Exai vs Tomorrow's Harvest

If Exai is a crazy neurotic person who wants to go on an epic(correct usage) odyssey with you, and TH is a tired old man who sleeps 23 hours per day then I would consider this analogy to be complete.

  On 12/7/2013 at 11:40 PM, LimpyLoo said:

No offense intended but people who don't like TH are stupid and evil.

:):):)

  On 12/7/2013 at 11:38 PM, Joseph said:

"Groundbreaking" is often an incomprehensible term for me, it's like I'm reading:

 

"Album X is so jabberwocky!"

 

"Dude, it's not that jabberwocky, which tracks are you thinking of?"

 

"idk maybe it's not jabberwocky but it's really fucking good"

 

I don't know wtf the people who say "jabberwocky" ("groundbreaking") mean when they say it.

 

Exai has a shitton of sounds and textures that I have a very hard time wrapping my mind around, and which I've never heard before, and this makes it very interesting even after dozens of listens.

 

Is it groundbreaking? I have no idea. Is it Jabberwocky?

 

"Groundbreaking" is a word that is not very good for judging music, because it is ill-defined and therefore prone to abuse by social distortion -- where someone thinks something is groundbreaking when it actually isn't (maybe because some fuckwit authority said it was), or vice versa.

 

Maybe the next person who calls an album "groundbreaking" or "not groundbreaking" would do me a favor and explain exactly how they're using the word and why the album meets or doesn't meet the criteria.

I like Exai fine, but my AE love has been slowly waning since Quaristice. I like Oversteps a good bit, maybe 65% of it, and Move of Ten has some of my favorite tracks ever, but I get tired of the rambling reverb synth jams. M62 is an amazing track. That's what I like about AE summed up in one track.

Exai accompanied me through my most fucked up, detrimental manic outburst ever. I felt like batman in the interzone of oslo, and the music was perfectly fitting

and added plenty to the madness of it all.

TH is sweet and lush and all but yeah I second the above analogy more or less. The Thing vs Avatar maybe lol

Most people that like Exai more simply don't understand TH at all. They go to music for it to sound CRAZY.

Doesn't matter because Tycho's albums are better than both.

Most people like exai like boc as well i would think, not to mention the serene side of techre and aphex. It is the extreme duality of this music that i worship most of all, stay out in the cold and youll appreciate the warmth so much more and so forth. I go to music to fuel both sides.

What exactly is groundbreaking on Exai? Lots of stuff, try irlite (get0) for starters. I don't think it's quite as groundbreaking as their earlier albums, but that's not saying much as almost every Ae album is ridiculously groundbreaking.

Certainly more "out of the mold" than TH is to BoC's previous discography.

The problem with TH is that there is no complexity to it, despite what some had said prior to release. There is the odd track with some complexity but largely it's just repetitive, drawn out and slow. And the melodies aren't even that exciting here. They just seem simple and conventional.

All this not to say that TH is a bad album. It's good for what it is, and that's a slow melancholy album full of emotion, but interesting or exciting are hardly terms I'd use to describe what's going on here. Hell even TCH makes TH look slow and bland. Sorry BoC die-hards but it's just not that great of an album overall. There's some awesome stuff here but by and large it's more of the same without much distinction.

Contrasting that with Exai which has something interesting going on in most of its tracks, and is exciting and packed full of densely layered content. That used to be a BoC staple too you know, albeit to a lesser degree.

LOL Lump.

"How is Exai groundbreaking? I'll tell you how, this track on Exai, irlite (get 0), is groundbreaking, and therefore the album is groundbreaking too."

So now we know. A groundbreaking album is an album with groundbreaking tracks. I love the analytical capacity that those who voted for AE are demonstrating.

I don't think anything is groundbreaking anymore. It's just good or it isn't (to my ears).

I'm gonna admit it. I haven't even listened to side B of TH, because side A was so dull and then my turntable broke.

irlite is groundbreaking/10

Tomorrow's Harvest is groundbreaking in that I used it to dig a hole to bury a dead cat in.

  On 12/7/2013 at 5:37 PM, Rubin Farr said:

I'm sorry but BOC put about 3x more effort into their tracks than Ae.

I think a lot of that effort is misspent, though.

If T.H. was a misprint of a Beatles album and the music formed by mere coincidence, would Exai then be considered your mum

edit: oh god what am I writing sorry

Exai is great

  On 12/8/2013 at 1:27 AM, sheatheman said:

LOL Lump.

 

"How is Exai groundbreaking? I'll tell you how, this track on Exai, irlite (get 0), is groundbreaking, and therefore the album is groundbreaking too."

 

So now we know. A groundbreaking album is an album with groundbreaking tracks. I love the analytical capacity that those who voted for AE are demonstrating.

Have you seen the "logic" for those voting TH?

It's bullshit like "since people say they don't like it, it MUST be complex, and therefore proof BoC still put out albums that need time to digest"

Which first off is a load of shit.

Second, maybe it would be true if people were complaining they were struggling getting into it. But the overall complaint is that it is dull, and lacks the layer, depth, time to breath, detail, etc.... Seen in previous albums

The problem isn't that people can't digest it, the problem is there isn't much to dig your teeth into in the first place.

And for the record, I Actually really like TH.

but holy shit, it is nothing compared to other BoC, and nothing compared to Exai

I will say that from a melodic standpoint, TH is a triumph over Exai. Texture is good. I love texture, but when you mix it with melody in a complimentary way, that is really what draws me. Exai is texture x 2.

