This song works great in the context of the album-Chiastic Slide is their most narrative album as a whole, and as Rob and Sean have said it's more of a shrooms vibe than, say, LSD, weed, ecstasy, or anything else. The album is a long, deep trip on its own. But one thing you are missing is that their music is extremely emotional to those who get it. It's strange that you consider it so abrasive, I don't really find any of it objectionable or hard to listen to; the textures are delightful IMO, beautiful in the way that mid-20th c. abstract expressionism can be. And the emotions are connected to movement, to a history of dance music from the early 80's on, working off of (and perhaps taking for granted and then subverting) the collective emotional possibilities found in techno, house, electro, hip-hop, rave music, and so on. TLDR: this song makes me feel great, fills me with very specific emotions, and the album tells a coherent (totally abstract) story.
The thing with Autechre is that you need to be patient with their music. You need to want to understand and feel it. Only then you will be rewarded with experiences that no conventional music can reward you with.
that's not quite my experience. I was pretty much instantly into the weirdness. but I came from aphex twin and mouse on mars, so maybe that's important context. especially because aphex twins "edgy teenager" humour got old really quickly for me and I was on the lookout for something similar without the boy's club attitude.
Cipater sounds like mechanical gears all assembled, In a very autonomous way. Adjusting a machine or pipeline. The clanking sounds like a sentient wrench grasping on to an engine.I would reccomend pendulu hv moda from Elseq 1 2016
Thank you tons for the analysis! I love Autechre with all my being. You might like something from their Oversteps album. It’s a lot more chill than this but really cool soundscapes.
Dude, you are trying to read Autechre with the same tools you use for anything based on the tonal system. That is not the correct approach. Those tracks were made by machines built in order to work, not by humans trying to express feelings. Of course, many listeners will find their own feelings in Autechre's output and even Rob + Sean have their own emotional approach to their music, as listeners. Though, even Sean and Rob listen to their machines producing music and accept what comes out of them, then they build another machine. Their music does not come out of a completely voluntary approach to music making.
I still listen to Autechre 😁 To restate what I have said about them before, I like how they mess with how you can “process” music. To them, rhythm can become melody and melody can be harmony. I like how the music will evolve and change over time. They also achieve this great balance of being challenging yet familiar. This album in context of the larger Autechre story is them focusing more on rhythm and abrasive sounds. I think this may have been the last thing where they used conventional hardware to achieve their sound. I think it was LP5 where they used Max MSP to push their sound even further into the abstract. “Nil” (from Amber) might may be more your cup of tea =]
I still hold that their experimentation is important. I don't think I've heard anything quite like what they're doing and that can only be a positive thing for music as a whole. But they've consistently been a bit much for me :)
Entire Autechre discography is full of evolutions and turns that alienate not only general public, but even their own fanbase. It's not unusual for their music to take years until it finally CLICKS and you now GET IT - why it sounds the way it sounds, the rhythmic patterns, melodies often hidden away or burried deep in the mix, sounds design, everything. They've been pushing the curve of what electornic music can be for 30 years. But from their own stated perspective, all they're doing is just an evolution of electro. Both members have been B-boys in their youth, obsesed with electro and hip-hop music, and it has informed their own music heavily throughout the years; so you could look at it from the perspective of evolution/deconstruction of these genres; but it would be quite reductive to do so, because on top of it, Autechre have been constant innovators in the realm of sound design, always early adopters of new technology or software, finally reaching the point where they're basically programming their own software patches with Max/Msp, with almost AI-like capabilities to generate a track with little to no input from the artist. You're not wrong in assessing this as a sort of excercise - but its also not just that; in order to GET Autechre you need to shed away your preconceptions of what music should be, and instead the journey beyond the horizon, so to speak. Their entire creative project in the end is about transcending and expanding the domain of possible music. Many of us fans enjoy this on a visceral level!
