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

  On 11/5/2013 at 3:46 AM, amni said:

First off big thanks for taking the time to open up for us. I have been a huge fan since Incunabula. I actually had dinner with you guys in Melbourne Australia back in 95/96? You played an amazing set in front of maybe 20 people! Also saw you in 2010 in Melb :-) full house that time.

 

Anyway I find you guys to be one of the most unique electronic artists and the most advanced when it comes to composition. There have only been 3 times in your career where i thought, oh this track sounds heavily influenced by...and wanted to know if these artists did inspire the tracks.

 

Slip on Amber reminds me of Severed Heads

VLetrm21 from Garbage sounds like Arvo Part

Pce Freeze2.81 from Oversteps reminds me of Breathing in Fumes

 

If you do like Mego please check out VICMOD Records http://www.vicmod.net lots of great leftfield electonic artists there.

 

Thanks again for your time.

shit yeah pce freeze does, wasn't intentional, Breathing in Fumes is one of DMs most amazing.

 

the other references, i've not really heard any songs by.

Edited November 5, 2013 by Rob Ae

Do you find any ipad music apps interesting?

  On 11/5/2013 at 4:06 AM, yshf said:

I think I can recall awhile back one of you guys said something about how hard it is to leave home because you always feel the need to produce stuff, but I was just wondering if there are any tracks of yours that come to mind that at least stemmed from somewhere besides the studio? I know I often find myself braindead in my studio space with so many options surrounding me - I need a change of scenery to influence the creative headspace now and then. Is this something either of you can attest to?

yeah it was a while ago we said that, partly due to preferring our studio to anywhere else to work. a friend in miami once gave us a Roland PMA5 - maphive6.1 was all this.

 

Then the travelling to shows after oversteps tour i used Sunvox a lot on iPhone. so anywhere i could get headphones on was good.

 

the thing is with being out of the studio, if u hear something amazing u want to use, its usually too elusive cos mics aren't getting it down like our ears/brain, so it won't transfer imo. so reduce it to something u can capture 'as is' that works.

  On 11/5/2013 at 5:32 AM, amni said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 4:56 AM, modey said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 3:46 AM, amni said:

Slip on Amber reminds me of Severed Heads

Woah, really? Any track in particular?

 

Severd heads era 83-86 http://youtu.be/E--oGXcC79Q check 3 mins and Dead Eyes open.

 

yeah thats totally fly. reminds me of a lighter keith leblanc, and Propaganda in production terms, quite Trevor Horn.

Whenever i plays Perlence Sun it reminds me of that 1985 Vangelis track, from the Invisible connections LP, is it kinda related ? Inspiration or something ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RrzRVO9S8I

A shame he didnt go further in that minimal abstract style instead of his poly philarmonic orchestral/choir hollywood madness.

(Nothing to do with Autechre, but for the mego/sunno))) heads, there is a very limited cassette sold since this morning @emego....)

  On 11/4/2013 at 11:55 PM, Redruth said:

name the children's book that had a particularly large effect on u as a child

did u know that we eat an average of 1 kilo of bugs each year, ground in prepared foods, hiding in salad or whatever?

have u ever held yr hand up, wiggled yr fingers and asked yrselves, wtf is going on? who am i really?

i love the future sound of london from the archives series - can u name several tracs u consider highlights?

have u listened to the jack dangers peristaltic wave trac?

do u have a secret place were u like to go, that no one else knows about?

would u name something u consider to be of interest within yr immediate vicinity, where u r right now?

if u could eat anything at this particular moment, what would it be?

in the motor vehicles, who is the speedracer between the two of u?

when flying on the airplanes, have u gotten into any noteworthy conversations with the passengers?

name one thing u would change about the educational system in the uk

did the both of u choose to remix the falling trac or did mick choose it for u?

do u believe in electro magnetic fields? if so, do u believe they have a negative effect on the human body?

what's for breakfast tomorrow?

will u name one thing u have found near yr home which u consider interesting?

would u plees name one ambient music recording which u fancy?