If you think TH is bland or dull, you just missed it. Sorry. You have taken too many drugs in your life and your brain can only recognize excess/extremes, and therefore that is what you pursue.

I like Exai a lot, but I think it sounds way more like Oversteps and Move of Ten than TH sounds like previous BoC. I like every single song on TH. That's not true about any other BoC album.

  On 12/8/2013 at 1:00 AM, lumpenprol said:

What exactly is groundbreaking on Exai? Lots of stuff, try irlite (get0) for starters. I don't think it's quite as groundbreaking as their earlier albums, but that's not saying much as almost every Ae album is ridiculously groundbreaking.

 

Certainly more "out of the mold" than TH is to BoC's previous discography.

how precisely is anything "groundbreaking"? what ground is being broken? i'd really like to know. these terms are all so vague and couched in bias, just admit that tomorrow's harvest pissed you off because it was a let down and was extremely hyped/marketed and exai wasn't, for you. i really hate terms like "ground breaking" being thrown around, it's like calling things "genius" or "innovative". what the fuck does that even mean?

edit: my post comes off very pissy. i'm not actually arguing with your opinion btw, i just noticed you seem to have a vendetta against those who actually like tomorrow's harvest, of which i am one. or maybe it's just a vendetta against tomorrow's harvest? i dunno. i'll type up a reasoned analysis for why i think it's successful and why exai (and most autechre) fails to move me. just not at the moment.

also this thread is fucking stupid and arbitrary and there's really no point in even comparing the two albums as they're completely different. did we do this with go plastic and drukqs? probably, but it's pretty dumb.

Yeah, this is getting pretty fucking tedious, guys.

watmm pls

  On 12/8/2013 at 8:29 AM, zaphod said:

 

  On 12/8/2013 at 1:00 AM, lumpenprol said:

What exactly is groundbreaking on Exai? Lots of stuff, try irlite (get0) for starters. I don't think it's quite as groundbreaking as their earlier albums, but that's not saying much as almost every Ae album is ridiculously groundbreaking.

 

Certainly more "out of the mold" than TH is to BoC's previous discography.

 

how precisely is anything "groundbreaking"? what ground is being broken? i'd really like to know. these terms are all so vague and couched in bias, just admit that tomorrow's harvest pissed you off because it was a let down and was extremely hyped/marketed and exai wasn't, for you. i really hate terms like "ground breaking" being thrown around, it's like calling things "genius" or "innovative". what the fuck does that even mean?

 

edit: my post comes off very pissy. i'm not actually arguing with your opinion btw, i just noticed you seem to have a vendetta against those who actually like tomorrow's harvest, of which i am one. or maybe it's just a vendetta against tomorrow's harvest? i dunno. i'll type up a reasoned analysis for why i think it's successful and why exai (and most autechre) fails to move me. just not at the moment.

 

also this thread is fucking stupid and arbitrary and there's really no point in even comparing the two albums as they're completely different. did we do this with go plastic and drukqs? probably, but it's pretty dumb.

 

lol, it is dumb, ie, I'm in my element.

Yeah TH does piss me off a little, because it sounds both smug and derivative (well, hard for music to sound "smug", but when taken in context with the band's TH interviews, it certainly seems so).

I actually liked TH more when I was listening to the crappy rip from the Lake Dolores listening party, with all the wind sounds and distortion. I found it substantially less interesting when I heard the "clean" studio version.

But yes, you've got me red handed, I'm basically bored. And I'm sure so was the OP, otherwise, no thread.

Lol

I like the comparison between these two albums. It drives discussions and forces some fanboys to put their love in a bigger context (outside of their comfort zone perhaps?).

Especially those who say you can't compare these albums. Of course you can! Name any two things and you can make a pick. I prefer oranges over apples, even though some might say you can't compare the two.

I want to see some of you take a trip on an airplane. When the stewardess comes to you with the meals and asks you whether you'd like chicken or pork, what would you do? Choices....o, choices. Lets say you love pork AND chicken....oooooooo the horror.

Also, Exai for the win! TH just isnt the grower I was rooting for. Couple of good tracks, but overall it seems to grow stale pretty fast. Which is definitely not the case with Exai.

I just hope those boc-boys learn to embrace their spontaneity. Just make music and release it, without cooking it for 10 years. When you cook those healthy vegetables, there's not much left of them after a while. To me, TH is about Boc cooking their vegetables until nothing is left of them.

  On 12/8/2013 at 7:46 AM, sheatheman said:

 

I like Exai a lot, but I think it sounds way more like Oversteps and Move of Ten than TH sounds like previous BoC. I like every single song on TH. That's not true about any other BoC album.

Dude, after an eight years wait, you gets some Music is math/Corsair rip off and THEN talks about Exai sounding like Oversteps ? I dont know what drugs you're on, but your dealer is playing tricks with you.

Wait what, Exai sounds like Oversteps?

Did I get the wrong Exai? Do I need to contact bleep?

It's almost like the fanboys (including myself) in this thread are trying to convince themselves being right in their own musical preferences, because of insecurity, and therefore they have to shit on other people's preferences to feel a even bigger self-worth. Fanboyism 101 etc.

Makes for a great thread, hopefully this enlightening and wonderful thread will continue for 200 pages.

When I'm coming to Denmark again, I'll give you a beer.

Kewl… I like free beer.