autechre qa 2001

1) When will you release new music? / Viktor Hertz



when we sort out authoring the dvd. it's a pretty long process it turns out..

hopefully within the next few months, as long as the rest of the industry involved is up to speed.



2) In the breakdown of Piezo, on Amber, theres a noise that sounds like the noises the lifts make in the game "out of this world" for the megadrive, is that what it is? / dr xahdrez



no sorry. there is the sound of us discussing how we should arrange the track though. micd up really quiet through a chorus all the way through it.



3) hi autechre,

If you were both a robot, and your hand had to be replaced with a piece of equipment of your choice, what would you choose and why? cheers / Sam Millen



a robotic hand.



do we have to have one between us , though? can't we have at least one each?



4) Bet this is a bit of an annoying question but...



'How do you feel about Radiohead's Thom Yorke naming you as a major influence on their recent work and also calling LP5 one of the greatest albums ever made?' / M83J01P97



well he's wrong we've done loads better than that. but then it's only an opinion.



5) If confield was a building, what building would it be? Greg Smith

greg smith's house.



6) Confield was fascinating for all it's layers and levels of sound. What direction is the new stuff headed in? / Peck John.



north



7) Are Ae tired of playing with (only) computers / samplers after 10 years (instead of singing or playing acoustic instruments for a change) ?/ I love you kurnikova



we do sing and play acoustic instruments. we dance and clap too.



8) we all know you have lego feet but are any of your other limbs / organs made of plastic toy components? / brian weaving



speak and spell hair



9) Hey I got a question for you two... What happend to you music



what language is this?



Your releases

sound like shadows of music . Do you plan on continue your seasons in the

abyss of sound, or dare you make something worth listing to? / Ernie Duarte



listing to.. =)



handbags at dawn then./



10) How much of a role do you see generative/algorithmic composition playing in your new output?



0 - 100% variable



What do you see as interesting uses for these types of

techniques (controlled randomness,



sorry there is no controlled randomness. contradiction in terms ..



generation of material based on sets of

rules)



cities

town planning

national curriculum



in the production of music, or other forms of art (applications in

visual art, architecture?).



yes there too. all over the bloody shop.



Any new music your excited about? Electronic, hip hop, whatever?



electronic hip hop.



How much of a role does improvising play in your composition process?



0 - 100% variable



Any hardware software your excited about right now?



yeah the new spectral tape valve saturation guitar insert speaker emulator

plug in.



Cant think of anymore good questions. / SOZER_SHT



you could be raaght theyre.



12) your last album, 'confield', was recieved indifferently by both the music press and autechre fans alike



from where we were sitting it looked like some pretty extreme reactions. but then we probably don't read as much of this shit as you do.



how do you react to the various responses, will it affect any new musical ventures, and crucially, do you actually care?



we don't react to press responses. we listen to our mates. that's all you can do, unless you know someone there's no point hearing what they think of

your work . their opinion's just another one in the mire



currently, which are the artists (of any field or genre) that produce the most exiting music to you? / richard ayling



thirstin howl III



13) to either sean or rob.



What do you think is the most interesting thing you've done with max/msp? / brad barham



a critical theory generator. we used it to generate our manifesto for the lovebytes 2001 catalogue.



14) what's your opinion about Venetian Snares, Richard Devine and 'Lifestyles Of The Laptop Café'? / luca maini



venetian snares - good in places

richard devine - nice guy

lifestyles of the laptop cafe - not as good as drexciya



15) Ok, my questions would be:



a. What's your favourite piece of music written (a) by someone else, and (b) by yourselves.



today it's

a) empire state human by human league

b) buck tick remix



b. What's your tipple of choice?



palinka



Cheers, / Dr Alan Russell



16) what's this i heard some time ago about you doing something with thom yorke?



he got in touch a while ago. he wanted us to tour with them but it wasn't something we really wanted to do.



erm... and... of all the recordings you've released, which has your favorite artwork? / andrew guay



hmm

tough one

really like the lp5 vinyl sleeve at the moment. can that be the answer? we'll probably change our minds in a day or so.



17)Dear Ae,



when you make music, do you have any conscious prior idea of what kind of sound you want to achieve, or do you just do it and see what happens?



both. more an idea of process and likely outcome combined with enough curiosity to push it.



This is a question that a friend and I have discussed at length. We make music together, and we tend to have very distinct prior conceptions i.e. let's make some gabba, let's make some really hard-ass electro, let's make a massive rave bass with a shitload of nasty chorus on it, etc. But we suspect that you don't think this way, and that it may be useful to try and abandon the element of prejudgment and just make music.



it's more rewarding when we're not trying to do something, definitely. we get more pleasure listening to the tracks we find more original or unique. the unoriginal ones get boring to us really quickly.



