Autechre and Phish (?)

AE has a pretty diverse range of influences (add in hip hop and post industrial too esp Coil) which they have spoken about in interviews. So I agree with others that you can't make a direct musical comparison, though occasionally Autechre uses jazz chord progressions like on track 2 of Exai. But there are other comparisons you can make.

 

Western "high art" music always had some improv/jamming, but in the early 20th c. it abandoned improv because composers were writing timbral or dodecaphonic exercises with surgical precision. During this same period popular/secular music exploded into the fusion of African and European musics: jazz, rock and roll, soul, blues, all heavily improv based. These lead later to funk, and from there to hip hop and Detroit techno, both of which rank high in Autechre's influences. So you could argue there's some common musical ancestry.

 

If you feel like you are taken to a similar place when listening to a long Autechre track or a long jazz improv, yes, I can see that. When I'm listening to some of Autechre's live improvs, I'm not hearing generic snare rushes, breaks and builds. I'm hearing long, animated rhythmic evolutions similar to what I'd hear were I listening to live improvised percussion. It's a different universe to me, but there's some affinity for sure.

  On 11/2/2018 at 11:23 PM, Freak of the week said:

 

 (Xenakis and Malec pieces I posted above are also among my all-time favourites.)

 

That Malec piece was amazing and I hadn't heard it before, thanks for sharing it.

 

Here's my favorite proto IDM track:

 

Flol, Phish

  On 11/2/2018 at 11:33 PM, darreichungsform said:

Are you always dancing when you are listening to Autechre? lol

It's very rhythmic and dancable in a way but is it specifically dance music? AE themselves say it but what do they know, they are English

Even on their live shows people aren't dancing much (compared to a lot of dance music)

 

I should have been more precise - when I said "dance music" I meant primarily electro/hip hop. AE grew out of these styles, combined them, tweaked them and made something of their own. They themselves mentioned electro/hip hop influences in the interviews countless times. The "distorted hip hop" sound in their music is clearly recognizable and predominant from the beginning of their career until the age of Quaristice and Oversteps, where they turned to the older avantgarde/early electronics stuff like the Subotnick, whom you mentioned above, for inspiration. (Subotnick's Wild Bull comes to my mind in particular.) However, even these albums imho have the clear hip hop edge. Elseq and NTS contain the long, drawn-out ambient soundscapes which were/are relatively new ground for them but these albums still contain a lot of "distorted hip hop" stuff. 

 

I think in general that "dance music" is the term that is primarily used to describe "popular" electronic music - this includes the electronic music that is created primarily by people who lack the formal music theory knowledge, and who don't have the clear artistic goals in mind (I think that AE belong to that category). This music is also intended to be marketable and appropriate for mass consumption. On the other hand there is "serious electronic music" (like Xenakis, Malec, Subotnick etc.), where people who make music are formally trained, and people write papers and disertations about this stuff.

^ upvoted. I'd even say that at times, their newer work channels the "spirit" of early hip hop, hardcore rave, etc. more than ever, e.g. gonk steady one

 

edit: wait... never mind, this definitely sounds more like autechre

Edited November 3, 2018 by Guest

  On 11/3/2018 at 12:41 AM, tneuvm said:

^ upvoted. I'd even say that at times, their newer work channels the "spirit" of early hip hop, hardcore rave, etc. more than ever, e.g. gonk steady one

 

edit: wait... never mind, this definitely sounds more like autechre

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bakWKHj051I

Because shinripl air sounds like music (?)

  On 11/2/2018 at 11:47 PM, TwiddleBot said:

Here's my favorite proto IDM track:

 

Yes, the composition in this one is just brutal.

