Saw 'em at The Paradise Rock Club in Boston Sunday night. Not much to say.
No introductions, no visuals, no lights. Just glitched-out, bassy insanity.
It was great, but I only stayed for half the set because I'd already been
there for over four hours. Doors opened at 7:00 and Autechre came on
sometime around or after 11:00.
Cygnus was good. Lots of acid basslines. Nice mix of aggressive 4/4 stuff
and dark, ambient weirdness. I just wish things had started sooner. I don't
have the wherewithal to stand around in a sweaty club for 5+ hours. Maybe
if there was seating, or if I'd had my good earplugs on me, or if the
levels had been less mind-meltingly loud by the end of things. Perhaps if I
hadn't already seen Kraftwerk the night before I'd have had more patience.
IDK. I hope they come around again though.
On Sun, Oct 4, 2015 at 11:28 PM Chris Taylor <christaylor415@gmail.com>
wrote:
quoted 218 lines Went last night to Brooklyn Masonic Hall. Had a great time. I only caught
> Went last night to Brooklyn Masonic Hall. Had a great time. I only caught
> the last 10 minutes of Cygnus but it was so quiet and badly mixed that I
> can't even comment regarding the quality of his music and frankly made me
> pretty concerned for how Autechre was gonna sound. Fortunately the volume
> increased considerably, and the house seemingly turned on the middles and
> highs (thank guys!) about 5 minutes into their set. Kent summed up their
> sound pretty well, but it was a little less techno-y then I remember them
> six/seven years ago, with few moments 4/4 kicks and more either broken
> half-time plodding feel (slightly dubstep-ian if you will) or tear-out fast
> paced stuff. I don't think I had ever appreciated how dry and harmonic
> their hi hats (or equivalents really) are. There were a few moments of
> melancholic pads and at one point a Oversteps FM melody lead line, but in
> general it was pretty aggressive, crazy sounding shit with a lot of bass
> weight and big kick drums. People were into it, I was close enough to the
> front for chatter to be a non issue, and it ended after an hour on the dot
> without an obvious peak in their set. But fair enough. It was sick.
>
> Was very happy to just hear their music presented with other excited fans
> and drink a couple beers and even verbally confirm that parts were
> especially sick with the friends I went with. It's a concert but it's also
> a party you know? It's one thing to talk through a set uninterested but
> it's also great to share something with friends and not have it just be a
> dry observational experience completely devoid of any element of
> socializing. But hey I like going to clubs to hear house and techno too.
>
> Finally, good on Autechre for having the focus of their live show be music
> and only music, not some rocked up performance or dazzling visuals. There's
> a lot of difficult music out in the world but not much of it is as
> rewarding as theirs.
>
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 3, 2015 at 7:49 PM, Dan Esposito <desposito321@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Does anyone have or know someone who does have an extra ticket for
>> Autechre tonight at Brooklyn Masonic Hall?
>> I can trade for free admission to Output for King Britt and Francois K. I
>> heard they will be going heavy on the ambient dub. Plus the venue is dope!!
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Dan Esposito Esposito Management Group, LLC 9321 Hamilton Walk Brooklyn,
>> NY 11209 Mobile: 646-519-1510 Office: 718-748-1273
>> desposito.emg@gmail.com
>>
>>
>>
>> On Friday, October 2, 2015 10:28 AM, Eric Fairbanks <
>> eric.p.fairbanks@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Seeing them in Boston Sunday. Will report back with strong opinions
>> post-show.
>>
>> (Autechre, not One Direction)
>>
>> Also seeing Kraftwerk at the wang Saturday. That'll be...interesting.
>>
>> There's not nearly enough bodyslamming at live sets.
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 2, 2015 at 9:53 AM Chang Terhune <crt@crtdot.com> wrote:
>>
>> My wife and daughter were watching the SHowtime special when I came in
>> for dinner last night. I hid in the bathroom until it was all over.
>>
>> - Chang Terhune
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> "I don't think a great book has yet been written on computer." - JG
>> Ballard
>>
>> Writer, Yogi, Musician.
>> Not necessarily in that order
>> http://www.changterhune.com
>> http://twitter.com/bigbadchang
>> crt@crtdot.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Oct 2, 2015, at 6:24 AM, Mark DelLima wrote:
>>
>> LOL. By all accounts they put on a good live show...
>> On Oct 1, 2015 19:09, "Chang Terhune" <crt@crtdot.com> wrote:
>>
>> So you're a One Direction fan now?
>>
>> - Chang Terhune
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> "I don't think a great book has yet been written on computer." - JG
>> Ballard
>>
>> Writer, Yogi, Musician.
