10 Years of Quaristice

10 years ago today, Autechre released Quaristice. I know that the old Quaristice thread has been recently resurrected, but considering the major landmark I felt justified creating an entirely new thread (if not, feel free to delete this). I have a few thoughts I wanted to share...

First of all, this was the first "new" Autechre album to be released since I had become a fan. I started listening in late '06 or early '07, wearing out my CD of EP7 before delving into LP5, Incunabula, Confield, Amber, ect. Along with the fact that it came out on my 17th birthday, I've always felt a bit of a special connection with Quaristice.

Second, I don't think there's been a single album that I've gone back and forth on more between passionately loving, being mystified over, dismissing as one of their "lesser works," listening to bits and pieces of again, loving as an album, ect. I think though since listening to tons of Elseq over the past year I've begun to "understand" Quaristice more and it will probably now permanently stay one of the ae albums that I love.

Third, I completely reject the idea that "Versions" or "Quadrange" is unilaterally better. It is fascinating to hear the alternate versions, but they absolutely do not flow better as actual albums and they omit so many of the best tracks. No Simmm? No thanks. Speaking of Simmm, absolutely one of the greatest tracks Autechre has ever created. I can never believe that they fit so many amazing ideas into just five compact minutes. Some of the best beats, melodies, and ambience they've ever layered together. 

Fourth, it took me until just about this year to realize that Paralel Suns is an absolute ambient masterpiece. I don't know how, but I had never listened closely enough before and realized that it contains one of the most beautiful and simple melodies they've ever composed. I'd never heard the subtle synths in the background that sound almost like digital wind chimes. Proof that they are unparalleled masters of ambient music, and not just in amber's style.

Fifth, Theswere is one of the only times outside of Gescom that they've completely embraced their love of hip-hop, which makes me kind of wish that they produced more often. Also, elyc6 onset now makes fwzE and bnc Castl sound completely normal by comparison.

Overall, Quaristice is and has always been a beautiful mess, a sampling of some of the best ideas they've ever had. I know that a lot of people consider this the beginning of the Exai/Elseq style of album, releasing massive amounts of whatever they're working on at the moment, but almost everything here is far more composed than the much jammier Exai and Elseq. To me, Quaristice sits completely alone in their discography both stylistically and in terms of the album's composition, and it's aged incredibly well in the ten years since its release.

Anyway, that's it for my not very original or particularly interesting thoughts about ae's glorious ninth album. Happy tenth.

Hands up for the Steel case crew 

/me hands up

^yeeeeeeeeeeee boi *raises hand*

Happy Birthday Quaristice! Fuck you for making me feel old (I will feel truly old when Oversteps hits 10)

This is the one that aged and matured like dank af whisky

- Sean ae

Hepi birdi, quarii

Same here, first album released after I had discovered them.

Missed the steelbook email due to a sodding work meeting, and forever despised that job since.

Quaristice / versions / quadrange was a masterful era.

It allowed ae to go beyond the traditional album format and release the extended quadrange material via bleep in a digital only format. Looking back now, this helped paved the way for elseq and the live work.

Ps happy birthday Jaazeps

dont get me wrong, imo quaristice is a work of pure genius, but often wonder how would it be received if it was done by a relatively unknown artist...

Gonna listen to this on wax today, happy b-day, Q! Btw. I strongly agree with the opinion that the album itself is NOT inferior to the EPs. I love it as it is and I love I have the opportunity to see the material from different points of view as well (the EPs). One time I listened to Quaristice while tripping and it was the perfect thing for that - the relative shortness of the tracks and the everchanging nature of the album worked perfectly for that mindset. I like Sean's metaphor of each track being a different door leading to a different world... which meant an exploration of different visuals and different mental states throughout the course of the album. 10/10 would recommend.

this one holds a special place in my heart, HBD

yay winter time listening ae 

there are 20 friggin dope tracks on this album, i couldn't believe what i heard when i got the cd at release

one of my fav ae albums, i can listen to this forever

never really got round listening to the dozen variations of the tracks but the core album is one of my favs

nofour is fucking incredible.

Nope, it was notwotwo that I was thinking of.

