Autechre - SIGN 16.10.20

Oct 30 thing is because of a second pressing/mailing sesh. A few days ago there were two options for vinyl: 16 and 30. One for the first batch of pre-orders and then the other for the next WAVE. Maybe the pre-order batch sold out but more likely it's because lol you ain't getting that shit in your mail four days from now so you gotta wait if you're ordering today

  On 10/12/2020 at 8:10 AM, cyanobacteria said:

the pads and depth of texture in Metaz form8 makes it so unique and good.  it has so much to soak in

Sorry, just to be clear - you're consuming this audio? Did you download it for free/pirate it?

Also I haven't listened to this yet tbh. I've had a busy weekend and I want to fully dedicate my aettention for the first play. After dealing with the bullshit of owning a Chromebook and an iPhone

, I'm set to tube in tomorrow morning on my commute!

  On 10/12/2020 at 7:09 AM, Roo said:

SIGN is an ae album that really requires you to relearn and come at it from a different angle to that you might be accustomed, it isn't really a matter of accessibility or simplicity or range. It impresses their rich command of sound design more than ever before really, "the piano is dumb" comment feels very relevant here. It almost feels like an interplay between the themes and embellishments, like one remixing the others demos. Grandma managing to smile a "that's nice, dear" to SIGN is missing the point of what makes SIGN a little special.

Yea I don't think I would like this near as much if I wasn't listening on good headphones. Wanna give it a shot loud on the stereo sometime soon, sometime I don't feel like I'd be annoying the ppl I live with. (Car stereo would be a cool format too I bet.) The sound design is top-notch no doubt, such that it genuinely plays an active role in what you'd traditionally call the "composition." I don't think that in itself is really new for Autechre, but I admire how the album seems constructed in a way which foregrounds that tendency. And that's kind of what I mean when I say it's accessible... there's a clarity to the purpose of this thing, which I don't think you need to already know their stuff to recognize. 

But there are tracks whose core structure wear on my ears, because all the interest is in the role played by what I'm calling sound design. th red a sounds like those chords are generating lovely trails of polyphony - but six and a half minutes sure is a long time to lean on the chord loops driving those trails. On older albums, that (truly great) secondary voice burping away would simply be louder in the mix, I think, and also there would be some drum chaos. And maybe that would make those chords feel less underwhelming simply by obscuring them? Maybe it would also make those trails of polyphony even more intriguing in the same way - can't hear them as clearly so they sound even more intriguing.  So maybe letting sound ideas play soloist in tracks which lack all the "noise," elements which could be said to be obscurantist (I'd personally say maximalist instead) makes this a more confident album, arguably a more honest one, and probably a necessary one in a complete exploration of their sound.

psin AM feels like it may be the track which demonstrates the uncompromising logical extension of this concept: everything that's not that three-chord synth loop is really quiet in the mix. The details back there are tight, but for me, keeping my attention on them instead of the dullness of the loop requires active attention. The minimalism at this point is no longer in service of foregrounding the sound design, now the simple part is the obscuring element. And it's genuinely an intruiging thing, if we accept some immediate unpleasantness as a necessary ingredient in plumbing the artful depths (which we do)

For me though, the style of austere minimalism presented on elseq in tracks like spaces how V, eastre, and pendulu casual is more immediately pleasing. how come autechre's like always in 4/4, anyway

I think the Quaristice comparisons make sense, Sign sounds a lot more like the ambient tracks on Quaristice than Oversteps.

Personally, initially I didn't like Quaristice because the tracks are so short, they feel sketchy and unfinished compared to earlier albums. But eventually, I grew to appreciate it because of its variety and it actually helped reinvigorate my interest in Autechre after finding Draft and Untilted too difficult (I like them a lot more now though). 

I also like how sketchy Quaristice feels now, combined with Quadrangle, it feels a bit like the "behind the scenes" album, and it set the stage for the next block of albums (I see Oversteps-NTS as one continuous era). 

As for SIGN... 

It definitely feels like it won't be the kind of experience as usual... There's pretty much no "challenge", and for me, there won't be this moment of "I never appreciated this track until years later" because every track seems appealing now. 

It might lose it's freshness a bit faster but I feel like it'll quickly feel like a comfortable pair of pants that you put on to lounge around in. Tbh most of my favourite music is like that. I like being challenged but not ALL the time... 

