it's fun to discuss these things and get more context
|
| |
Album Rating: 4.5
"when their other work is far more detailed"
this is literally inversely true
i think the sounds created on this are cool as shit and are super daunting and create a really incredible atmosphere. its darker, bleaker, more cold and unrelenting in comparison to pretty much any other album in existence. you can't approach this the same way you do tri repetae or amber or really anything else before it, they're totally different in their appeal. those are both drowned in melody and approach beats and structure in a much more linear and conventional manner, whereas this is totally focused on textures and sounds interplaying and complexity beatwise on a level thats mind numbing and impossible to follow
|
| |
Album Rating: 4.5
like seriously though i don't get how you could make the claim that this is less detailed than their other work when this is head and shoulders above everything else they've done in terms of detail. they've specifically said that everything on this album was planned out and none of this was created through random generation or haphazardly throwing sounds around, they've created beats on such a detailed level on this that it basically mimics chaos and disorder
|
| |
or maybe they just set their bleep bloop beat machines to random and here we are?
|
| |
idk, it's really hard for me to get into. the first track has this nice melody that keeps playing in the background, but then there's that other repeating bit that sounds like a marble being dropped on a glass surface (not the most enjoyable of sounds). i don't get a sense of how complex these songs apparently are, because a lot of them are sort of boring.
how long they laboured over this and how structured it is doesn't necessarily make it good. a lot of albums were meticulously arranged and try impressive things but are dull as hell on the whole. the more i listen to it though, the more i can tell the beats are carefully arranged and very difficult to keep up with, and that's cool in a perplexing kinda way, but it's sort of like that polyphonic overtone singing video: really interesting, but not enjoyable to listen to over and over again.
that's just the way i hear it. i've really tried to like this. maybe one day i will. i once despised all-things kanye and now i think he's a master of his craft. told myself and everyone else i'd never enjoy his music, but here i am listening to it semi-regularly
|
| |
i do think pen expers is pretty damn great though
|
| |
Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off
songs repeat the same ideas for 7 minutes sometimes with little to no modulation. that might not necessarily be a problem if the music on offer was actually good (an empty bliss does this but the music is actually fantastic), but there's very little actually going on here
i see this as being an objectively wrong statement, especially the little to no modulation idea. the reason autechre are so brilliant and why i love them so much is that their music is constantly changing and modulating, especially on this album, but the changes and evolutions are so minuscule and microscopic that you really have to put a lot of effort in to figuring out what they're actually doing.
a lot of their music is focused on timbre and rhythm as well instead of just plain melody (which is the most surface level of music techniques i think). sounds are always mutating, rhythms are always sort of collapsing in on themselves. sure theres melody but thats not the really the point. the point is to take singular ideas and take them to their logical conclusion within the context of however long the song is, and i find that fascinating and brilliant.
but i can totally see why someone wouldnt like this, ive never seen any of their music really as the kind of stuff that should be universally appreciated, but that doesnt mean that there arent objective elements in the music that cant be quantified for analysis.
i like these guys because they make music thats all about synthesizing contextually ineffable emotions under a heavy layer of organically mutating digital noise. its not "entertainment", it's something else altogether.
|
| |
(which is the most surface level of music techniques i think)
because that's what your ears are conditioned to and is/due to being used primarily in western music
|
| |
Album Rating: 4.0
ohhhh!!! now i get it X'DDDD
|
| |
you're welcome friend
|
| |
Album Rating: 4.0
thank you friend and qt
|
| |
ethos lives
|
| |
Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off
i agree with you but because we are listening to this within the context of the western musical trends that informed this album i dont think it really hurts my argument that much.
|
| |
Album Rating: 4.5
i've heard this once and i didn't like it either, but i've heard only Incunabula and Tri Repetae, really liked both. Gotta check Amber and LP5 next before jumping to this one again i might like it then xD
|
| |
i agree with you but because we are listening to this within the context of the western musical trends that informed this album i dont think it really hurts my argument that much.
not at all, just providing further explanation to help our dear friend ethos out (:
|
| |
"the point is to take singular ideas and take them to their logical conclusion within the context of however long the song is"
this doesn't make sense to me. what do you mean by the context of their length?
"but the changes and evolutions are so minuscule and microscopic that you really have to put a lot of effort in to figuring out what they're actually doing."
so, essentially what we have here is an actually hyper detailed album (i'll retract my previous statement about this and concede there's quite a bit going on) that doesn't sound that detailed on the surface. that is faint praise indeed. that they can use a lot to make very little is not so much a point in their favour if you ask me, seems more like a 'hey it's cool that you can do this, but what is the point?'
|
| |
Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off
this doesn't make sense to me. what do you mean by the context of their length?
really only that the the single idea is progressed throughout the length of the song, i just meant that its a different kind of composition that doesnt focus on connecting ideas and motifs together but instead stretching an idea out into many different versions of the root form if that makes sense. almost all of autechre's music does this to some degree.
that is faint praise indeed. that they can use a lot to make very little is not so much a point in their favour if you ask me, seems more like a 'hey it's cool that you can do this, but what is the point?'
but thats precisely why i find it so interesting, because they are doing so much with so little. none of these tracks are similar in their conclusions to the first parts of the track. it might sound like it but if youre listening theyre actually so vastly different that they almost dont resemble each other other than in their root idea. i think the reason you have such a hard time understanding it is that it is a very different style of composition from what most western music has attuned you to listening to.
i mean on a track like Cfern, by the end of that song the beat has become so morphed and mutated that it barely resembles the start of the track, but it's still composed of many of the same basic elements that started the track. that's astounding to me, not even on a purely academic level but just within the context of listening enjoyment.
this album just requires a different kind of listening than a lot of other music does. i love repetition, i usually get annoyed by music that changes ideas and motifs to fast because it doesnt give me the chance to really digest what's going on. autechres method of organically mutating one idea over the length of the song is exactly the kind of listening experience im looking for in music. not that either one is better than the other, they are just different.
|
| |
Album Rating: 5.0
draft 7.30 uses a lot of the same ideas as on here, but presents them in a more obvious fashion I think. the changes each song goes through are much more noticeable on first listen
|
| |
Album Rating: 4.5
excellent review jac
idk why people think this was super hard to latch onto, i didn't like it the first time, but second time onwards i loved it.
|
| |
Album Rating: 5.0
I love that squid video for parhelic triangle
|
| |
|
|