One of the things I like about Chiastic Slide (the album from which this track comes) is how it's more than just a simple mixing of elements from their previous releases. While Chiastic Slide combines the atmosphere of Amber (1994) with the dance-y mechanical layers of Tri Rep (1995), and borrows some of the harsh tones and industrial sound palette of Anvil Vapr EP (1994). It would be a is a bit discrediting to call it just a mixture of those elements. While you do hear those elements individually, it's a mixture that is much more organic and complex than just adding different components to an already existing formula. It's an entirely unique formula. Where, for example, the harsh industrial tones are often seamlessly assimilated into the 'frozen landscape' atmosphere, despite their clashing natures. It's as strange in concept as it is when you hear it. What's even stranger is when you start enjoying this cereal with orange juice of an album, which, turns out, was nowhere as strange as the aforementioned meal. Side note: If these tones/palette isn't to your liking then good news: this was basically their last studio album that predominantly uses it.
Please please listen to SURRIPERE on draft 7.30. They said themselves that on draft rhythm didn't confine them like it did on other projects. SURRIPERE is so cool.
I love this track, it kind of has like this “swag” Anyway, i really enjoy this sound aesthetic. It’s like cold and crunchy but also kind of warm. Incredibly satisfying
it's hard to enjoy when it is not your cup of tea, however Autechre are so unique i can't help but love their music. not many artists that are so out of the box
To my ears Chiastic Slide had weird (even for Autechre!) sound back in the day because of the heavy use of granular synthesis, but I liked it a lot. Nowadays I am able to appreciate the sound design (and Chiastic Slide as an album) even more. Compared to what Autechre has done since Confield, this is still "easy listening", but with very edgy sound which is surprisingly pleasing and even relaxing. Tewe is my favourite track on Chiastic Slide for its strange feel of Indian tabla music. To me Cipater sounds like a malfunctioning large and heavy robot trying to operate correctly in sync.
I heard this for the first time as well and I liked it. These hypnotic monotonous rhytms and sounds created this kind of a meditative space inside my mind. And that's how I approach many kinds of monotonous songs. I don't really need variation, the monotonous repetition becomes hypnotic and trance-like. It's not boring to me at all. I would even say that variation or melody would kind of break the hypnotic meditativeness. I get it that if you approach this kind of music from the thinking and analysing perspective, there's not much there to analyse. The music just is. It's more about the atmosphere and what kind of a sonic space is created. I also understand that if one is not familiar with this kind of music, it's maybe not the best introduction track because it has all these "ugly" sounds as well there
Autechre quite often takes more than one listen to comprehend the idea and digest it, only later on to wonder how come you hadn’t liked it from first hearing :) That was also me for some time after Draft 7.30 😀
I think that the snippets of melody and notes throughout add to the abstract emotion of the track, coming as someone with autism a lot of more conventional harmonies and melodies in music don't do it for me compared to the catchiness of the rhythm section of this track - kind of like how Burial always said what was the catchiest in a dnb or garage track was the percussion, it's the same for me; it's a lot more prevalent in their later work where there's no *conventional* melody, but there is melody in there if you change the way you think about it, and the way you think a thing should progress. The whole thing massages my brain nicely and does it for me where a conventional song structure never could and likely never will. I think it's interesting how little you spoke about the synth lines and notes, since those always jump out at me and are as important as the percussion, regardless of how sparse they seem at first. Their later work in Confield and later albums envokes specific emotions in me that conventional melody can't bring out, it always will go into psychological aspects that lie outside that field. It's good if that's where you want to go in listening, not so good if you want to stick to a specific stricter sphere of listening (which isn't bad, everything is subjective like you said in the video)
As for emotional narrative the track evokes a lot of mechanical feelings, sci-fi esque. More abstract stuff. But that's how I think, I think in way less grounded terms when it comes to music, my brain starts generating things that look like the album covers. I can meditate & drift off to their similar work.
I honestly always found this track to be too much in the nose with the concrete music approach of still keeping relatively identifiable the kind of stuff they sample. As a result is the song that sounds like a construction site and that's the gimmick. That being said, from the same album I really prefer the first five minutes of Nuane, not the entirety of the song, I could praise it as one of the best "idm" pieces of the 90s.
Visceral reaction. Great reaction! I love it!!!! Despite the pain and annoyance, hopefully there was some value in reassessing what makes "music" "music" to you.
For sure. I love expanding my horizons and I don't think I've heard anything like Autechre. Their unique experimentation is a positive thing for music as a whole.