 

Here are some more disruptions from Malec:

  On 11/3/2018 at 12:21 AM, Freak of the week said:

 

  On 11/2/2018 at 11:33 PM, darreichungsform said:

Are you always dancing when you are listening to Autechre? lol

It's very rhythmic and dancable in a way but is it specifically dance music? AE themselves say it but what do they know, they are English

Even on their live shows people aren't dancing much (compared to a lot of dance music)

 

I should have been more precise - when I said "dance music" I meant primarily electro/hip hop. AE grew out of these styles, combined them, tweaked them and made something of their own. They themselves mentioned electro/hip hop influences in the interviews countless times. The "distorted hip hop" sound in their music is clearly recognizable and predominant from the beginning of their career until the age of Quaristice and Oversteps, where they turned to the older avantgarde/early electronics stuff like the Subotnick, whom you mentioned above, for inspiration. (Subotnick's Wild Bull comes to my mind in particular.) However, even these albums imho have the clear hip hop edge. Elseq and NTS contain the long, drawn-out ambient soundscapes which were/are relatively new ground for them but these albums still contain a lot of "distorted hip hop" stuff. 

 

I think in general that "dance music" is the term that is primarily used to describe "popular" electronic music - this includes the electronic music that is created primarily by people who lack the formal music theory knowledge, and who don't have the clear artistic goals in mind (I think that AE belong to that category). This music is also intended to be marketable and appropriate for mass consumption. On the other hand there is "serious electronic music" (like Xenakis, Malec, Subotnick etc.), where people who make music are formally trained, and people write papers and disertations about this stuff.

 

In a way I agree with everything you say. Only I think that Xenakis etc. have a much more playful take on music than it seems

Nope

^can't even tell if this is a response to me or to the original poster.

 

What sense does it make to post a one word opinion without any reasoning?

http://www.phishjustjams.com

I listen to Autechre the way I listen to Coolio

  On 11/3/2018 at 1:04 AM, darreichungsform said:

 

  On 11/3/2018 at 12:21 AM, Freak of the week said:

 

  On 11/2/2018 at 11:33 PM, darreichungsform said:

Are you always dancing when you are listening to Autechre? lol

It's very rhythmic and dancable in a way but is it specifically dance music? AE themselves say it but what do they know, they are English

Even on their live shows people aren't dancing much (compared to a lot of dance music)

 

I should have been more precise - when I said "dance music" I meant primarily electro/hip hop. AE grew out of these styles, combined them, tweaked them and made something of their own. They themselves mentioned electro/hip hop influences in the interviews countless times. The "distorted hip hop" sound in their music is clearly recognizable and predominant from the beginning of their career until the age of Quaristice and Oversteps, where they turned to the older avantgarde/early electronics stuff like the Subotnick, whom you mentioned above, for inspiration. (Subotnick's Wild Bull comes to my mind in particular.) However, even these albums imho have the clear hip hop edge. Elseq and NTS contain the long, drawn-out ambient soundscapes which were/are relatively new ground for them but these albums still contain a lot of "distorted hip hop" stuff. 

 

I think in general that "dance music" is the term that is primarily used to describe "popular" electronic music - this includes the electronic music that is created primarily by people who lack the formal music theory knowledge, and who don't have the clear artistic goals in mind (I think that AE belong to that category). This music is also intended to be marketable and appropriate for mass consumption. On the other hand there is "serious electronic music" (like Xenakis, Malec, Subotnick etc.), where people who make music are formally trained, and people write papers and disertations about this stuff.

 

In a way I agree with everything you say. Only I think that Xenakis etc. have a much more playful take on music than it seems

 

Well every music is playful to a certain extent, isn't it? The idea of S.709 piece I posted earlier is to let the computer itself generate the new waveforms by stochastically distorting the previous ones, by using some predefined parameters. So essentially computer is doing all the jamming here. This method of creating music was called "dynamic stochastic synthesis" by Xenakis himself, who also invented it.

 

Then there's UPIC system, also conceived by Xenakis, that converts the user-drawn images into sound (horizontal axis = time, vertical axis = frequency). Xenakis's Mycenae Alpha is probably the most famous piece created with it:

Calling this music playful wouldn't be out of place.

