting with now in the studio an evolution of Exai/L-event or do you now see yourselves heading into a very different direction in terms of the next album? I'm curious to know how much planning is involved when you're in the earliest stages of producing a record?

  On 11/2/2013 at 5:10 PM, Bread said:

Many on the forum really enjoyed your Quaristice era live set with the elektrons in full swing. Is there a possibility of it being released? There are so many awesome melodic hooks in that set.

can't rem if there were any recordings

i think not actually

guess you had to be there

  On 11/2/2013 at 5:10 PM, salvaKPO said:

When was Cichlisuite made?

Do you have mutant sound thigs? If so; Does it happen in between the transitions of release material? I mean, tracks mixing gear and techniques used in Tri Repetae and Chiastic Slide, for example.

cichlisuite was done in 97 (i think it was 97 anyway), after the tour we did with edgar

yeah we have tons of mutant half-things, but quite a few are on DATs that won't play without glitch hell. one day we'll get round to mothballing it all

  On 11/2/2013 at 5:11 PM, SR4 said:

heat or night?

night

  On 11/2/2013 at 5:11 PM, soma said:

Hey guys, ever consider doing something acoustic, with non electronic instruments?

only fleetingly, we usually realise we can't manipulate the harmonics enough and abandon it

  On 11/2/2013 at 5:16 PM, Bread said:

Have you already started work on a potential new release? Are the sounds you're experimenting with now in the studio an evolution of Exai/L-event or do you now see yourselves heading into a very different direction in terms of the next album? I'm curious to know how much planning is involved when you're in the earliest stages of producing a record?

past lp's are made from tracks that just get made, not to fit a specific brief so early on in the cycle between releases, these forms take shape later as the tracks can often suggest a path, roughly speaking

Have you played Dark Souls, and if so, what is your favorite STR/DEX build?

  On 11/2/2013 at 5:16 PM, Rulohead32 said:

In one interview/documentary in the 90's you said more or less that "in ten years, music will be nothing like nowadays". Do you still think that same affirmation, or do you now feel that, seeing 80's and 90's revivals and people getting samples from old songs and imitating previous styles, music is becoming "lazier", repeating or lacking originality?

god no, everyone got blinded by options and retreated into fitting in

i was young and naive, what can i say

Do you ever fall out over music?

What is your favourite track from Exai?

  On 11/2/2013 at 5:16 PM, MastaN8 said:

Did you guys ever record anything with the late Peter christopherson and jhon balance of coil? Am I mistaken?

no

we did send them some beats once for a potential collab but they said they listened, enjoyed, and thought they couldn't add anything without spoiling it

which i mean, it was cute but i really hoped they would hack into it somehow

so nothing came of it

The recent proxy link mahem http://p.autechre.ws/proxy?lnk=http://factmag.com via autechre.ws was a really fresh and weird spin on album marketing IMO. It genuinely freaked me out at first as if my machine had been infected with AE! :)

Care to divulge any thoughts on this? Was this a tDR or Warp marketing idea or something you guys initiated?

Weird question, and probably impossible to answer, but: Would you ever do an entire album without any drums/percussion sounds? Quaristice especially had some sweet stuff, like notwo and altibzz.

Quite good

- am pretty curious about how you choose track titles, sometimes they seem a bit casual, like just your personal shorthand for how you name different versions of a track, or to downplay the importance of the whole idea of track titles (similar to playing live in a dark room). Other times they seem more carefully chosen or tongue-in-cheek (eg., reniform puls). Are they always carefully chosen? Are any of them more personal?

- to what extent do you think your local environment plays a role in your sound? I seem to recall around the time of Confield there was talk about how you had moved to (London?) or were no longer working together in the same studio (sorry, fuzzy on the details, it's been a while!), and that that might have informed the tone of the record in some way. Something that also comes to mind is in a more recent interview I think Rob mentioned listening to Oversteps repeatedly during train commutes (sorry if I'm mangling this, again memory is a bit fuzzy). Do you just find yourselves making music wherever whenever, or are there any places you like to go to for inspiration...?

- I think one or both of you may now have families, do you find it hard to manage family time vs. creative time, and any tips?

When having artwork designed by a third party, do you have any input over the final graphic outcome? Are you ever approached for ideas during the conception of album artwork?

  On 11/2/2013 at 5:16 PM, Bread said:

Have you already started work on a potential new release? Are the sounds you're experimenting with now in the studio an evolution of Exai/L-event or do you now see yourselves heading into a very different direction in terms of the next album? I'm curious to know how much planning is involved when you're in the earliest stages of producing a record?

at the moment we're working on getting our programs to be reliable and flexible enough to use live again. we added a ton of functionality after oversteps tour but as usual there's that tradeoff between functions and stability (not to mention portability) going on

next batch will probably relate to this somehow, hard to tell. we recorded a lot of test files recently and we might use bits but tbh i reckon we will dev it a lot more before we start recording properly again

- Do you take an interest in neuroscience and how music stimulates the nervous system and our physiology (not just in terms of emotions)?

- Is your main goal to produce music that is emotionally appealing to yourselves, or do you lean more towards the sound designs/textures that music can be manipulated into without having the emotive element in the forefront of the music making process (or maybe a mixture of both)?

Q: what musicians/bands/sounds are inspiring you guys lately?

Have you ever confirmed/denied that you worked with Coil in the past? Also, is "Coil vs Autechre - Intercourse" dated 1997 real? If so will this release ever surface?

  On 11/2/2013 at 5:25 PM, Ifeelspace said:

Do you ever fall out over music?

usually over really ego things disguised as autistic detail-oriented things, usually we snap out of it once we see that

doesn't happen that much, maybe like once a year we disagree on something, and it's always some tiny detail or transition

Do you think the Resident Evil franchise has lost the plot, or do they just need a better production team to integrate more FPS friendly fare into their game design?