Hey Bryan, always love you reacting to Autechre 🙂 I bloody love this track and it's the perfect opener to the album. I guess it's not for everyone, but hey ho that's music. I seem to recall you quite liked 1 1 is by Autechre which is waaaay weirder than this track and for some reason I love that you liked it better! 🙂
their album oversteps from 2010 is mostly melodic work, maybe that's more up your alley. I think their most recent albums, sign and plus also lean more into ambient without much percussion.
Man, ive seen you dislike so much of the more extreme metal i enjoy (which is totally fair of course), its very nice to see you dislike somehing non metal even more. even though annoyingly enough i kind of like this on first listen
@@AJ-xx5ik 'Montreal' or 'Slip' from Amber or perhaps 'Dael' or 'Clipper' from Tri Repetae. Maybe something from Incunabula, but I've never been completely fond with that album. I would be curious what he thinks of 'Surripere'' from Draft 7.30, even though that's out of the timeframe I mentioned.
I mean... on the one hand I agree with you, on the other hand I don't. When I listen to this sort of music, Aphex Twin, Venetian Snares, Autechre etc. I tend to forget the songs, because as songs, as tunes all this stuff is very forgetable. But I like to listen to this stuff, just complete albums full of complex rhythms and crazy drum programming and weird timbres and sample manipulations etc. it's simply not song or tune music, it's lots and lots of interesting noises. Personally I like those timbres that you find gross but I also listen to a lot of industrial and noise music adn all sorts of stuff with very disgusting, crazy, noisy timbres. There's something stimulating about these sort of noises and more "conventional" music tends not to explore these sort of sounds very much.
Finally, we have something that causes utter rejection in you - and it's not black metal.. I personally find those glitchy patterns in the track quite enjoyable, but probably not in the way they are meant to be. To me, they sound like the industrial music of the digital era (which Autechre most likely is not, they come from a different background). I fail to capture any emotional content in the music (which some commenters here refer to), it's just the sound of the recycled audio used by robots (and for robots, probably) devoid of any need for harmony yet somewhat coherent, that's so fascinating.. But let me offer you something that might redeem the realm of glitchy experimental electronic music for you: Vessel - Court of Lions. This track is driven by the motoric rhythm and ornamented with glitchy sounds, and would probably be quite unpleasant to ears - had it not been also infused with dreamy melodies. I think that might help you to cross the bridge to this kind of music, or at least leave a pleasant impression.
I think this albums textures are way too much for you to handle, the guy that recommended this should've picked a less abrasive song. Bryan I'd say the problem is, where the disconnect between ideas happens is that, for ae fans, this is not really abrasive
Uhhh yeah.... ok. I'm sure you have some music opinions that I don't agree with either. That's a part of the human experience and should be celebrated, not tore down.
This song works great in the context of the album-Chiastic Slide is their most narrative album as a whole, and as Rob and Sean have said it's more of a shrooms vibe than, say, LSD, weed, ecstasy, or anything else. The album is a long, deep trip on its own. But one thing you are missing is that their music is extremely emotional to those who get it. It's strange that you consider it so abrasive, I don't really find any of it objectionable or hard to listen to; the textures are delightful IMO, beautiful in the way that mid-20th c. abstract expressionism can be. And the emotions are connected to movement, to a history of dance music from the early 80's on, working off of (and perhaps taking for granted and then subverting) the collective emotional possibilities found in techno, house, electro, hip-hop, rave music, and so on. TLDR: this song makes me feel great, fills me with very specific emotions, and the album tells a coherent (totally abstract) story.
I'm amused by the fact that this is among their more accessible work and still you look visibly upset.
This is what I think all the Aphex Twin songs I haven't heard sound like.
aphex twin has gems. this is dust in the wind
They are the evil twin of aphex. Some aphex songs sound like 'songs'
For my sensory autistic ear this is one of their most beautiful tracks (and honestly all of theirs are).
Organic, mesmerizing, poetic, perfect.
youtube algorithm: here's asmr video called "relaxing sounds to help you sleep"
sounds in question: 4:12
Oh man, I've never heard of this but....
I like this.
Dive in! They’re great. Start chronological.
