Aeconomics of Autechre

I'm thinking this is how they want it? All bands make all of their money touring these days anyway.

wow i was thinking the nearly the same today but you have to slow down a bit .

They released a lot of music since 1993, every 1-2 years we get a new lp or ep thats a lot of stuff to be sold + they have a lot of fans and they sell it digital as well as physical (Vinyls,CD,Merch,Special editions) nts box set costs alone 140€ ! + they play on great festivals.

so these are a lot of possibilities how to make good money for them.

regarding marketing i dont think they need that much promotion anymore, they are pretty famous and one single post on facebook or twitter reaches more people then some interview in a magazine back in the days. Interestingly they also stripped back the cover art, in Exai we had at least some colors and puzzle like geometry then circles and now only numbers as if they wanted to get rid of all the distractions until only the music is left to be consumed.


 

I heard their making cash selling illegal Gonks on the side

  On 4/15/2018 at 12:55 AM, kirm said:

I heard their making cash selling illegal Gonks on the side

All I had to do was give them my full name, birthdate, ssn, and then add their names to my bank account.

Super easy process... They streamlined it so it only took me 20 seconds through the geico website.

**edit**

I shouldn't post here while I've been drinking. My inner idiot seems to shine through...

www.warp.net

They still promoting the new shit so

the invisible haend

Lol

would pay $129 for a autechre FM synth plug in.  ;)

srsly though they seem smart and planning for long term. rob has kids right? i bet he's a responsible parent/drum machine owner. 

i give them the monies for the release every time. sometimes twice. can has vinyl and CD? yes ok will do. 

i hope the fan base has grown or stayed consistent. 

  On 4/15/2018 at 12:55 AM, kirm said:

I heard their making cash selling illegal Gonks on the side

More respectable than Aphex. He's just dealing drukqs.

  On 4/15/2018 at 8:30 AM, Root5 said:

 

  On 4/15/2018 at 12:55 AM, kirm said:

I heard their making cash selling illegal Gonks on the side

 

More respectable than Aphex. He's just dealing drukqs.

 

He used to. I hear all he sells now is the same weak-ass acid

  On 4/15/2018 at 8:51 AM, hello spiral said:

 

  On 4/15/2018 at 8:30 AM, Root5 said:

 

  On 4/15/2018 at 12:55 AM, kirm said:

I heard their making cash selling illegal Gonks on the side

 

More respectable than Aphex. He's just dealing drukqs.

 

 

He used to. I hear all he sells now is the same weak-ass acid

 

it not weak it just selek. 

Lysergic as a mentholated cough drop is what it is :^)

Its all maxmsp and they prolly don't even have to pay subscription fees. No overheads.

Rob has kept up his paper round since he was a lad (keeps him fit, reason to get up in the morning, cash in hand)

Sean collects golf balls at the local driving range

  On 4/15/2018 at 10:07 AM, fletcher said:

Its all maxmsp and they prolly don't even have to pay subscription fees. No overheads.

 

Rob has kept up his paper round since he was a lad (keeps him fit, reason to get up in the morning, cash in hand)

 

Sean collects golf balls at the local driving range

ae just a side gig.

"hey you doing the NTS sessions?"  

"shit man i forgot about it.. been going for 17 minutes.. "

"oh i'll get it.. can wrap up in 3.. 2.... 1... "

"nah.. ya fukt up.. shoulda gonked when ganked"

"ok just restart it... make that a b-side for watmm release"

"fucken watmm" 

watmm:  faps. 

  On 4/15/2018 at 10:19 AM, ignatius said:

 

  On 4/15/2018 at 10:07 AM, fletcher said:

Its all maxmsp and they prolly don't even have to pay subscription fees. No overheads.

 

Rob has kept up his paper round since he was a lad (keeps him fit, reason to get up in the morning, cash in hand)

 

Sean collects golf balls at the local driving range

 

ae just a side gig.

 

"hey you doing the NTS sessions?"

 

"shit man i forgot about it.. been going for 17 minutes.. "

 

"oh i'll get it.. can wrap up in 3.. 2.... 1... "

 

"nah.. ya fukt up.. shoulda gonked when ganked"

 

"ok just restart it... make that a b-side for watmm release"

 

"fucken watmm"

 

 

watmm: faps.

Lol!

Do they webcam? Faces covered?

  On 4/14/2018 at 11:03 PM, wredny said:

 

1. Zero promotion of the NTS and almost no media attention made me thinking about the economics behing Autechre. How are they making money? 

 

2. From the AAA thread we know that they were (?) on the Warp bill with a monthly commission. That seemed to be working well and the boys didn't seem to be bothered. Though one of them (can't remember which one) said that it gets tight financially and he can't afford all he needed. 

 

3. The arrangement held until AE_LIVE. The concerts' posters had a Warp logo, but the music was realased exclusively on their bleep store without the warp support/promotion. Elseq has followed this pattern. We know that there's a deal between warp and bleep, but does this mean that the warp deal is off? Is Warp making anything out of the boys? Despite AE's rabid fanbase the recent represses of the first three albums are still not sold out and are easily accessible. Looking at the numbers of youtube views of thier tracks on Warp channel - nothing special really. Most are way below 50k, which is worse than Aphex or Biblio. 

 

4. At the same time, we see that concertwise, AE has picked up the pace and has started extensive tours (AE_live, Onesix and in 2018 forthcoming Australia and Japan). Does this mean that records sales (both phisical and digial) are not sufficient so they need to compensate with touring? This wouldn't be a surprise given the overal decline of record sales.

