ATTN: LMNO PEE: I IZ TOO STOOPID TO "GET" AUTECHRE

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Nope, there's a beat in that one too.

Parts of it, yeah. A beat made out of static and stuff shorting out.

Still trying to catch on to this stuff. All I can say is I managed to get to the halfway point this time.

[Epimetheus]

Nope, there's a beat in that one too.

Parts of it, yeah. A beat made out of static and stuff shorting out.

YEAHMAN, HARD FUCKIN COARRRR.

On another note, I just noticed we are both Horrormonkeys. I wonder what this means. Is it like a zodiac sign? WHAT SECRET SYSTEM OF HOLY NAMES HAS ROGER BEEN USING?

[navkat]

If flowers attracting bees is art, then dogs fucking is also art. So is taking a shit, or any other biological function.

Agreed.

Art (not to sum it up too much) is the creation of things whose purpose is (generally speaking) to mirror other things and (possibly) elicit feelings and stuff like that. And also some other stuff...like to just look pretty and stuff. Except when it isn't.

Willem de Kooning and Pollock can be art because it's like, all about composure n stuff and just looking nice. There's nothing to "get," It's well composed and looks fantastic.

If you wanna call Gantz Graf "art," then it is. The sounds + visual stuff certainly qualify as Contempo art (I've seen some SHITE in the Contempo museums in NY and Chicago. I mean, Gantz Graf is waaaaay better than like some out-of-tune shreiking banshee cover of Wikkid Game while images of a woman in a flowered bathing suit swim in and out of the picture), so...yeah. That.

Okay, in all seriousness: I like my visual art to be just that: visually appealing. Sometimes, it's more. Sometimes it tells a story. I don't always need to know that the innocent, beautiful, tender girl in the picture was a cared-for slave girl who died in horrible suffering during the famines and unrest of the Civil War just six years later to be moved by the luminosity of her face (the stray hair over her cheek in her eyes as she leant down to scrub the floor) to "get it."  It's nice to know the story but it's not necessary. However, I'm more educated than some...more trained, I suppose. Perhaps my foreknowledge that "this is an antebellum expression" comes through whether I'm aware or not.

I like my music to move me to dance...or rock out. Sometimes it tells a story--doesn't have to be a ballad, just the words "In my arms baby, yeah" looped over and over does beautiful, sexy, fantastic things to me. I fill in the blanks where the Producer/musician left spaces. Art to me is like that.

I can use the art thing as a primer to basically comprehend the Autechre experience, but that's where it stops for me. I can hear the sounds, I can see the visuals. I don't get that welling up feeling when something just touches soft places, you know?

Perhaps it certainly is because I am not trained.

I miss my friend Red Robot (the aforementioned prodigy). We had a smart-people understanding once. We had a fight. It was super dumb: I acted dumb, he acted dumb, I acted dumb some more. He was gonna explain this to me and now that's lost, possibly forever. I may never "get it" because I may never meet another musical/mathematical hybrid mind.

I give validity to the possibility...and I still believe that the overwhelming majority of Autechre "fans" are faking it and are full of shit.

[Stelpa]

ITT: STOP LIKING WHAT I DON'T LIKE

I enjoy autechre. I enjoy the complexity, and I notice new things every time I listen. I understand other people don't, but I don't laugh and call them idiots for it. Everyone has different tastes, deal with it spags. 

[navkat]

Who the crap called you an idiot?

[Stelpa]

Who the crap called you an idiot?

No, I was referring to the generic autechre fan, who ridicules people for not liking autechre. Nobody called me an idiot. Sorry for being confusing, I am tired 

[navkat]

Happens to the best of us.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

If flowers attracting bees is art, then dogs fucking is also art. So is taking a shit, or any other biological function.

Troof.

Would you say it's a once-removed thing, like Marcel Duchamp calling a urinal a fountain?

Seriously asking, because I'm not sure where the line is.

I'm not sure there's a line. Art is awfully hard to define, but in general it's something made with intent other than sheer practicality; at least, the original iteration of that something.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

"Art" is a concept invented by brilliant trolls of a bygone age, who decided to create a word that would enter common parlance but remain vaguely defined. The results speak for themselves.