The thing with Autechre is that you need to be patient with their music. You need to want to understand and feel it. Only then you will be rewarded with experiences that no conventional music can reward you with.
that's not quite my experience. I was pretty much instantly into the weirdness. but I came from aphex twin and mouse on mars, so maybe that's important context. especially because aphex twins "edgy teenager" humour got old really quickly for me and I was on the lookout for something similar without the boy's club attitude.
Cipater sounds like mechanical gears all assembled, In a very autonomous way. Adjusting a machine or pipeline. The clanking sounds like a sentient wrench grasping on to an engine.I would reccomend pendulu hv moda from Elseq 1 2016
Thank you tons for the analysis! I love Autechre with all my being. You might like something from their Oversteps album. It’s a lot more chill than this but really cool soundscapes.
Dude, you are trying to read Autechre with the same tools you use for anything based on the tonal system. That is not the correct approach. Those tracks were made by machines built in order to work, not by humans trying to express feelings. Of course, many listeners will find their own feelings in Autechre's output and even Rob + Sean have their own emotional approach to their music, as listeners. Though, even Sean and Rob listen to their machines producing music and accept what comes out of them, then they build another machine. Their music does not come out of a completely voluntary approach to music making.
I still listen to Autechre 😁
To restate what I have said about them before, I like how they mess with how you can “process” music. To them, rhythm can become melody and melody can be harmony. I like how the music will evolve and change over time. They also achieve this great balance of being challenging yet familiar.
This album in context of the larger Autechre story is them focusing more on rhythm and abrasive sounds. I think this may have been the last thing where they used conventional hardware to achieve their sound. I think it was LP5 where they used Max MSP to push their sound even further into the abstract.
“Nil” (from Amber) might may be more your cup of tea =]
I still hold that their experimentation is important. I don't think I've heard anything quite like what they're doing and that can only be a positive thing for music as a whole. But they've consistently been a bit much for me :)
This was Autechre before they got weird. God I love those guys.
Entire Autechre discography is full of evolutions and turns that alienate not only general public, but even their own fanbase. It's not unusual for their music to take years until it finally CLICKS and you now GET IT - why it sounds the way it sounds, the rhythmic patterns, melodies often hidden away or burried deep in the mix, sounds design, everything. They've been pushing the curve of what electornic music can be for 30 years. But from their own stated perspective, all they're doing is just an evolution of electro. Both members have been B-boys in their youth, obsesed with electro and hip-hop music, and it has informed their own music heavily throughout the years; so you could look at it from the perspective of evolution/deconstruction of these genres; but it would be quite reductive to do so, because on top of it, Autechre have been constant innovators in the realm of sound design, always early adopters of new technology or software, finally reaching the point where they're basically programming their own software patches with Max/Msp, with almost AI-like capabilities to generate a track with little to no input from the artist. You're not wrong in assessing this as a sort of excercise - but its also not just that; in order to GET Autechre you need to shed away your preconceptions of what music should be, and instead the journey beyond the horizon, so to speak. Their entire creative project in the end is about transcending and expanding the domain of possible music. Many of us fans enjoy this on a visceral level!
One of the things I like about Chiastic Slide (the album from which this track comes) is how it's more than just a simple mixing of elements from their previous releases.
While Chiastic Slide combines the atmosphere of Amber (1994) with the dance-y mechanical layers of Tri Rep (1995), and borrows some of the harsh tones and industrial sound palette of Anvil Vapr EP (1994). It would be a is a bit discrediting to call it just a mixture of those elements.
While you do hear those elements individually, it's a mixture that is much more organic and complex than just adding different components to an already existing formula. It's an entirely unique formula. Where, for example, the harsh industrial tones are often seamlessly assimilated into the 'frozen landscape' atmosphere, despite their clashing natures.
It's as strange in concept as it is when you hear it. What's even stranger is when you start enjoying this cereal with orange juice of an album, which, turns out, was nowhere as strange as the aforementioned meal.
Side note: If these tones/palette isn't to your liking then good news: this was basically their last studio album that predominantly uses it.
That autechre album has the most character
to be honest this song was a pain in the ass. but it's good that you are not shy to dig deep into every kind of songs, i appreciate this a lot!