  Quote

Dispatched: 12 October 2020, 07:06 UTC

Autechre
SIGN
Vinyl (2×LP)

Biggest difference I’ve perceived outside headphones is lusher main chords in th red a.

First listen of SIGN. Feeling now is: "umh, why should I return?"

Well, needs more listens.

Love how they release unexpected things, they always go with something new and fresh, whether in sound, mixing choices, release format or music. And if ppl want to copy them they can only copy older or previous autechre, never a contemporary; they’re always ahead of the curve

I think this exaggerated deep mixing they like to do is taken to an extreme in this album (and already has been in OneSix). So much stuff that's barely audible filling the background. Their music is almost fractal, no matter how much you zoom in you keep finding ornaments and interesting tonal structures. So much sequencing going on that's easy to miss.

Listening through headphones vs listening through speakers -> 2 different albums

Waiting for my vinyl for the 2nd listen through

In esc desc I was waiting for the beats to start - and it did not happen, maybe I am too conservative: the track feels incomplete.

au14 = Gantz Graf 2020?

  On 10/11/2020 at 8:50 PM, Wurstwasser said:

OMG that's bad, because we all know Quaristice is their worst album. 

fuck your shit

  On 10/12/2020 at 2:51 PM, Wurstwasser said:

au14 = Gantz Graf 2020?

i like the comparison. Hit me hard this morning while working/reading/writing

Meticulous listening at night yesturday was a wonderfull experience. This is an almost figurative travel, even if i don't know what it figures exacly. 

psin AM is turning to be my fav. The background is so vast

  On 10/12/2020 at 2:53 PM, dingformung said:

fuck your shit

lot of people seem to be having problems with what they expected or hoped for more so than just judging the album on its own merits.

Autechre: Do not expect what you hope to expect.

  On 10/12/2020 at 3:30 PM, auxien said:

lot of people seem to be having problems with what they expected or hoped for more so than just judging the album on its own merits.

Yeah, you're probably right. This is always the case with a new release, but I think Exai, Elseq and NTS set this up for this to happen even more. Because those three they were all incredibly sprawling, structurally surprising within tracks AND often still insanely detailed (I still find new things in my favourite Elseq pieces, especially the incredible Mesh CereaL), I had some weird expectation that SIGNS would be like, all the amazing depth of those compressed into a shorter, tighter format - with a new sound. I thought, if they can make 2, 4 and then 8 hours of consistently amazing music now, what is a new 1 hour release gonna be like!? And the opener to SIGNS was exactly that, and I was poised for more. But the rest follows a different trajectory. I knew it would be a new sound, it being an Autechre album, but didn't expect something that seems relatively simple on the whole, with pieces circling around one idea - pieces that still feel jammy to me, but with shorter jams and less overt development over their duration. A more slight approach, like the direction Plaid have gone in. Which is interesting in its own way; one just needs to change one's expectations. For some reason I also thought we'd also get more of the overt top lines of Oversteps and some later tracks, because it's been a while - but that doesn't happen on the whole: it's often chordal with a lot of back detail, and my ears expect/want to hear another element screaming on top for some reason. 

  On 10/12/2020 at 4:03 PM, Soloman Tump said:

Autechre: Do not expect what you hope to expect.

in fact: I expected to the point that it would be a warm, melodious and collected album, that I ended up expecting it not to be so because I was expecting it too much. And so, unexpectedly, it was truly a warm, melodious and collected album.

i love the tracks that are simpler structurally because they are so rich and complex texturally. this album is all about the textures. lush, beautiful, constantly-fluctuating textures

took it for a bus ride the other day; many times it made me go "ah.. thats lush - fuck". loving the fact that it feels like an odd hybrid baby that i still cant define.  sometimes it reminds me of quaristice, other times oversteps.. elements of confield, lp5 even

agree with some of the comments about many details being somewhat deep in the mix.  for that reason i've been enjoying it more on headphones (maybe also because my headphones are nicer than speaker setup)

the life of AE...
 

  On 10/12/2020 at 8:19 AM, Hugh Mughnus said:

Sorry, just to be clear - you're consuming this audio? Did you download it for free/pirate it?

lol wat

i bot it