Autechre - Oversteps 03 known(1) by elpretentio2
Autechre - Oversteps 06 see on see by elpretentio2
Autechre - Oversteps 09 O=0 by elpretentio2
Goddamn, what a difficult album to review. This a major departure for them. But then again, it's not.
The main reason that this is such a hard album to review is because with Autechre, basically nothing (or everything, depending on how you look at it) is a departure for them. They've been pushing the boundaries of their sound with basically every new release since the outset of their musical careers.
One common factor seems to be the punchy, jabby staccato rhythms. It almost seems like the songs are boxing with you in an odd abstract sense; the way they burst and buzz around your head alternately in engaging, lush melodies and random spurts of chaos that border on jazz for lack of a better word (or maybe something called post-IDM? I dunno). It's very instrumental. You won't find too much of the pounding, crunched up, claustrophobic beats you'd have found on Untilted or certain segments of Quaristice. But that's not to say that certain parts of Oversteps aren't challenging in a similar way. I'd say that overall it's divided half and half by tracks that can be followed easily and are immediately engaging, and tracks that have that traditional Autechre learning curve. The latter of course being equally as rewarding for those with the patience or inclination for such a sound.
The most notable aspect though might be just how much this sounds like a complete work, a complete album. Call me old school, but I still firmly believe in the importance of the album as an art form. And this completely succeeds on that level. It's cohesive and varied to just the right degree. The pieces fit. And that might be what truly puts this over the edge.
Depending on where you stand in your previous opinion of this wicked alien group, this is will either be a near-masterpiece or at the very least, a solid piece of work with some really outstanding tracks. It feels complete.
Bonus! (Click Me)
Autechre's marathon 12-hour set for your listening pleasure. A fucking genius mix of old-school hip-hop, techno, and other randomness. starts getting pretty fucking epic at around 12:30. first couple hours are incredible for those (everyone obviously, including me) not willing to listen to the whole thing right away.
http://rockinz.org/files/Autechre.ws%20Broadcast%20-%2002-03-2010.mp3
oh and uh, here's this: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Asm8G_iuGEMzdDV3cmJEUzFnUlE4b3dzUjhaaVRRclE&hl=nl
wow, this is really mellow and nice
ReplyDeleteit sounds so cavernous and shiny
ReplyDeleteyeah, it's so well produced and recorded. the high-end wav format sounds pretty incredible, but the 320s i uploaded are almost as good. this album gets major bonus points from me for being interesting and different. in the good way that still maintains musical quality.
ReplyDeleteyou should also check out some bits of that crazy podcast too if you have the time. parts of it are pretty incredible.
ReplyDeletei have been kind of out of the autechre loop for a while but this does sound quite different. to me it does have a light jazzy feel to it but moreso i feel it is very new agey. this isnt a negative remark by the way. i think its really well done but with the harpsichord sounding stuff and just the airy nature of the whole recording it just feels very new agey spiritual. i kind of like it. and as usual they are pushing things forward but i feel looking backwards towards early forms of techno like manual gottsching and klaus schulze as well as some bits of kraftwerk in there too. but overall very nice
ReplyDeleteyeah, the rest of the album is a bit different. i basically picked the most nicely melodic tracks to sample. that's funny that you think it's new agey though. that's a huge over-generalization imo. i think this has a lot more weight and 'oomph' to it than new agey music. new agey music is always whispy and boring and this is still way more badass in spite of it's somewhat soft instrumental tone. i'm gonna check out those early artists you mentioned though.
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ReplyDeleteoh I don't think it is new agey, the melodies come off as 90's idm retread, but not necessarily in a bad way. Personally, although I am comparing two different artists, I have been more into the new Monolake album more than this. And of course that album has been virtually ignored by everyone, which sucks because for cold, idm style music, that shit has more interesting things to say than the new Autechre, but both aren't really doing anything new though if that matters. I probably will always like Autechre, but their music is starting to fall flat for me, Oversteps is good, but it's nothing exciting from these guys, who I think if they pushed themselves to go in another direction, might be to their benefit, but I guess that's probably not the point nor what they want. Oh and I know it's incidental and off topic, but maybe changing up their sound design a bit too would be interesting. The last three albums sound like they have come out of the same drum machine(s), elektron machinedrum possibly? Although that's probably not the only thing they use. Basically their music is starting to sound like it came out of a Reaktor patch or something similar, and that is not a compliment. But what do I know? They could be making their sounds from anything. Anyway, their "unique" sound is starting to outstay its welcome for me.
ReplyDeleteI am glad pitchfork liked the new monolake though...
ReplyDeleteeh, to each his own obviously. i think they were going for a 'less is more' here, and i think it's subtle but the textures and the sound production and even the sounds themselves are more highly developed here. but i just hear it in a different way. i also like this album in particular because they had the restraint to make an album that sounded complete with a consistent theme. everyone picks up on different subtleties in music and i guess the ones i see just don't fly under your radar. i hate to be such a relativist, but that's kind of why i try to make it pretty clear that any review i make is purely subjective, as it should be.
ReplyDeletei try to stray from the path that pitchfork takes which is (by default) to appear like an absolute authority on the matter, which is nonsense. monolake is pretty cool though, i have some of his older stuff.
ReplyDeleteGood points. Yeah, I do agree with you that the album does have a consistent theme. oh yeah the pitchfork thing was somewhat sarcastic, their stuff is nonsense. I still like this album enough to buy it and listen to it again, it's not bad by a long stretch, but I dunno, maybe it's just the shit I have been into lately that has made me not pay as much attention to Autechre, that might be it.
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