 

It could be argued that essentially Xenakis and Autechre are after the same thing, but using the different language and coming from a different background. After all, Xenakis was an architect, and we know what is a major inspiration for Autechre, so...

well autechre keep getting better and better. phish took an absolute nose dive 18 years ago and are a parody of themselves. so no, they are not alike at all. i think autrchre are much more like free jazz. but mostly, and my favorite thing about them, they are like autrchre

I will not attempt the impracticable enterprise of ciscogrivere Ae in a musical category, the category, if anything, is the alterable and subjective one of my taste: I can say that if I take as a model the line up of any contemporary electronic festival (sonar, dekmantel, club2club, melt, etc.) there are few things I know, and even fewer things for which I feel the natural impulse to listen. In most cases, none. Tonight Aphex T play in Turin, which I can appreciate, but not enough to justify travel and ticket money. Different speech instead for Peter Brotzmann, who I look forward to next week with anxiety (I recommend it highly: the attitude is visceral to the point to contain, perhaps unconsciously, elements that oscillate from autechre to the wildest and most instinctual avant-grindcore). Yet Autechre represent, without rivals, the summit of my interest in music. 

therefore, at least for what is my interpretation of reality on a totally instinctive level, I have to recognize that Ae are placed for me in a region very far from what apparently should be their origin: the strange fact is that, reading in their interviews their musical influences, at least for their first years of activity, there is a curious incompatibility between mine and theirs taste.

  On 11/3/2018 at 1:10 PM, AE35unit said:

I have to recognize that Ae are placed for me in a region very far from what apparently should be their origin: the strange fact is that, reading in their interviews their musical influences, at least for their first years of activity, there is a curious incompatibility between mine and theirs taste.

Agree completely.

  On 11/3/2018 at 12:41 AM, tneuvm said:

^ upvoted. I'd even say that at times, their newer work channels the "spirit" of early hip hop, hardcore rave, etc. more than ever, e.g. gonk steady one

 

you can't upvote a watmm post you dink

  On 11/3/2018 at 2:18 AM, Crossword Enthusiast said:

I listen to Autechre the way I listen to Coolio

 

thas wussup

  On 11/3/2018 at 12:19 PM, jules said:

well autechre keep getting better and better. phish took an absolute nose dive 18 years ago and are a parody of themselves. so no, they are not alike at all.

I agree that AE keep getting better; absolutely disagree that Phish became a parody of themselves 18 years ago. Just listen to recent live shows. No one breaks new ground like Autechre tho...

phish was done after Big Cypress and even that show is way over hyped

Done? Absurd. There are dozens of solid examples from the fall tour alone.

AE holds down one note on a keyboard for an hour and some of you bust in your pants. “Oh, profound...”

  On 11/3/2018 at 5:45 PM, Nenlow66 said:

Done? Absurd. There are dozens of solid examples from the fall tour alone.

https://youtu.be/K7KQ5WlxDaU

lol

 

that is boring as hell. sounds sloppy.

  On 11/3/2018 at 6:03 PM, jules said:

 

  On 11/3/2018 at 5:45 PM, Nenlow66 said:

Done? Absurd. There are dozens of solid examples from the fall tour alone.

https://youtu.be/K7KQ5WlxDaU

lol

 

that is boring as hell. sounds sloppy.

Lololol! Because shimripl air, g1e1 and all end have way more going on haha

  On 11/3/2018 at 6:08 PM, Nenlow66 said:

 

  On 11/3/2018 at 6:03 PM, jules said:

 

  On 11/3/2018 at 5:45 PM, Nenlow66 said:

Done? Absurd. There are dozens of solid examples from the fall tour alone.

lol

 

that is boring as hell. sounds sloppy.

Lololol! Because shimripl air, g1e1 and all end have way more going on haha

 

yea cos those 3 tracks are so representative of their whole output...