Dave,
I like some of your thoughts on this, but, to me, it feels like any possible
'successor' to Autechre is going to come straight out of leftfield. No Ae
comparisons at all. Brilliant music is brilliant music, no matter what it
sounds like, but I get the feeling that this community isn't going to go
nuts over someone who sounds like autechre. Maybe a few years ago it could
have been possible (when Ae was still at their height), but all the
comparisons have been driven into the ground...even to the point where some
of us are complaining that new bands sound 'too much' like autechre. To me,
this rules out bola, arovane, funkstorung, funckarma (sp), etc. Though,
given recent reviews, arovane has potential. Don't rule out BoC, either. If
their next album is as startling as their last, they'll have a following
forever. Hrm, perhaps it's BoC who is poised on the edge of idm greatness
(is that really possible? <smirk>)...well, this speculation is dangerous.
But, to my mind, the next truly startling stuff will come from a small(ish)
label that we, as a community, already respect...i.e. pitchcadet, mille
plateaux, mego, etc. By this, I mean only that Warp, Rephlex, Skam won't be
it. Warp is too big. Rephlex has been up its own ass lately, but even so,
still doesn't strike me as really cutting edge anymore. Skam might have
been, but they're an Ae vehicle and if you believe the next thing will be
outta leftfield, then it probably won't be on Skam. Besides, Skam just feels
like Ae, even when it's wevie stonder or bola.
If there is an accepted successor to Ae, it's going to be someone discovered
by a smaller label. Maybe something from the larger mp3 community, maybe
something more melodic, maybe experimental noise, maybe someone with a
classical background who can bring emotion and soul to this stuff...who
knows what form it will take, but I think this community, when it moves on
from Autechre, is going to want something different. Dave is right, it seems
to me...any successor will begin as something recognizable (which will catch
our eye), then diverge hard and fast into its own style. The nature of
popular music (idm included) is systemic in this way...after all, a
successor has to actually COME OUT of leftfield so everyone can discover it,
no?
Of course, with all the splintering of labels, projects, production
capabilities, who's to say that Autechre isn't the last great act of idm?
Has anyone else been wondering about this? What if the future of idm (and,
as a precursor to the future of music) is further splintering and
specialization? What if, instead of Aphex fans or Autechre fans, we start
growing in groups of Mego fans or Dot fans...more interested in labels, than
individual artists, more focused on particular pieces of the puzzle than the
community as a whole? Already we're beginning to see this...the question,
though, is this. Is this splintering a natural result of systems or did
someone miss the handoff from Autechre and suddenly we're wallowing around
out here without icons?
I mean, that's what Autechre was for a long while, no? And Aphex before
that? For many of us, before that it was the orb and the KLF (who have both,
it seems, retained much of their icon status, no? interesting, that.) This
obviously shows my bias (and my history), but does it seem to anyone else
that this Orb/KLF-Aphex-Autechre progression has been at the forefront of
IDM (and just DM, before that) for the last 10-12 years? This is something
I've been wondering about for a while, but I can't honestly tell if it's my
bias or if it's something that others see...any input on this would be much
appreciated.
In the end, though, I've been a huge autechre fan since their stuff on AI.
Something has changed, though. Is it the community? Is it them? Is it both?
That seems most likely. Overinvolvement in the software also seems likely.
These guys are artists and if that's what they want to explore, more power
to them. For me, though, they've moved away from what I loved about them in
the beginning...the humanity of their work. Call it soul, emotion,
whatever...it was humanity and you could see the difference between these
guys and some silly 909 that gave you headaches.
Or perhaps they go the way of Picasso...a long career that the rest of the
world will look back on and regret that we didn't understand at the time.
One last question...if autechre's next album is groundbreaking and blows us
all away, will we call it a comeback?
---brian
p.s. now that I think more about it, maybe it really is BoC poised on the
edge...any thoughts on this?
Dave O'Toole wrote:
quoted 57 lines Pardon me... the first time I sent this, I think my mail address was set
> Pardon me... the first time I sent this, I think my mail address was set
> wrong so it didn't get accepted. Hope it works this time.
>
> I think the main gripe some people have is the Autechre imitators out
> there. I don't see having an influence in Autechre as a bad thing for
> any artist, though obviously I'm talking about people who are both
> drawing on Ae and innovating in and of themselves (and not just
> "knockoffs".) In an interview with Autechre that I've read, they
> acknowledged that some artists do imitate them, especially in America.
> But one of them (forget whether is was Booth or Brown) said that
> imitation and working in established styles is usually how talented
> artists cut their teeth and get started, before producing their real
> "ouevre." But there's also just plain crappy imitation. Luckily it's
> easy to tell them apart, as long as you really listen to it and don't
> just shut it off the minute it reminds you of Autechre.
>
> I think a good pop-music contrast would be the Beatles (particularly
> their more weird period.) Brilliant stuff, some of their experimental
> material presaged developments in electronic music that wouldn't happen
> for years. Many, many bands exhibit Beatles influences. The opener on
> Wilco's recent "Being there" double album has some very subtle
> beatles-ish overtones; some weird things with sound on the later parts
> of the album also remind me. I do not see this as bad, because the
> influence is only part of Wilco.
>
> Contrast this with Oasis, who seem to have just about zero original
> ideas. Everything they do is borrowed from the Beatles, including their
> only decent song ("Wonderwall"), written by George Harrison if I
> remember correctly.
>
> I think the Autechre issue can be somewhat more frustrating since IMO
> they have produced few really good tracks after "Cichlisuite", which
> even then was beginning to get uneven. Some have suggested
> overinvolvement with software as the cause of their lack of focus; some
> people think it's just burnout. I have no clue myself. Autechre's
> consistency dropped to the point where their last two albums (counting
> the full-length EP7) have only had about four or five good tracks each,
> with the rest being crap. (IMO EP7 could have really been an EP, with
> just RPEG, OUTPT, DROPP, and PIR.)
>
> I get the impression from some of my musician friends that we're now
> waiting for Autechre's successor--not just someone who sounds like Ae
> but better, but someone who blows us away and defines a fresh style
> while also producing timeless music. I think when this happens it will
> come out of left field--maybe from someone who learned how to make
> electronic music by imitiating autechre, but who branched out and
> started something new. Keep in mind that even autechre's early stuff,
> while still stellar, borrows from what was going on at the time. Then
> they diverged and became amazing.
> --
> @@@ david o'toole
> @@@ dto@gnu.org
> @@@ www.gnu.org/software/octal
>
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