Tag: NTS Sessions

NTS Sessions 4, second half, by Autechre.

Label Link: NTS Sessions 1-4

Number 8 in the wire magazine (@thewiremagazine) Top 50 releases of 2018.

The second half of NTS Sessions 4 is a single hour long track called, “all end”.

I had skimmed a review in the wire magazine, so I sort of knew what to expect.

I am somewhat obsessed by the idea of the physicality of sound.

When I think of “all end” it reminds me of an opaque block of ice.

From a distance, it looks solid and homogeneous. But, as you listen closer, you realize that there are little things happening in the background underneath the veneer of homogeneity.

It has texture and color and expresses something.

It may be melting as we look at it, changing phase, from solid to liquid to gas.

Anyway, to get back to the idea of autechre’s music as music that could be made by algorithms, I really do think that is unfair. You can hear them touching this music as it is being made.

I mean, unlike most music, when you see a performer on a late night show, and all there is is a laptop, some actors pretending to be musicians, and a vocalist singing backup to their pre-recorded and pitch corrected vocal track.

Now that, whether it is country pop, punk pop, or urban pop, is the real sound of algorithms.

#Autechre #NTSSessions #todayscommutesoundtrack #wiremagazine #wiremagazinetop50 #wiremagazinetop502018

NTS Sessions 4, first half, by Autechre.

Label Link: NTS Sessions 1-4

Number 8 in the wire magazine (@thewiremagazine) Top 50 releases of 2018.

Several shorter songs and one longer one, mark the beginning of the end of the NTS Sessions.

Primarily, so far, Disk 4 is marked by a floatier, ambient feel. Washes of keyboard synth and reverb-ed echoing percussion fade in and out through the space of the pieces.

Several parts feel as if they were recorded underwater or in a storm.

If there was any hope that this would morph into a commercially saleable dance album, they have now been dashed.

#Autechre #NTSSessions #todayscommutesoundtrack #wiremagazine #wiremagazinetop50 #wiremagazinetop502018

NTS Sessions 3, second half, by Autechre.

Label Link: NTS Sessions 1-4

Number 8 in the wire magazine (@thewiremagazine) Top 50 releases of 2018.

One nice thing about Autechre, is, while they can be abrasive, they never seem to lose their sense of humor. There’s always a light touch to their sound choices, whether it’s a squelchy synth or an amusing sample.

Thus, even 6 hours into this massive pile of abstract electronic music, it doesn’t really feel oppressive.

If anything, the second half of NTS Sessions 3 reminds me a bit of the goofy-abrasive work of the Moebius/Plank albums like Rastakraut Pasta and En Route. It has that loping, goofy feel to it.

A couple songs seem to utilize samples from acoustic guitars (flH) in this section and another seems to use a very badly out of tune or prepared piano (g1e1).

“nineFly” is a lumpy wah (sub) bass thing which squiggles along, surrounded by junkyard percussion. “icari” is a surprisingly moving and detailed soundscape piece. Other songs in this section briefly evoke David Lynch’s Eraserhead soundtrack, with its wind swept distortion, and others stumble along, lurching drunkenly from start to finish.

#Autechre #NTSSessions #todayscommutesoundtrack #wiremagazine #wiremagazinetop50 #wiremagazinetop502018

NTS Sessions 3, first half, by Autechre.

Label Link: NTS Sessions 1-4

Number 8 in the wire magazine (@thewiremagazine) Top 50 releases of 2018.

A couple shorter songs featuring rude noises lead up to the centerpiece of the first half of NTS Sessions 3, called “tt1pd”. On the Industrial side of Ambient, “tt1pd” builds and builds, squidgy synth washes panning left and right, a driving wah bass, and what I believe may be those long lost ping pong balls, but sped up until they are more like machine gun bursts.

About half way through, the whole thing collapses and sounds like it is turning itself inside out. It tries to get up several more times, each time collapsing into various states of dub chaos; inside out, upside down, struggling like a puppet whose strings have been cut, finally giving in to the inevitable entropy, and stumbling to a stop.

#Autechre #NTSSessions #todayscommutesoundtrack #wiremagazine #wiremagazinetop50 #wiremagazinetop502018

NTS Session 2 by Autechre, second half; Label Link: NTS Sessions 1-4.

Number 8 in the wire magazine Top 50 releases of 2018.

Along with esoterically, and possibly hilariously, named tracks like, “wetgelis casual interval”, most of the second half of NTS Sessions 2 is taken up by two longer pieces, “e0” and “9 chr0”.

“e0” luxuriates in quasi Asian melodies, electronic percussion, and what sound like Tubular Bells. The end effect is something like a parody of a Jean Michelle Jarre. Or maybe Autechre are serious. Who knows.

“9chr0” is the highlight of the NTS Sessions for me, so far.

First, because the rhythms indulged in are somewhat syncopated. One could almost say, “funky”. Or, at least, as funky as Autechre get.

Second, because the melodic component, such that there is one, is so blissfully and obscenely mangled. Some of the sounds are just massively distorted, that, if you are of a certain mind, you can’t help but cheer their audaciousness.

Finally, and perhaps most amusingly, with the melodic component on this track, Autechre actually use something like chord changes.

The sort of chord changes you would hear in a blues tune or rock anthem.

Yet, they, like the rhythms are so mangled, it’s like listening to blues which have been put in a blender.

I like to turn it up until the suspension shakes.

#Autechre #NTSSessions #TodaysCommuteSoundtrack

NTS Session 2 by Autechre, first half; Label Link: NTS Sessions 1-4.

Number 8 in the wire magazine Top 50 releases of 2018.

NTS Session 2 starts by revisiting one of the oldest tropes in, how shall we say, “eclectic” electronic dance music, the ping pong rhythm. You know, ping-pong….ping. Of course, it would be too easy to use the actual sound, so different sound palettes stand in for the hoary ping pong ball and paddle, but it is unmistakeable, and the theme and variation is multitudinous. And energetic.

About an hour in, the rhythmic onslaught retreats slightly, making way for more of the, more or less, plodding rhythms of the start of NTS Session 1, but on top of this is something that I’m pretty sure is a massively pitch shifted mouth harp.

An hour and a half in, and I still don’t think we’ve gotten to anything you could, generously speaking, “dance” to.

#Autechre #NTSSessions #TodaysCommuteSoundtrack

NTS Session 1, second half, by Autechre; Label Link: NTS Sessions 1-4.

Number 8 in the wire magazine Top 50 releases of 2018.

The second half of the first NTS Session builds in tempo from the first, going from the rather plodding 60-ish bpm of “t1a1” to a pretty blazing high point on “gonk steady one”.

“gonk steady one” sort of sounds like what might happen if The Art of Noise had attempted to cover Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit”. That is, if they also decided to use a bent, spindled, and mutilated version of George Clinton’s Atomic Dog as the vocal component.

After the heady tempos of “gonk steady one”, things move to a more mellow ambient groove for the remaining tracks, “four of seven” and “32a_reflected”, and then fade out.

#Autechre #NTSSessions #NTSSessions1 #TodaysCommuteSoundtrack