Thanks, and keep on making beautiful noises, / Mike Gallagher



18) If I want to do some ironing, I put Autechre on. Do other listeners listen to Ae in this way? / Dave Percival



yeah one of our mates listens to tri repetae all the time when he's washing up and nowhere else.



19) i recently attended an electronic music festival, an academic thing, and realized how similar your work is in terms of the sounds used. im wondering if you listen to this kind of work and sample from it, or do you generate all of your sounds via machines or programs of your making or anothers.



the latter though we do sample very occasionally it's not from those kinds of records. it's easier and better to make synthesised sounds yourself, cos then you can change the bits you don't like. er seems pretty obvious if you listen



actually the night was kinda dissapointing. i think that the only form of language most of those works paritcipate in is a language of sounds. in otherwords the structure holding the event and the whole genre together is the similarity of sounds used. which is boring and eliteist, there is obviously an endless possibility of sound



why obviously endless? how did you reach this conclusion?



which the avant guard academics (i thought) were supposed to be showing us [not just like hey guys check this cool buzzing glitch sound i made yet again].



that depends on whether you yourself are an academic or you happen to understand what they are doing. for many its an issue of technique, often instigated by theory, but context can evaporate with no knowledge of the theory, until all youre left with is taste. if you werent diggin it , you werent diggin it.........maybe the answer is to make some trax. what do you mean by glitch? was all their equipment broken?



i guess im also wondering what if at all you all think about that kind of stuff, since as i said above you sort of participate in that by using those sounds yourselves.



we paritcipate in what ? because what? what sounds? we didn't even hear any electroacoustic music till about 96.. it's not very likely that other people were using the same sounds we use.



of course your work participates in many other structures (rhythum, melody...)...



we think all sound has these characteristics



they also played varese's poeme electronique which was a breath of fresh air. thanks / Seth Orgain



20) As an electronic musician, I often find myself swinging between two extremes: doing only what I want or listening only to what my audience(s) wants.

How do you two deal with this issue? Is an issue for you at all?



no we just do what we want ..

we think the idea that you can understand and write music for a mass audience is silly. all you end up doing is repeating other people's successes, or your own. neither route appeals to us.



when we started out it was naively and with utopian ideals. we thought it would be good if we could make what we wanted to hear and still make a living from it. it is good.



cheers / Clockworm



..like your name



21) do any Ae tracks contain sampled guitar sounds?



mostly remixes.



thx / rusuDen



22) sirs, much respect for the production of a pushing discography. wondering if mort garson's work (or any character of 1970s) could be cited by either member as an impetus to the sutechre directive? thanks/ Brian Hummel



never heard of mort garson. will be checking ...thanks..



23) what are your feelings about the response to the confield release?



what are your feelings about the response to your being born?



are you planning a us tour soon?



no plans generally





what musical directions are you taking?



how boring is this question?





what new equipment or technologies have you embraced recently? / JOHndaviderikseN



email



24) What influences you, is it just the mood you're in at the time, real life experiences or maybe something you've read or seen that has an impact on you? / desynch



everything influences us.. that's the way it is for everyone as far as we can tell .



25) There seems to be a continuity to your discography. That is, each release seems connected to the previous one. Are you conscious of this continuity?



yes of course we are

but only because people like you ask us about it



When your finished with one release do you already have an idea as to what direction you're headed in? And if yes, what's the post-Confield Autechre going to sound like? / Brian



kind of like a post-confield autechre.



26) Hi there,



here are a few questions for ae:

1.Are you Mortal + Chemist - or are you involved in anyway (ie Gescom).



no it's paul mortal and michael chemist.



2.Should we expect any new material this year (ie the track that you did for

the flash animation with that story about a car!)



ah yes we were asked to remix peter saville. enjoyed that.

thought it came out rather well.



3.What was the best warp records album from last year?



you tell us



4.What will be the best warp records album this year?



are you real?



5.Cheese on toast - with or without pickle?



depends on the cheese



6.Any plans to tour this year?



no plans generally





7.Were you pleased with Incunabula being name one of the most important dance albums of all time last month (muzik magazine)



didn't know about that. that's nice. was newbuild in there? hope so..



8.Do you think Aphex deserves a brit award?



who deserves a brit award? it would be good if he won if that's what you're asking..