Also this.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Art (not to sum it up too much) is the creation of things whose purpose is (generally speaking) to mirror other things and (possibly) elicit feelings and stuff like that. And also some other stuff...like to just look pretty and stuff. Except when it isn't.

This is an awfully good explanation as well.

[Phox]

I didn't have time to read this whole thread cause I have to go to work, but I can say, if you understand or "get" synth, then this kind of stuff is easily appreciated. If your mind works in a very normal musical pattern, (like perfect pitch and all that) you probably won't get it at all.

It's all sine waves, strange beats that shouldn't exist and impossible note combinations with glitch.

Personally I love it cause it's as calm and serene as new york city. Amidst all the chaos, hustle and bustle there's a pattern or a flow. There's a low hum like the hive and the noise is the bees buzzing around it. Inside is a sweet sweet honey. You just have to be brave enough to close your eyes and stick your hand in there.

This is one of my favs--
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hKJnQqVsqw&feature=related

This i could probably have playing in the background while I did research or something, though the static at certain points is somewhat irritating.

The one from the OP, while interesting in a certain sense, got incredibly abrasive in very short order. So like most things, it varies from instance to instance.

[LMNO]

Hmmm.  An interesting question.

On this track, it appears that Autechre is working outside standard "song" structure, so we have to approach it in a different way.

Given that the first minute or so has a recognizable rhythm, which then seems to collapse into digitally distorted tone manipulation, it brings to mind nothing so much as Einsturzende Neubauten, and their "angry ambient/destroy the concept of music" style.  By what I can gather from Trip's post, they also appear to be fucking around with Aleatoric music a la John Cage (who was annoying people with electronics since the 50s).  Clearly, they are making no concessions to the majority of Western Music theory, be it formal or be it pop music.  That puts us firmly in the genre of "soundscape", which has arguably the broadest possible definition of music this side of said Mr Cage ("Music is intended Noise").

That's all fine and dandy, sure.  But it seems that the question is, "Should I like it, and why"?

Well, here's the secret: You don't have to like it.  It's just another band, trying to do something original.  But what I feel is more important is to clearly state why you don't like it, without an ad hominem attack.  You've got a lot to choose from with this track... There's no discernable melody, the rhythms are inconsistent and non-repetitive (even in the first "movement" (I hear at least three distinct sections here) the beats do not repeat exactly in standard time), and the tones themselves are overwhelmingly dissonant.

But the main complaint I have is that there is no "arc" to it.  I prefer my music to have some narrative structure, where (to put it in the basest terms) one set of noises has a relationship with another set of noises.  If, for example, the semi-rhythm of the first section was altered and re-introduced in the last section, it would (to me), make a more satisfying piece of music.

I will say, however, that if your friends can't explain to you exactly why they like it, then there's a distinct possibility that they are merely being pretentious.

[Mangrove]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyJfHU4GoOQ

"Makes sense."*








*Thelonious Monk's detailed response to Allen Ginsburg when asked what he thought of 'Howl'.

[Jenne]

Ah, John Cage had some "wild notions" back in the day with allowing 3 minutes of audience shuffling, sniffs, etc. to be the whole of his piece...

I don't have a dog in this show, but I enjoy reading all the viewpoints herein.  Personally, I have always thought that there's a time  and place for any sort of music that is created as such.  Same with "sounds" that are generated for display (whether it is demonstration only or entertainment).

Any other distinction seems to be in the ear/eye/brain of the beholder.

I like what was said about objectivity vs. subjectivity, too.

[P3nT4gR4m]

There's a simple formula with "art" - "I like it", "I don't like it", "Sometimes I'm in the mood to like it", "Sometimes not" - these may be contrary to each other with different people. This is perfectly normal. Trying to change the other's opinion by intelligent debate is futile, in all but a handfull of cases where your "opponent" is particularly weak minded and open to suggestion.

Sometimes someone will seem to hate a piece of art, for whatever reason, to the point where someone else's liking of it seems, to them, like a personal affront or attack. I've seen people react angrily, at me, because I like something. Those arguments, whilst having the potential to provide hours upon hours of epic lulz, never really go anywhere interesting.