Autechre - Oversteps [2010]

[(parenthesis)]

alright, I gotta come clean...I love almost everything by autechre and even though Quaristice didn't get terrific fan base reviews, I loved it. But this album just sounds bland. Lots of Ae's stuff sounds robotic and cold, but this is just boring and half of the tracks sound the same. The only ones I like are see on see and known(1) and they are average compared to the rest of ae's stuff. I wish I hadn't paid for this..

[Korona 1969]

Ae are currently playing 84 Pontiac Dream in their radio cast!

[Joebot Kill]

alright, I gotta come clean...I love almost everything by autechre and even though Quaristice didn't get terrific fan base reviews, I loved it. But this album just sounds bland. Lots of Ae's stuff sounds robotic and cold, but this is just boring and half of the tracks sound the same. The only ones I like are see on see and known(1) and they are average compared to the rest of ae's stuff. I wish I hadn't paid for this..

i disagree!

[Mark Geranium]

Have got Oversteps and it's still early stages, but I'm really enjoying it. I think it may be more ambient than Amber.

I love everything Autechre has done. No matter what mood I'm in, there's guaranteed to be a song to match it. Something like Draft 7.30 is a great album to do heavy thinking to, you start forgetting you're listening to it and it slips in the background, but the beats stimulate your mind to think harder... if that makes sense.

[ShammenDelly]

ilanders is great. see on see is also good to listen too. i like it

[isawdrones]

this album is like aluminum shimmering in the sun

[Sac]

alright, I gotta come clean...I love almost everything by autechre and even though Quaristice didn't get terrific fan base reviews, I loved it. But this album just sounds bland. Lots of Ae's stuff sounds robotic and cold, but this is just boring and half of the tracks sound the same. The only ones I like are see on see and known(1) and they are average compared to the rest of ae's stuff. I wish I hadn't paid for this..

I feel ya'.. The album has grown on me though, but it will never become what Confield, Draft 7.30, Untilted and Quaristice were to me.

[hexagon son]

was just wondering if anyone here had DL-ed the 24 bit wav. files from bleep? if so, could tell me how having 24-bit sound quality improved the listening experience?

[sabonicate]

Oversteps is much better that quaristice (which i still cant get into!)
Ilanders alone is far better than anything on quaristice!!

[hexagon son]

quaristice was a good album, i am actually listening to oversteps for the first time via youtube (unemployed, cant afford albums boohoo). i wanted to avoid all the hype and chat about oversteps as long as possible as i only really have enough energy to be very exited about one band (guess who!). i've like autechre since the first time i heard them in 1998.

[saturdayindex]

I don't get the appeal of known(1). I don't really like that track. At all.

And how come no one ever mentions Chiastic Slide? That album seems to me to be so much more alive and visceral and real, and remains my favorite Autechre album. When I listen to Chiastic Slide, I can hear that they put a lot of effort into every sound, every nuance. It sounds like Booth and Brown took great care to craft a fine sculpture. Every knob turned just right, the decay of every reverb tweaked to sound just perfect. It's good. It's emotionally varied--it's touching, it's exciting, it's even fun in parts--like MUSIC should be. But with their newer stuff, it's as if It's almost as if they can sit down and say, Hey, we're Autechre, so we can do ... THIS AND THIS AND THIS AND THIS, and a lot of it is just us screwing around, but you'll like it.

I mean, can ANY of the tracks off the last 3 or 4 albums really vie for consideration as "one of the best autechre tracks of all time"?

Now that's not to say that some of their newer stuff isn't fantastic (I liked the first half of Untilted a lot), and they do have a few standout tracks on Quaristice and Oversteps, but I just don't like all the arbitration and algorithmic beat/note generation going on. My mind doesn't dig that. With their older stuff it was like, every note I knew they wanted there, every note was placed by the master craftsmen. Now, listening is like, whoa, that's insane, only autechre could get away with that, but I'm not really ENJOYING it, I'm not respecting it as much as their old stuff.

Maybe I'm just not giving this album its time, but I'm pretty sure I could never feel the same way about Untilted, Quaristice, or Oversteps, as I do about Chiastic Slide.

[hexagon son]

I don't get the appeal of known(1). I don't really like that track. At all.

And how come no one ever mentions Chiastic Slide? That album seems to me to be so much more alive and visceral and real, and remains my favorite Autechre album. When I listen to Chiastic Slide, I can hear that they put a lot of effort into every sound, every nuance. It sounds like Booth and Brown took great care to craft a fine sculpture. Every knob turned just right, the decay of every reverb tweaked to sound just perfect. It's good. It's emotionally varied--it's touching, it's exciting, it's even fun in parts--like MUSIC should be. But with their newer stuff, it's as if It's almost as if they can sit down and say, Hey, we're Autechre, so we can do ... THIS AND THIS AND THIS AND THIS, and a lot of it is just us screwing around, but you'll like it.

And maybe that's the point?

Now that's not to say that some of their newer stuff isn't fantastic (I liked the first half of Untilted a lot), and they do have a few standout tracks on Quaristice and Oversteps, but I just don't like all the arbitration and algorithmic beat/note generation going on. My mind doesn't dig that. With their older stuff it was like, every note I knew they wanted there, every note was placed by the master craftsmen. Now, listening is like, whoa, that's insane, only autechre could get away with that, but I'm not really ENJOYING it, I'm not respecting it as much as their old stuff.