9.Whats the best thing about making music?



listening to it



10.Who would you love to remix?



autechre



cheers / Andy ~:)



27) Dear Ae



Do you get annoyed by beardy-strokers who come and stare at you when you play live, instead of jumping around like speed-crazed epileptics in the strobe test facility?

Or is it the spastic-limbed gurn-monkeys who get on

your tits? . / Jonman the spastic-limbed gurn monkey.



neither annoy us you can't get pissed off about people being themselves. it does make a difference to us and the music tho.



28) Who are some cats that you guys are into these days musically? Electronic or not of course?



henry winterbottom III



And also who are some of the people that have influenced any of your work in the past, non musically?



all our friends and our families.



Just some shit I've been pondering myself, about myself lately. / Brian Wisowaty



29) Would you ever consider doing a movie score? And if so, what Directors out there would you like to write for? / Lee Wooldridge



david lynch. david cronenberg. alex rutterford.



30) Which ideas/trends in electronic music do you see as dying out, and which ones do you see emerging as the future? / Carl Burton



predictions are so crap



31) Hello!

This might come across as rather mundane, but as a student in the process of completing a masters in visual arts, I was wondering what artists you are inspired by, or are into at the moment?

Thanks. / Christina Mancuso



john berkey

big shout going out to john



32) Your music seems to be closely connected to the unconcious. Are you interested in theories of the unconcious such as Freud or Jung much like many abstract expressionists were? / Marc Kline



freud was too crazy about sex and coke.. jung is ok. better than freud.



33) Why don't you release recording of your live shows? / niv savariego



at the moment we just reckon it's more special if we don't. and whenever we record them we fkk up loads when we play.. only way it works is when someone else does it and we don't know. managed to download most of it now though, it's all out there. maybe one day we'll compile it all together somehow, there's days of it so it would take some doing ..



34) Are you guys aware that your music, being as complex and mind-blowing as it is, (especially live) tends to leave most of the listeners in a state of utter confusion on whether or not they were just hearing a piece of music or if they were travelling through wormholes leading into other dimensions?



that sounds about right. yeah it's a recurring theme.



and Have ya'll read the poet AE (George Russel)?

thanks / AkkadTheOrphicPriest



no but i'll be checking it.

thanks u crazy old preacher



35) Hello Sean & Rob,

I was wondering how long it took you to get the

equipment you wanted when starting out and where you

got the cash to get it together (assuming you didn't

build it from scratch).

Thanks / Gar Woods



just happened gradually over the last 15 years, with a few years before getting stuff before we met. we were doing trax when we just had an sk1 and 2 tape dex early on and we thought they were well kickin at the time. since then we just learned about whether we needed kit by using it.



36) Hi,

For Sean this one ....

Why in the tour photos for Atlanta are you colouring

in your Micro Modular with a fat black marker pen ?

Does it make it sound better ? / Matt Pound



no this kid brought it for me to sign i think. can't remember much else.



37) Hi.



Which is your favourite non-AE Warp-release? Regards, / Daniel Smedfors Stockholm



today it's lfo frequencies.



38) I was told that the intricate design on your ep7 cover is a graph of sorts of your equipment wiring and connections(?)...is this true? / Liam



no it's pictures of trees.



39) Who is your favourite So Solid member?



dunno



What are you listening to these days?



new ae



Who's the last famous person you met?



jeff goldblum



What do you make of the most powerful man in the world choking on a pretzel? / grinningcat



normal



40) Rob/Sean,

Do either of you still do any painting/writing ?



teenie likkle bits. paper.



Who else do you rate at the moment.



hanal daim delta kila herbie loomit leo d72 pebl req1 she1 dial edna





41) to sean (from autechre)

hi sean.



How's winterbottom (if that's what your cat's called) doing? Can he stand the rainy weather? greet / stephen vroom



he's been getting well vocal lately. he just sits in the doorway sniffing the air at this time of year like some wierd cat statue. actually it seems well warm in here tonight there's fkkn mozzies everywhere



42) When is the next release coming? I've heard rumors of an upcoming EP...is there any truth to that? / Ben Parker



yeah soon hopefully fingers crossed boys and girls Fnord



43) hey there



Did you know that after you played the que club in birmingham they had to buy a new sound system cause you guys ripped it to shit?



no but we're not surprised was it the last time with trees everywhere? the rig was well weak that night all the other gigs we did there were with oscillate and they had a lush rig..



and if you knew did u get any hassle from them?



no we didn't



ps.It was fucking hilarious listening to the guys at the desk have a fit because you guys were throwing the

subs all around and they couldn't handle it. / david atkinson



shit you'd think they'd have compressors..