 

5. And this brings us to NTS. We see the Warp label/number on the planned phisical release. Does it mean that they back at Warp's bill? Or is it one-off project given how expansive & lavish the phisical NTS will be? Why did they even bother to release this phisicaly? In AAA they said that they are indifferent to the format and prefer digital. Was elseq a financial flep then?

 

6. All in all, this is pure speculation. I just don't understand their business model: why zero promotion?!? why no interviews? just one picture, a tweet and a couple of mails? I respect thier rather constraint approach to media (it definietly enhences the allure), but if they want to milk the NTS, they are not even trying...

 

1. Autechre fans are a pretty connected bunch for the most part, from what I've seen. Their advertising dollars are better saved than spent; you're not going to get too much extra traffic or sales from the non-Ae crowd, particularly with a huge sprawling set like this. If they were promoting a singly CD that might appeal to some new fans then, yeah, maybe some advertising would make sense.

2. I've got a shit memory so I don't remember that, but yeah it sucks if so. Only so many people are buying up old Ae CDs/Vinyls/digitals or streaming on Spotify. Most of the fans already have all this stuff...but I'd say the monetary concerns are at least in part why we've seen re-hashes of past products (CD-EP set a few years back, a year or two ago the Vinyl re-issues). This is unsurprising as it's usually the case for re-issuing old music: need moar money.

3. Warp=Bleep, basically...operationally and 'officially' they're a separate arm or whatever (and of course Bleep sells tons of stuff from other labels) but ultimately, if there's a new Warp release out you can almost guarantee that Bleep are promoting it. The Bleepstores thing is a wholly different setup, with different cuts of profits (more to the artists), different rules (artists can sort of release whatever they want whenever they want to there, from my understanding). By definition the Bleepstores thing will get 'less' promotion, even if it's still technically a Warp release, but in some cases that makes sense for the artists. As in Ae's case, it seems.

4. Probably at least partly if not entirely, yeah. I mean, I think they've generally enjoyed touring and playing live anyway, but I'm certain at least some of the reason is for income.

5. I think the fact that it's a presale is a big part of this: they're really only going to print what's been ordered (or one would assume some percentage over that), so as to justify it financially, and perhaps puts them in a different spot with Warp not having to fully foot the bill on it all until they get a return. It sort of goes counter to the (assumed) original plan of Bleepstores as a digital release station for more direct artist/fan transfer, but if Ae is handling most of the hassle (getting tDR to do the design, maybe even helping coordinate the manufacture, etc.) then really all Warp have to do is say "yeah, cool, we get to approve it of course since it's got our record label logo on it and let us take our cut, but thanks for doing most of the work guys" ...and again (this is obviously almost all speculation) Ae are getting a bigger cut by doing this physical release as a 'Bleepstore' exclusive versus needing a full Warp backing and promo and so forth...which makes sense because I think even Warp may've been hesitant to sign the boys on to do their next album as an 8 hour set of sessions. I'd guess this all came together organically, as in Ae probably was in touch with the NTS people and talked about doing something, then it all ballooned into this given the ultimate format of 8 hours of tunes. I doubt elseq was a flop but maybe? It sure wasn't the most exciting of releases tbh (hell, I might not have bought it if I'd really given it some time and re-listened a lot before purchase.)

6. None of that is really necessary. They're letting their name and status do the promotion for them. Could they have got more new fans with a proper Warp promotion set? Yeah, probably, but then it might not have been an 8 hour release via NTS like they seem to have wanted it to be, and wouldn't have been a Bleepstores release, and the profit cut would've been different and.... We'll probably still get some interviews and associated photos and so forth, I'd assume very soon (before the sessions are complete, so as to allow some media to bring in sales for the physicals). Or maybe there'll be another AAA or Reddit AMA this week???   

  On 9/9/2015 at 12:58 PM, Rob Ae said:

guys please,

 

put back your wallets\\* ! \whatever you kids rock with these days,

 

can't rem exactly what i said in that interview but sounds like it got fwd/rvs/translated really lazily, certainly didn't start moaning about not being able to afford kids etc...

 

we are doing really well lately (surprisingly well tbh), no need for charity handouts just yet

  On 4/15/2018 at 8:51 AM, hello spiral said:

 

  On 4/15/2018 at 8:30 AM, Root5 said:

 

  On 4/15/2018 at 12:55 AM, kirm said:

I heard their making cash selling illegal Gonks on the side

 

More respectable than Aphex. He's just dealing drukqs.

 

 

He used to. I hear all he sells now is the same weak-ass acid

 

you listen to that extended field day lp + dfn vinyl and take that back son

still got hopes for Chiastic slide/LP5/confield LP repress, take my money sean and rob !

Also got to bear in mind that they are (comparatively) huge in Japan. And there are a lot of people in Japan.

  On 4/15/2018 at 4:40 PM, D4M0 said:

still got hopes for Chiastic slide/LP5/confield LP repress, take my money sean and rob !

+ Draft 7.30 pls

sean hands out in secrete via pm here on watmm, $5000 a piece just pm him "sean pls" that's how they make the moneu

  On 4/15/2018 at 4:16 PM, Rotwang said:

 

  On 9/9/2015 at 12:58 PM, Rob Ae said:

guys please,

 

put back your wallets\\* ! \whatever you kids rock with these days,

 

can't rem exactly what i said in that interview but sounds like it got fwd/rvs/translated really lazily, certainly didn't start moaning about not being able to afford kids etc...

 

we are doing really well lately (surprisingly well tbh), no need for charity handouts just yet

 

Good to read! I hope that after NTS they will become the wolves of Rochdale!