Happy birthday Quaristice and Jaazeps

Man, when this came out, watmm was on fire for a little while. The versions disc was an awesome glimpse into the longer take on a few of the jams. I loved the new approach this time, with a lot more but shorter tracks. It was so refreshing. Especially coming off of all the untilted tour sets that were going around. there were so many good recordings, and then hearing some of it pop up on quaristice was fascinating look into their newer process. There was a lot of debate as to what the 'real' album, was - quaristice or versions. we all know it is quaristice. and then the ep's started to trickle out. I cant remember if it was 3 or 4 but i remember when they announced the one with 6-36 on it, it was all but a lock that it was a mastered live set! 1 track, 1 hour? of course it is! that was fantastic. and also the beginning of huge dumps of material. Untilted never even got an ep :( 

I joined WATMM for Quaristice. It's still overall my fave. There's something really special about the mood and pacing of it that makes it feel like a dream or a movie more than any other Autechre. It's got the master's touch.

Would love to hear more 'jam' type albums like Quaristice, or even the outtakes. I can appreciate their more recent work in a different way but this album does something to my brain that the other albums don't. 

  On 1/29/2018 at 3:36 PM, Alan Ord said:

Would love to hear more 'jam' type albums like Quaristice, or even the outtakes. I can appreciate their more recent work in a different way but this album does something to my brain that the other albums don't. 

Absolutely.

To me, when I listen to the Quari-suite of music, I picture them in a studio jamming with all sorts of kit.  I know its computer music, but a lot of the tunes sound like hardware jams.  To be able to achieve this in the way they have is some sort of sonic wizardry.

  On 1/29/2018 at 9:08 AM, fletcher said:

Ps happy birthday Jaazeps

  On 1/29/2018 at 3:00 PM, Rotwang said:

Happy birthday Quaristice and Jaazeps

Thank you!

  On 1/29/2018 at 3:48 PM, fletcher said:

 

  On 1/29/2018 at 3:36 PM, Alan Ord said:

Would love to hear more 'jam' type albums like Quaristice, or even the outtakes. I can appreciate their more recent work in a different way but this album does something to my brain that the other albums don't. 

 

Absolutely.

To me, when I listen to the Quari-suite of music, I picture them in a studio jamming with all sorts of kit.  I know its computer music, but a lot of the tunes sound like hardware jams.  To be able to achieve this in the way they have is some sort of sonic wizardry.

 

Actually, according to an interview they used the following gear in addition to a Mac G4:

Electron Machinedrum/Monomachine

Clavia Nord Modular G2/Nord Rack

Yamaha FS1R

Akai MPC1000

Alesis QuadraVerb

Lexicon PCM 80/90

According to Sean:

  Quote

“This album was made from really long live jam sessions. When I moved to Manchester in 2005, the first thing we did was set up a new studio with the live kit and record these really long jams. It turned out good, so we just kept doing it and writing new stuff with the same setup. Having that ability and so much drive capacity nowadays makes it easy to record everything. We did two hour-long jams a day. It took six months to edit it all down to six- or eight-minute tracks. Then we would reduce them again and again. We had a lot of different versions to choose from. We were also reusing bits of sequences from other tracks. Once we got them in a rough format, we used [MOTU] Digital Performer for all the editing.”

So, what you imagined is pretty much exactly true!  :D

This one was a grower for me that I'm just beginning to fully appreciate after a long break from listening to ae. Really been loving it lately though, it's the one album where I feel like you can mix and match between all the accompanying EPs to make different playlists to fit your mood. Can't believe it's been 10 years already, I feel really old.

And I'm also in the steel case crew. Never selling mine but they're worth quite a bit now!

  On 1/29/2018 at 3:31 PM, sweepstakes said:

I joined WATMM for Quaristice.

same 

  On 1/29/2018 at 3:00 PM, jules said:

when they announced the one with 6-36 on it, it was all but a lock that it was a mastered live set! 1 track, 1 hour? 

except it wasnt.  that track was such a dissappointment for me at first, and i still think it doesnt have more ideas than a standard 3min quaristice track, but its still a very welcome piece on ¨how¨one can listen to quaristice material - at a multitude of time scales and maybe shuffled up a bit

  On 1/29/2018 at 2:40 PM, oscillik said:

Nope, it was notwotwo that I was thinking of.

yeah, amazing.  but for ambient, nothing will dethrone Altibzz for me..

Simmm <3

  On 1/29/2018 at 8:31 AM, oscillik said:

Hands up for the Steel case crew 

 

/me hands up

*ups hand*

we="the steels"...

also: still loving it (quadrange not as much tho). plyphon, simmm, paralel suns, rale, 901234871294... all top ae stuffs! happy tenth!

edit: anyone remember this?

funny that what they first intended to be a digital only collection of loosies ended up having the most luxurious physical edition they've done to date

  On 1/29/2018 at 9:44 PM, span said:

funny that what they first intended to be a digital only collection of loosies ended up having the most luxurious physical edition they've done to date

I still rate the Exai 4xLP set to be pretty tasty.