Please please listen to SURRIPERE on draft 7.30. They said themselves that on draft rhythm didn't confine them like it did on other projects. SURRIPERE is so cool.
I love this track, it kind of has like this “swag”
Anyway, i really enjoy this sound aesthetic. It’s like cold and crunchy but also kind of warm. Incredibly satisfying
it's hard to enjoy when it is not your cup of tea, however Autechre are so unique i can't help but love their music. not many artists that are so out of the box
I appreciate the fact that you listened to this entire song. It made me scream crazy. Absolutely a disaster to listen to.
To my ears Chiastic Slide had weird (even for Autechre!) sound back in the day because of the heavy use of granular synthesis, but I liked it a lot. Nowadays I am able to appreciate the sound design (and Chiastic Slide as an album) even more. Compared to what Autechre has done since Confield, this is still "easy listening", but with very edgy sound which is surprisingly pleasing and even relaxing. Tewe is my favourite track on Chiastic Slide for its strange feel of Indian tabla music. To me Cipater sounds like a malfunctioning large and heavy robot trying to operate correctly in sync.
Autechre evolve their sound with each album. I’d recommend ‘Fold4, Wrap5’ from their next record LP5
I heard this for the first time as well and I liked it. These hypnotic monotonous rhytms and sounds created this kind of a meditative space inside my mind.
And that's how I approach many kinds of monotonous songs. I don't really need variation, the monotonous repetition becomes hypnotic and trance-like. It's not boring to me at all. I would even say that variation or melody would kind of break the hypnotic meditativeness.
I get it that if you approach this kind of music from the thinking and analysing perspective, there's not much there to analyse. The music just is.
It's more about the atmosphere and what kind of a sonic space is created.
I also understand that if one is not familiar with this kind of music, it's maybe not the best introduction track because it has all these "ugly" sounds as well there
Autechre quite often takes more than one listen to comprehend the idea and digest it, only later on to wonder how come you hadn’t liked it from first hearing :)
That was also me for some time after Draft 7.30 😀
Never stood a chance if you found the sounds gross right from the start, haha. To each their own though, thanks for giving it a go
10:14 well, i personally would call it "boring" in a cerebral bore from turok kinda way
Evoking such an old name.... Excuse me while I dive head first into nostalgia RUclips😅
I think that the snippets of melody and notes throughout add to the abstract emotion of the track, coming as someone with autism a lot of more conventional harmonies and melodies in music don't do it for me compared to the catchiness of the rhythm section of this track - kind of like how Burial always said what was the catchiest in a dnb or garage track was the percussion, it's the same for me; it's a lot more prevalent in their later work where there's no *conventional* melody, but there is melody in there if you change the way you think about it, and the way you think a thing should progress. The whole thing massages my brain nicely and does it for me where a conventional song structure never could and likely never will.
I think it's interesting how little you spoke about the synth lines and notes, since those always jump out at me and are as important as the percussion, regardless of how sparse they seem at first.
Their later work in Confield and later albums envokes specific emotions in me that conventional melody can't bring out, it always will go into psychological aspects that lie outside that field. It's good if that's where you want to go in listening, not so good if you want to stick to a specific stricter sphere of listening (which isn't bad, everything is subjective like you said in the video)
As for emotional narrative the track evokes a lot of mechanical feelings, sci-fi esque. More abstract stuff. But that's how I think, I think in way less grounded terms when it comes to music, my brain starts generating things that look like the album covers. I can meditate & drift off to their similar work.
@@EntySinclairegood point! By the way, Sean Booth from autechre has Asperger's syndrom, which validates everything you said earlier
Imagine how mad this'd drive you to actually make. 😵💫
I'd have to mute a few tracks and just hope everything lines up in the end 😅
This is one of the songs that got me into autechre. One of my favorites.
I honestly always found this track to be too much in the nose with the concrete music approach of still keeping relatively identifiable the kind of stuff they sample. As a result is the song that sounds like a construction site and that's the gimmick. That being said, from the same album I really prefer the first five minutes of Nuane, not the entirety of the song, I could praise it as one of the best "idm" pieces of the 90s.
Visceral reaction. Great reaction! I love it!!!! Despite the pain and annoyance, hopefully there was some value in reassessing what makes "music" "music" to you.