44) who is your favourite nominee for best male solo artist in the 2002 brit awards?

i fancy robbie williams to win it... / j d



hah we were talking about who we'd put money on the other night thats well funny! .. hasn't williams won it loads of times already? hmmm let me see now who could it be.. hmmm



45) story or special effects? / cosmiclocksmith



atmosphere



46) Hello Autechre,



This is not a question, more of a request(in fact a plead!)



How about making your Gescom material more available to the people who actually appreciate it(there are more of us than there are actual copies) Im fed up with collectors who hoard those special records for financial gain, defeating the artistic object of artists like yourselves. So, any chance of re-pressing all releases??? They will get snapped up in no time keeping the real fans happy and bring the prices down on those auction sites where the skys the limit (see Boards of Canada for example)



Many thanks for your time / James A.



noted



47) what is the process you use for creating song titles? / laferrera



brain to hand nerve system.



48) what are you doing about raising awareness among people about modern politics and how this planet is not ruled by any governments but multinationals who promote their interests in the name of increasing profits, and about this planet that is not threatened from "terrorosts" but the very same promoters of the new world order as required by free capitalism (see Bush, Blair, etc)? You got the power to affect a lot more people much quicker.



really? wish we did... we only make music and encourage individual development. that's what we're good at.

maybe you should be sending this mail out to some famous people.



or do u thing letting this world keep going downhill will only help end this circle quicker?



not sure what you mean. if there's already enough oil above ground to completely fuck world climate as it seems there is then i'm not sure what the point would be to just let things continue. it's almost like a guaranteed death sentence for the next couple of generations. to be honest we're pretty powerless with a few lines in the music press. if we had what we thought was genuine influence we'd use it.



thank you for your music, i hope when i ll be sixty (25 now) u ll still be making music... / anastasis



so do we...



49) would you consider making one long piece of music (something over 60 minutes) for (for example) an opera? / alexander peterhans



yeah. i had to consider it then to answer this question.



50) Hiya, I read somewhere in an interview/article that much of your most recent music (post LP5 and until now?) was made by setting off some initial patterns and letting these evolve randomly (i.e. some special software that you yourselves had written), and that the results are what become your songs.



occaisionally we do something like that. not exactly as you describe though.



If this is how you indeed make music, how would you justify yourselves as musicians when it is more or less down to computer-simulated randomness to create your music?



because in those cases we made the program and we didn't use any random operators.



This is not meant as criticism by any means because I'm very much a devoted listener to all your albums, but I'm interested in whether you have any thoughts on boundaries for new ways of making music and to what degree this could be stretched while still retaining the "traditional" elements of making music. / Trym B Asserson



it's the tradition of listening you're talking about.



51) do u still value the "warmth" of the analogue sound or do you just see the future (and the future of autechre) as something completely resigned to digital composition?



we like both. depends what we're trying to make. there's both on almost every record. confield particularly.



i prefer autechre on vinyl coz it adds the analogue warmth to the digital sound... / kidney



sometimes it's better sometimes it's worse. cd is good for us cos thats pretty much how we hear it here. vinyl is good cos u can scratch and play tracks at 0.0000001% speed etc etc etc



52) Why are you answering questions on the Warp Record's site? / Thayl



we don't know. we just thought we'd try it. cut out some of the middle men.



53) OK here goes.

Q1. Do you think Robbie Williams is a twat?



never met him



Q2. Would you shag Kylie?



no her voice is irritating



Q3. Are you ever going to do a live album? / db kid



just download it all like we did



54) Here it is: "I think your work is disposable. Do you care?" / Phil Johnston



actually cds are quite hard to dispose of they'll probably end up in a landfill somewhere. unlike you and us, who'll just decompose without trace. we don't care there's nothing we can do about it. try to be happy and everything will be just fine. you can do anything you want.



