Autechre – Oversteps

Both Autechre and Warp Records are to be commended for offering an absurd variety of ways to listen to Oversteps. Vinyl, .mp3, 16-bit .wav, 24-bit .wav and CD. Since 320kbs is how most of my music ends up, I only spent ten dollars. I still feel a bit weird about that, since I have every other available CD release sitting on the shelf behind me. I know it’s the future and all, but I still feel a pang of regret, like something has been lost.

There are few regrets on Oversteps – it’s a little bit old, a little bit new. As I’ve mentioned before, the key to each Autechre release are their cover art. A black circle, clean upon first glance but on closer examination appears to be a bit smeared. A mighty grey san serif runs in the left-hand corner, top to bottom, with their name half-eaten by the black stamp.

Clear as a bell.

Ask A Former Banking IT Guy Who Wants To Become An O-Chemist (Or Something Like That)

T. is part of my e-minarchisto posse (much love for the gry massive) but sometimes he’d say things about music that would make me cry blood. This is my attempt to eff the ineffable.

You and I are ebony and ivory (I probably tan better than you do) musically-speaking. If you’re into it I’m out of it, and vice versa. However, we both seem to like James Blackshaw. How is this possible?

Both of us liking James Blackshaw is possible because the universe is a vast and confusing place.  I mean, it’s like electrons right?  No two in the same atom can have the same quantum state, but they can have a few quantum numbers in common.  Our tastes, well, they’re both in an outer shell around n = 4, but you’re l = 3 and I’m l = 2.

Autechre and The Myth of Difficult Music (TM)

When people say “album xyz is difficult” what they most likely mean is that album xyz is annoying or grating or otherwise “not fun.” Sometimes this is a subtle way of telling someone that they’re not actually going to like a certain band, avoiding the reflexive combat instinct some folk display when someone tells them “you will not enjoy this.” That reaction probably stems from an underlying sense that when someone says “you will not enjoy this,” what they’re really saying is “you are too stupid and uncultured to enjoy this.”

While that attitude is embarrassingly foolish – you are not made better or worse by the music you like any more than the core of your being is actually touched by the clothes you wear – it is also driven by elitism’s deformed twin, anti-intellectualism. After all, if something isn’t immediately understood, it’s obviously being difficult on purpose, right? Someone can’t possibly follow their heart to a weird conclusion of tiny, private sounds or long stretches of feedback or 12-tone plonk. It must be meant to offend, to annoy, or to otherwise throw a curveball at the terminally straightforward.

Of course, if that is what they’re actually doing – if the intent is really just to annoy – all that can be invoked is a hearty and heartfelt “so what?” But where’s the fun in that?

Everywhere.

Autechre Live @ Music Hall of Williamsburg (April 15)

This was easily the best tax day I’ve spent in a long time. Of course, I file months ahead of time to keep ahead of the voluntary taxation trainwrecking machine we call the Federal Government, but I am unusually paranoid about such things. Though I cast a very dim view toward the “tax amnesty” types and their scams/religious crusades, I do understand the crucible in which their fear/joyful mania is forged.