IDM Mailing Archive

I made it to the Thursday night show and I was blown away. A detailed review follows. This was the first time I got to see ae live after being a huge fan for years. It goes without saying that I was stoked to see my favorite idm act live. The venue was a rather small auditorium with room for about 300 people max probably. When I arrived Rob Hall was spinning to about 60-80 people. He played a variety of music, starting out with cuts by squarepusher, plug, and meat beat manifesto and moving into some average trance and techno. Technically he wasn't that special and he didn't really get the crowd moving at all. Overall I wasn't very impressed and neither was the crowd who mainly stood around or left to go outside. He spun for about an hour and then the lights were cut (the event was billed as "Autechre in total darkness") and ae came on. What can I say about their live set... If they are coming anywhere near you then you NEED to go see them. Simply put they were amazing. They played 3 "songs" and their set lasted for about an hour and a half. The music was nothing like I've ever heard them play before. The first two songs revolved around heavy bass rhythms with stark and deeply textured percussion layered over. Melodies were almost totally absent throughout the whole set save for disjointed snippets that occasionally rose to the surface. The main groove came from hi-hats and clicks with the bass slipping in and out of grooves and sometimes coming close to total randomness. The sound system was pretty decent with the bass hitting hard while the highs and mids still stayed reasonably clear. The first two tracks revolved around steady pounding bass with all sorts of digital wankery and knob twiddling (in a good way) over them. The last song which lasted for probably 30-45 minutes had a sort of erratic rhythm as ae steadily brought it to an amazing climax. Honestly I don't know how to describe the sound in words. Randomness gave way to slippery grooves and the music was constantly changing, shifting throughout a variety of textured sounds. They played an amazing set as they were clearly in top form. There is nobody out there who can do it quite like autechre, they are clearly on some next level ish. They truly made it a special evening for me and I'd see them again in a heartbeat. My biggest gripe with the show was with the crowd. They were simply pathetic. While this show was sold out, I had friends that could not get in, the venue never reached 3/4ths capacity and it was down to about 1/2 by the time ae finished. The crowd was a bunch of white kids, most of them clad in either black t-shirts or hipster retro wear. For some reason there were a bunch of goth/industrial kiddies there as well and I counted a gaggle of NIN shirts. They gave ae very little love and the majority of people simply stood there stoically throughout the whole set. At the end there was a feeble amount of applause and ae refused to come out for an encore. Needless to say the vibe was non-existent. I wish that Rob Hall would have played more noise to scare the kiddies away who didn't know what they were getting into. However even the lame ass crowd couldn't spoil the night for me. Autechre was fucking incredible. I wish that I could do a better job of explaining their sound, but you really need to go see them for yourself. I highly doubt that there is another idm artist that can play live as well as they did. BTW: If anyone recorded their set I'd love to have a copy. Leif/ace2486/MrMachine --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org