IDM Mailing Archive

someone posted awhile back that discussion of the new autechre might be unnecessary as we all have copies now - majorities remaining mostly silent on the subject seem to confirm this but i've got to say - never has synth distortion sounded, in these ears, so perfectly organic - my first articulated reaction to the album was 'jesus - listening to this is like waltzing inside the soul of a torrential downpour'- others can overdub all the pygmy chants and tribal drums they want, it still sounds like a colonialist parlor idea at work on the dancefloor - whereas 'chiastic' unfolds with the unstoppable awe of a seismic event - kant's definition of the sublime came to life in these headphones - 'the terror one feels before the waterfall that smites not' - white-noisy falls indeed - it's easy enough to make the calm stuff sound 'natural' - i.e. aphex - but chiastic's electro-socket sizzle doesn't hit like an unhangable autobulb accident, more like microlightning paradinas with his bleeps & blips & distortion for distortion's sake should take a lesson or 2 from rob & sean on how to move from the plastic to the chiastic signifier over signified signing off

On Sun, 2 Mar 1997, objet petit a wrote re:_chiastic slide_:

quoted 6 lines but i've got to say - never has synth distortion sounded, in these ears,

> > but i've got to say - never has synth distortion sounded, in these ears, > so perfectly organic - others can overdub all the pygmy chants and tribal > drums they want, it still sounds like a colonialist parlor idea at work > on the dancefloor >

ahh...you've finally managed to express in words what i *love* about _tri repetae_ and what makes post-Amber Autechre some of the only electronic music worth listening to. booth and brown play their synths and samplers like live instruments, tweaking the hell out of them and exploiting their full potential. to my ears, a track like "stud" (right before "eutow") on _tri repetate_ is simply amazing: disparate sounds that are clearly synthetic combine to form music that is unmistakably human. there is some beautiful synth-based electronic music (_incunabula_ and much of the Black Dog output come to mind) that could be even more effective on live instruments. on the other hand, a lot of the trip-hop and jungle that comes out seems to be a confession that all the good stuff is in the samples. in the third category - which is where post-Amber Autechre falls - is music that is clearly a product of the electronic mass-produced age in which we live. in this respect, i can't think of any releases more representative of forward-thinking electronica than _tri repeate_ and _SAW II_. And I'm looking forward to picking up _chiastic slide._ :) comments are welcome...and, oh yeah, banco de gaia sucks....;) -arjun