For sure. I love expanding my horizons and I don't think I've heard anything like Autechre. Their unique experimentation is a positive thing for music as a whole.
I like it but I also realize that it’s disgusting.
Hey Bryan, always love you reacting to Autechre 🙂 I bloody love this track and it's the perfect opener to the album. I guess it's not for everyone, but hey ho that's music. I seem to recall you quite liked 1 1 is by Autechre which is waaaay weirder than this track and for some reason I love that you liked it better! 🙂
Absolute banger of a track
This kind of reminded me of some MIDI soundtracks of C64 games I played. Kind of "Master of Magic"-esque.
their album oversteps from 2010 is mostly melodic work, maybe that's more up your alley. I think their most recent albums, sign and plus also lean more into ambient without much percussion.
also, if you hate this, you may also hate: gantz graf (2001)
Man, ive seen you dislike so much of the more extreme metal i enjoy (which is totally fair of course), its very nice to see you dislike somehing non metal even more. even though annoyingly enough i kind of like this on first listen
This sounds like from an old original computor game from 1970th
A real toe tapper.
I've enjoyed seeing your journey with Autechre, but wish you'd stick with Tri-Repetae and before. I think you'd like anything pre-Chiastic Slide more.
What song would you suggest?
@@AJ-xx5ik 'Montreal' or 'Slip' from Amber or perhaps 'Dael' or 'Clipper' from Tri Repetae. Maybe something from Incunabula, but I've never been completely fond with that album. I would be curious what he thinks of 'Surripere'' from Draft 7.30, even though that's out of the timeframe I mentioned.
Nah, go later! Sublimit next!
for sure, he needs to work his way forward and be overwhelmed with each album’s change in sound
@@llamapie24 Perhaps. ''777" from LP5 is still one of my favorite songs of theirs. The panning is everything.
I mean... on the one hand I agree with you, on the other hand I don't. When I listen to this sort of music, Aphex Twin, Venetian Snares, Autechre etc. I tend to forget the songs, because as songs, as tunes all this stuff is very forgetable. But I like to listen to this stuff, just complete albums full of complex rhythms and crazy drum programming and weird timbres and sample manipulations etc. it's simply not song or tune music, it's lots and lots of interesting noises. Personally I like those timbres that you find gross but I also listen to a lot of industrial and noise music adn all sorts of stuff with very disgusting, crazy, noisy timbres. There's something stimulating about these sort of noises and more "conventional" music tends not to explore these sort of sounds very much.
Finally, we have something that causes utter rejection in you - and it's not black metal..
I personally find those glitchy patterns in the track quite enjoyable, but probably not in the way they are meant to be. To me, they sound like the industrial music of the digital era (which Autechre most likely is not, they come from a different background). I fail to capture any emotional content in the music (which some commenters here refer to), it's just the sound of the recycled audio used by robots (and for robots, probably) devoid of any need for harmony yet somewhat coherent, that's so fascinating..
But let me offer you something that might redeem the realm of glitchy experimental electronic music for you:
Vessel - Court of Lions.
This track is driven by the motoric rhythm and ornamented with glitchy sounds, and would probably be quite unpleasant to ears - had it not been also infused with dreamy melodies. I think that might help you to cross the bridge to this kind of music, or at least leave a pleasant impression.
I'm very confused but also really like it
That's how it starts
I LOVE WORKING IN A FACTORY FOR 12 HOURS then come out and further numb my brain with factory noises. seriously bro who would ever listen to this
I think this albums textures are way too much for you to handle, the guy that recommended this should've picked a less abrasive song. Bryan I'd say the problem is, where the disconnect between ideas happens is that, for ae fans, this is not really abrasive
This was fun.
I've listened to a lot of autechre but I've never heard this album before and this is sick
btw there are more melodic Autechre songs mainly on their early records but somehow no one suggested them to you. Try Eutow, Clipper or C/Pach
Funky bassline
I liked it ❤
Not a fan of that snare 😅
get filtered scrub
Uhhh yeah.... ok. I'm sure you have some music opinions that I don't agree with either. That's a part of the human experience and should be celebrated, not tore down.