 

 

alice in wonderland

yeah, nutritious bugs, yum

yeah

march of the money men, linear block 5, mouth muse, skinny ribbed fu__er, rotation, yashica, outer heaven

no

how would i know for sure? but yeah, i think so

only weird anon buildings i can't figure out, there are loads round here

these prawns i had once in this japanese/italian fusion place in tokyo. i got no idea how he did it but he was using soy, tomato and garlic with some other weird as fuck flavours i couldn't identify. the chef was super secretive, just kept laughing at me for asking.

rob, but i don't drive. if i did it would prob be me

yeah once i say next to ken russell but he never told me who he was, i only realised later. he just said he made films. we watched speed together, he kept pointing out shit bits, he was pretty funny.

if there was some way to allow kids to study things they were actually interested in that would be cool

can't rem. i think mick chose it

well they def exist, they have negative effects if you stick your finger in a plug socket

i got some wild mushrooms i need to eat so I'm gonna have them in a bit, dunno what with yet, maybe an egg

u asked me that already

god that word ambient is such a loaded term (thanks brian) - i'm gonna say phaedra

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:38 AM, zleep said:

another question, do you guys read magazines or website related to science or math the like to see the new or current technology maybe applicable to your music?

 

Since I liked your music, I have been reading a lot about math, programming and interesting science stuff, haha , no other musician get me to do that, and I think that is a wonderful experience, your music really make me learn a lot, and I start to experiment my own generative stuff now and that is fun! thank you autechre!

 

yeah a fair bit but not loads

there's so much happening out there tho, esp in the computer/tech domain

and the politics/pseudoskepticism in the science press gets a bit much sometimes

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:56 AM, Rob Ae said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:02 AM, Obel said:

I'm cooking dinner for a lady on Saturday night and struggling to know what to do for a starter. What are your thoughts ae?

i once had grilled green chilli peppers with a fried egg, and sea salt crystals. at a smart joint, and was like, hey this is posh truckers food. is she into truckers?

 

ah brill i've got green chillies

that's brekky sorted then

  On 11/5/2013 at 1:48 AM, Rob Ae said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:43 AM, Jev said:

Rob, I asked this already but I understand not every question from that huge pile can be answered:

 

How big role plays a mastering engineer when it comes to the vibe of the records. Is he only supposed to make sure the mix of the album is consistent by light touches here and there or were there any situation when he really pushed a track sound to another level?

yeah sorry i saw it and wanted to answer but sometimes the best response isn't the immediate one, cos i know what i mean, but it may not articulate to be worthwhile.

 

noel summerville,he's the only guy that could actually cut draft 7.30 to vinyl (yeah think thats the right lp). we weren't happy with the first few test presses we got from another plant, so we got warp to throw the premasters to all the cutting rooms they trusted.

 

noels' TP was spot on given that Draft was heavy on the really quick transients, wooden mids, tight and and rubbery bass - hard to commit to vinyl and get it loud without limited to mush - and keep all the air in the tracks. since that we went in there every time, sit with him talk about our thing. he gets it, suggests often simple transparent approaches he'd like to try, explaining why, and the outcomes etc. we get into it and its done.

 

 

Interesting. Thank you very much. So if you disregard vinyl mastering for this question would his impact on the final sound be also as significant? I mean, there is really a thin line between what needs actual mastering (not just check of an engineer if the record sounds good) and what not. So I always wondered if there were times when he, for example, gave you an advice on how to mix something problematic in you tracks properly to simply make it sound better (to underline the emotions in the track, make it bigger or whatever) or if he really fixed some track that you two were not capable of pushing the right way. Sometimes a master sounds almost identically to a final mix but sometimes there is a big difference that makes a real impact on the track. So were there any situations like this?

  On 11/5/2013 at 1:24 AM, Ivan Ooze said:

do you turn up the volume when they play in the air tonight on the radio in the car

 

is the matrix the third member of autechre?

 

how many kickdrum rushes are there in Phylopn?

 

in the air tonight is a brilliant track why does it get so much shit, everything about it's ace, even the weird as fuck lyrics

and shit man it was made in 1980 that's pretty amazing to me from a production/style point of view

 

yeah

 

1

sean aren't you worried it might be some funny shrooms you are having for breakfast? or are you a professional wild shroom hunter

How was this possible in the 1960s, is Delia Derbyshire a time traveller ?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szE5D-dPs_Y

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6pTdzt7BiI

  On 11/5/2013 at 10:11 AM, gabrielconroy said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 1:52 AM, Rob Ae said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:56 AM, gabrielconroy said:

Do you both mainly listen to sequenced electronic/synthesised music, or are you also into hand-arranged sample layers stuff? What do you think of Burial, for example?

where would u put burial in the above categories?

 

 

Those categories were a bit rubbish, sorry. I'd put Burial in the second one.

 

I guess I'm interested in what you two think of stuff like his that's made completely from samples, using a computer, but still arranged by hand (and not necessarily sequenced according to some complex metre and tempo structure).