>> Not necessarily in that order
>> http://www.changterhune.com
>> http://twitter.com/bigbadchang
>> crt@crtdot.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Oct 1, 2015, at 2:21 PM, Mark DelLima wrote:
>>
>> The dimmed screens are part of the reason why most music created in the
>> last 30 years will disappear to the ages. Technique is something "up the
>> sleeve", computer-aided, secretive, proprietary. I don't listen to Autechre
>> anymore because I don't have patience for long-form conceptual noise
>> anymore.
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 1, 2015 at 11:01 AM, kent williams <chaircrusher@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Caught the Chicago show at the Metro. Sound was great. The stage was
>> dark and they were hidden behind monitor speakers, so not like a Lady Gaga
>> Spectacle. Not much in the way of quiet passages. Lots of savage beats
>> that almost turn into grooves. Lots of impossibly complicated filtering on
>> atonal lead synth sounds.
>>
>> I thought Cygnus was ... overly busy. Autechre have actually perfected
>> live electronic music, in that they generally have at most 3 components to
>> what they're doing, but one component might be kick hits, weird FM noises,
>> and vowel filtered sustained tones; they build up rhythm patterns with
>> radically different sounds so that each sound plays alone. At most they'll
>> add a couple of other sounds -- time stretched screams, granular backwards
>> guitar, whatever. But the arrangement is actually sparse; the sounds
>> themselves bring the chaos.
>>
>> What I posted to Facebook during the set:
>>
>> "Either this is Autechre in Chicago or a black T Shirt convention at the
>> Metro. Music is overwhelming. Like crashing a helicopter in a hurricane"
>> "People dancing to Autechre do this thing that looks like Orthodox Jewish
>> men davening in schul."
>> "Autechre: Estonian Speak And Spells arguing with pissed-off Orcs."
>> "Autechre: Robot opposums fighting over chicken bones in a dumpster at
>> the bottom of a mineshaft."
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 10:35 PM Rjyan Kidwell <cexwell@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> did you smoke weed before they played
>> On Sep 30, 2015 11:11 PM, "Alex Kolesnichenko" <support@bytegems.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Laurel Halo was fucking amazing. First half of her show just blew my
>> mind. Second half was more of a standard 4x4 fare – good, but not great as
>> the first half.
>>
>> FWIW, I feel a bit of let down for the whole “show in the dark” thing
>> that Ae did, but yeah, the music is what matters… I was with my eyes closed
>> on pretty much any show I went during the fest, so not a big deal. :)
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> *From:* Chris Bellevie [mailto:c.bellevie@gmail.com]
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, September 30, 2015 4:21 PM
>> *Cc:* idm list <idm@hyperreal.org>
>> *Subject:* Re: autechre US tour
>>
>> This pretty much sums up their show at Decibel. Most I talked to after
>> were put off by them playing in the dark, but I loved it, just the sound.
>>
>> In addition to Cygnus and Rob Hall, we had Laurel Halo play before Ae
>> came on. That was awesome.
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 4:15 PM, Eric Sorenson <eric@explosive.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, 30 Sep 2015, Chris Taylor wrote:
>>
>> Has anyone caught Autechre on their current US tour? Any reports?
>>
>>
>> Yeah, saw 'em here in Portland last week.
>>
>> The opener (the impossible-to-google Cygnus) was awesome. Live hardware
>> set that was electro-rooted with some great development and movement.
>> http://cygnusat.bandcamp.com/
>>
>> Autechre played in the dark. Each with their laptop, screens dimmed down
>> to almost nothing.
>>
>> Nothing I recognized, but I haven't really been able to ID individual
>> tracks since Quaristice. The sound at Holocene was pretty good but many in
>> the crowd would not shut up their dumb mouths long enough to hear the quiet
>> passages. Things would go sort of noodly noisey space and then drop into
>> incredibly fast and 'hard' beats, full spectrum clattering glitchy things
>> at 190bpm. Midrange "melodies" like they figured out how to suck sound
>> backwards through the speakers. Pause. Repeat with a variation on
>> timbre/tonality or maybe a hint of an acid squiggle done so fast it was
>> gone before you're sure that's what happened.
>>
>> 60 minutes of this and then they unplugged their laptops and slunk off.
>> Rob Hall did some nice Warp-ish DJ stuff but it was a worknight and I had
>> to go pretty quickly.
>>
>> Was it good? Yeah, it's a treat for the ears. Feels like there is a bit
>> of disdain, or at least indifference, for the audience and what they're
>> hoping to get out of a live show, which I don't think is new. I was hoping
>> for some kind of the 4/4 stuff that surfaced a couple of years back, and I
>> had to resist the urge to shout out "Basscadet!!" like an idm-dork "Free
>> bird!!" .. but as always, we get the thing Autechre want to do, not what we
>> want them to.
>>
>>
>> - Eric Sorenson - N45.569, W122.763 - http://twitter.com/ahpook -
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>