55) my birthday is february 18 1978 how long do i have to live? / shai harel



try for as long as you can if you're careful you can go for ages



56) Is the gescom minidisc ever going to be re-released on a mass scale????it is impossible to find in its entirety and i would like to have it. thanks / Robots808



ask touch



57) Ok, knowing you were in a tagging group in your youth in Rochdale (where I live), is there anywhere you know of that still has your work around?



that would make us criminals



And being cheeky, did you find growing up around here a bit crap? / Alex Kearney



it was ok really. just looking for things to do...making music's pretty good to pass the time



58) What are your favorite breakfast cereals? / Rokay Raggy



cinnamon-toast-crunch-grahams weetaflakes alpen grapenuts frosties shreddies frostedshreddies countrycrisp

special k used to be good but they changed the shape



59) dear autechre,



in your interviews, you seem to prefer the idea of throwing a small party and playing your music for some of your mates--opposed to a more widespread record release that is catered to the 'consumer,' and often copied by stylistic imitators.



that looks like an assumption assembled from bits of loads of different interviews. we never said anywhere we preferred little gigs to releasing records we said we preferred doing little gigs to doing big gigs. we like putting records out if we didn't we'd be doing something else. as it goes i think we marginally prefer working in the studio cos them we forget completely about the world outside and just do trax. we're all consumers.. we don't understand your point really. we like making and putting out tracks and playing little gigs. as far as we can see those likes aren't in opposition theyre in harmony.



do you think its possible to achieve this more 'personal,' arguably more meaningful connection, in sharing your music with the thousands of anonymous fans who purchase autechre records?



yeah of course it's possible it's just that there's not any easy way to see whether or not we're making that connection. it's obviously easier with gigs, but bear in mind we've never been able to play huge shows alone, we've always been asked to play at festivals or with loads of other music. we like the idea of the room being full of people who want what's coming. we somehow managed to prove to ourselves we can rely on our own taste alone to make music for these people to play at home in a close personal environment.



the reason i ask is because this connection seems to be undermined by the secrecy in which you (and certain other famous WARP artists) shroud your creative process and even your material.



the only connection we're interested in is getting our music into people's brains. do you think they would hear more of the music if we explained to them all what an impulse generator does?



to be sure, it's your choice what you do with your music, and what information you disclose about your creative process. but i am often sad that i cannot know and hear more of your creativity, simply because i enjoy and appreciate it so much. (sorry this was a lengthy question.) / nate zuckerman



thanks. do you like birdsong?



60) Have you ever made a song and at the end thought: We can't release this, no-one will understand it;



we don't think appreciation depends on understanding. whatever understanding is.



Likewise have you ever made a song and thought it was far too 'understandable' or 'commercial' and so never released it? / Peter Godfrey



no we think all of our work is commercial and we're happy about it.



61) Are you hiring?



very occaisionally and selectively, yeah



How do you determine what art work is displayed on your cover? / mean rarechild



whetever we're into at the time.



62) First of all I want to warn you about my weak knowledge in english(I'm from Belarus). But when I saw a message about questions for Ae I decided to write a few strings. I have to say that i'm a great fan of your music. I have listened to almost all your albums and EPs. I observe your creative work and I have some questions to ask.

Please, describe the feeling which came to you in a process of music creation.



overwhelming happiness while making v.letr



What material do you use in music writing?(Own fantasy, images from the surrounding world or some...).



i like the way this question sounds but i don't understand it



Are you planning to do some new musical experiments?



yes certainly



Can we wait for new album comming this year?



later



These are the main questions, but not all. Thanks. Best regards. / Zhenya Petrovich



63) how much time do you dedicate to spatial ideas in your music? do you prefer to spend more time on rhythmn or on melody? Ever toy with the idea of adding vocals into the mix, either your own or someone else's? / michael



yeah we have done already. check amber incunabula artificial intelligence and most of the others



64) Musically speaking, what stage of development do you see yourselves being at? Is Ae still a baby, teen, young-adult, middle-aged, old bag or ready to shrivel up and die?



just opening our eyes. squinting



How do you imagine your music or other's music might sound like 20 years from now? 20 years ago, this type of music would have been unimaginable, but it's very difficult to imagine how much more advanced music can be. / Rob Salit



you can only speak for yourself when you use the word unimaginable, really. we know what u mean tho. we just try to avoid predictions generally, theyre more likely wrong than right. maybe that's the attraction for most people. hmm.



65) Greetings Autechre folk! I read somewhere that you guys own/use a Casio SK-1 sampling keyboard. Reading this, I realized I had one that I have had since childhood... so naturally I dug it out. What specific tracks has this been used on that you guys have done and how was it used? If it isn't actually heard on any recorded tracks, what have you done to modify it?



lego feet, cavity job, incunabula



And if you can handle a second question, how much stock do you take in Merzbow's work? I'm a fan myself, I just noticed you're on the tribute disc, 'Scumtron'... / Adam Duckworth



we only really know the dat he sent. not heard much else. we quite like maurizio bianchi.



66) do you consider you music to be very emotional?



yes very



Confield is fucking brilliant! / Mack



thanx