 

Are you drawn towards listening to stuff that has machine precision as a major part of its identity, or do you also appreciate stuff like his that has a more heavily human character?

 

disclaimer: I realise this question is a bit stupid and you can draw the line on human intervention/decision making in different places, but I suppose that's what I'd love to hear your thoughts on.

 

yeah i've got a fair bit of Burial. i used to catch stu allan's hip hop radio shows and house shows, in-between these slots he'd play2 hrs of soul (was the original slot b4 the others came about), i was one of the few kids i knew that could get into it. the britsh stuff was even better than the US, so to me what Burial does is a continuation of that, very UK take on that dripping wet emotional R&B.

 

i would argue perhaps its not so much by hand, i like the roughness and sometimes unpredictable mixing, but i def hear a strong if somewhat elliptical swing. i get tired of the zippo snares sometimes heheh

What do you think of Ricardo Villalobos? To me he is up there with Autechre in being one of the most out there "dance" artists. You guys def push the boundary of what we consider composition more than him due to his 4/4 beats anchoring his tracks but I do like the fact is is quite abstract.

 

I always thought 808 State were the Weather Report of the dance scene. Comments?

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:15 PM, Jev said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 1:48 AM, Rob Ae said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:43 AM, Jev said:

Rob, I asked this already but I understand not every question from that huge pile can be answered:

 

How big role plays a mastering engineer when it comes to the vibe of the records. Is he only supposed to make sure the mix of the album is consistent by light touches here and there or were there any situation when he really pushed a track sound to another level?

yeah sorry i saw it and wanted to answer but sometimes the best response isn't the immediate one, cos i know what i mean, but it may not articulate to be worthwhile.

 

noel summerville,he's the only guy that could actually cut draft 7.30 to vinyl (yeah think thats the right lp). we weren't happy with the first few test presses we got from another plant, so we got warp to throw the premasters to all the cutting rooms they trusted.

 

noels' TP was spot on given that Draft was heavy on the really quick transients, wooden mids, tight and and rubbery bass - hard to commit to vinyl and get it loud without limited to mush - and keep all the air in the tracks. since that we went in there every time, sit with him talk about our thing. he gets it, suggests often simple transparent approaches he'd like to try, explaining why, and the outcomes etc. we get into it and its done.

 

 

Interesting. Thank you very much. So if you disregard vinyl mastering for this question would his impact on the final sound be also as significant? I mean, there is really a thin line between what needs actual mastering (not just check of an engineer if the record sounds good) and what not. So I always wondered if there were times when he, for example, gave you an advice on how to mix something problematic in you tracks properly to simply make it sound better (to underline the emotions in the track, make it bigger or whatever) or if he really fixed some track that you two were not capable of pushing the right way. Sometimes a master sounds almost identically to a final mix but sometimes there is a big difference that makes a real impact on the track. So were there any situations like this?

 

 

his goal really is to try to get it so the vinyl sounds the same as what we gave him

but we worked with other engineers who like to get busy messing with stuff (pretty much all of them tbh, noel was the first one we met who had that opposite approach of trying to keep things intact)

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:16 PM, Ivan Ooze said:

sean aren't you worried it might be some funny shrooms you are having for breakfast? or are you a professional wild shroom hunter

nah i'm just a professional wild shroom buyer

i can sue if it goes wrong

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:19 PM, amni said:

What do you think of Ricardo Villalobos? To me he is up there with Autechre in being one of the most out there "dance" artists. You guys def push the boundary of what we consider composition more than him due to his 4/4 beats anchoring his tracks but I do like the fact is is quite abstract.

 

I always thought 808 State were the Weather Report of the dance scene. Comments?

not heard much villalobos

 

i'm sure graham would be chuffed to read that haha

i reckon 808 state are tons better but what do i know

What's your opinions of the Commodore 64's SID sound chip when pushed to limits like this -

 

parallax.mp3Fetching info...

 

radient.mp3Fetching info...

if you could have been alive in any other time in history, which would you pick and why?

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:18 PM, mcbpete said:

How was this possible in the 1960s, is Delia Derbyshire a time traveller ?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szE5D-dPs_Y

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6pTdzt7BiI

yeah its sick really, ppl have always been knocking out stuff that gets redone again and again without knowledge of prior attempts, in this case Delia was from a time when recorders were suddenly on hand for proof

could you gently prod at mat steel to release a solo album?

do you guys have an idea of where you are going next after exai or does that generally come together in jamming? or actually, do you define where you are not going?

a question of mine that didn't get answered, pushing it again:

 

 

  On 11/4/2013 at 11:12 PM, triachus said:

Exai was announced almost half a year in advance before the release date in a facebook post by tdr, saying they were working on the new album art. WATMM nearly exploded after that. It took a while for any actual info to emerge. A smiliar thing happened with a tweet about the L-event artwork.

 

 

 

How did that happen? Are they allowed to do that? Was it your decision or the label's decision to let those bits of info leak out of the blue? Was it a promotional thing? Will future Autechre releases first be vaguely announced via the artwork designers from now on?

 

I don't mean that as criticism or something. If there's any reason you can't answer that (nda?), just say the word and I'll let it go.

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:15 PM, Jev said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 1:48 AM, Rob Ae said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 12:43 AM, Jev said:

Rob, I asked this already but I understand not every question from that huge pile can be answered:

 

How big role plays a mastering engineer when it comes to the vibe of the records. Is he only supposed to make sure the mix of the album is consistent by light touches here and there or were there any situation when he really pushed a track sound to another level?

yeah sorry i saw it and wanted to answer but sometimes the best response isn't the immediate one, cos i know what i mean, but it may not articulate to be worthwhile.

 

noel summerville,he's the only guy that could actually cut draft 7.30 to vinyl (yeah think thats the right lp). we weren't happy with the first few test presses we got from another plant, so we got warp to throw the premasters to all the cutting rooms they trusted.

 

noels' TP was spot on given that Draft was heavy on the really quick transients, wooden mids, tight and and rubbery bass - hard to commit to vinyl and get it loud without limited to mush - and keep all the air in the tracks. since that we went in there every time, sit with him talk about our thing. he gets it, suggests often simple transparent approaches he'd like to try, explaining why, and the outcomes etc. we get into it and its done.

 

 

Interesting. Thank you very much. So if you disregard vinyl mastering for this question would his impact on the final sound be also as significant? I mean, there is really a thin line between what needs actual mastering (not just check of an engineer if the record sounds good) and what not. So I always wondered if there were times when he, for example, gave you an advice on how to mix something problematic in you tracks properly to simply make it sound better (to underline the emotions in the track, make it bigger or whatever) or if he really fixed some track that you two were not capable of pushing the right way. Sometimes a master sounds almost identically to a final mix but sometimes there is a big difference that makes a real impact on the track. So were there any situations like this?

 

we learn from their actions of tempering a final mix for cd/dig/vinyl, and work to get the differences minimised for next time, but usually they really don't want to tread all over our thing. but they're really important to us when were at that stage.

 

mastering engineers - or good ones - are pretty good at quickly spotting a situation that can cause problems, they do it all day everyday loads of styles come their way so they have a great non-interfereing overseer role. as long as they don't go trying to make 'creative decisions'.

 

yes theres been plenty of situations where its been done right and wrong, luckily were using noel and so far he's been great.

Edited November 5, 2013 by Rob Ae

what have been some of the stand out gigs of your life?

 

[as audience not performer]

 

 

is there any chance of ever being able to pay for a proper hi quality version of the coil remix? personal fav.

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

 

  On 11/2/2013 at 4:55 PM, phling said:

"the Elektrons", do you still use them a lot? Sounds like they are used on Exai, but more heavily processed than on earlier material?

nah they've been in a box since the quaristice gigs

 

apologies if it seems OCD or pointless coming back to this, but most of my dev revolves around Elektron gear so it's simply a topic that interests me more than just tangentially...

 

in Fleure @ ca. 3:59 there is a single 'knock' sound which sounds pretty much like a snare sound in the Perlences, most notably in Perlence Subrange 3, which very much sounds like it's the TRX clap from the Machinedrum. this was actually discussed in the forum, kind of a single percussion hit reaching back to Quaristice:

 

  On 3/9/2013 at 12:59 PM, phling said:

yes i was referring to the trx-clap from the elektron machinedrum, which is the source of this sound. but maybe it can also be done using a tomato in a closet.

is this intentional? is it the TRX clap? is the hit in Fleure sampled from earlier material then, or a different sound source which just sounds like it by chance?

 

the clap:

clp-2.wavFetching info...

I was thinking about the popularity of the DJ and that the future clubs could well not have DJs but computers with a distict style of music and you woud go to the club that played the style you liked. How far away is this going to happen?

 

I watched this doco about Automaton and it blew my mind that this 240 year old creation had 6000 parts and could mimic hand writing and draw. Have you seen this before? http://youtu.be/FUa7oBsSDk8