Maybe I'm just not giving this album its time, but I'm pretty sure I could never feel the same way about Untilted, Quaristice, or Oversteps, as I do about Chiastic Slide.

i've not made an opinion on what you've written, as i dont really listen autechre that much. i certainly dont enjoy them nearly as much without having a good smoke first. but i must ask, is your opinion on their output truly from a artistic point of view? dont take me the wrong way, i just mean, are your ears and listening synapses jaded from the last few years of easy access internet media bombardment?

i trust that your opinion is yours from the heart as i generally respect your opinion here and the amazing output of music that you produce yourself. all i'm saying is, if you hadnt had internet access and you had relied on word of mouth and non internet research into music, and this album had landed in your lap, one way or another, would you still feel the same way?

i guess this is all really moot. but i just thought i would ask, as an article all upon its own, and not related to anyone or anything, would your feeling change about oversteps?

[saturdayindex]

I don't get the appeal of known(1). I don't really like that track. At all.

And how come no one ever mentions Chiastic Slide? That album seems to me to be so much more alive and visceral and real, and remains my favorite Autechre album. When I listen to Chiastic Slide, I can hear that they put a lot of effort into every sound, every nuance. It sounds like Booth and Brown took great care to craft a fine sculpture. Every knob turned just right, the decay of every reverb tweaked to sound just perfect. It's good. It's emotionally varied--it's touching, it's exciting, it's even fun in parts--like MUSIC should be. But with their newer stuff, it's as if It's almost as if they can sit down and say, Hey, we're Autechre, so we can do ... THIS AND THIS AND THIS AND THIS, and a lot of it is just us screwing around, but you'll like it.

And maybe that's the point?

Now that's not to say that some of their newer stuff isn't fantastic (I liked the first half of Untilted a lot), and they do have a few standout tracks on Quaristice and Oversteps, but I just don't like all the arbitration and algorithmic beat/note generation going on. My mind doesn't dig that. With their older stuff it was like, every note I knew they wanted there, every note was placed by the master craftsmen. Now, listening is like, whoa, that's insane, only autechre could get away with that, but I'm not really ENJOYING it, I'm not respecting it as much as their old stuff.

Maybe I'm just not giving this album its time, but I'm pretty sure I could never feel the same way about Untilted, Quaristice, or Oversteps, as I do about Chiastic Slide.

i've not made an opinion on what you've written, as i dont really listen autechre that much. i certainly dont enjoy them nearly as much without having a good smoke first. but i must ask, is your opinion on their output truly from a artistic point of view? dont take me the wrong way, i just mean, are your ears and listening synapses jaded from the last few years of easy access internet media bombardment?

i trust that your opinion is yours from the heart as i generally respect your opinion here and the amazing output of music that you produce yourself. all i'm saying is, if you hadnt had internet access and you had relied on word of mouth and non internet research into music, and this album had landed in your lap, one way or another, would you still feel the same way?

i guess this is all really moot. but i just thought i would ask, as an article all upon its own, and not related to anyone or anything, would your feeling change about oversteps?

That's a good question, and I have thought about it before--does music get devalued by a bad route of access? To be truthful, I don't think that it would change my opinion about Oversteps, but to be fair, I must admit that it's possible. That being said, I have tried my best to give Oversteps a fair and weighted consideration, because I'm aware of the possible effect that could have on me.

[rick7487]

I personally LOVE oversteps. It gives me a relaxed laid back feeling compared to their other stuff, and I can see why long time fans wouldn't like it but for me it's great!

(pt2ph8 remind me of a wind chime gently blowing in the breeze.)

[Patryk Ludamage]

I'am not really good listener, but i faved next tracks:
R Ess
Ilanders
Qplay
See on See (I appreciated this track as best of the whole album)
Treale
KrYlon
Yuop

[sevenELIXIR]

oversteps is very subliminal (for me anyway). I'll start listening to it with headphones and my attention will almost always get diverted. it's very ambient.... almost drone. known1 seems to be the most controversial track from forums I've read. I like it a lot, I hear a lot of melodies being played together that sound like they don't belong together, but it sounds good in a way. not my favorite record, but after hearing it for a month my 2 cents.

[TEARZ]

And how come no one ever mentions Chiastic Slide?

i remember when this came out that summer, me and my buddies had a puff and i'll never forget the first few bars of cipater. what about ep7? or lp5? both of those, in my opinion, are the best autechre releases they have ever done. both nicely straddle 'listenable tunes' whilst still being progressively 'avant garde' but not to the point where it's just a complete off-putting wank of experimentation.

i used to be a massive autechre freak, and general warp maniac in the late 90's, and while i still maintain a distanced interest in the legends of warp, i feel that generally autechre are treading much of the same ground...which is kind of a lame complaint considering that they are so starkly original and the fact that they have ventured so far out that it's kind of ridiculous to expect them to find some new territory to adopt as their own. oversteps seems a little more approachable than, say, untitled, which i found almost unbearably oppressive in it's dryness.

from what i've listened to so far i'd say this is a pretty badass record though and just reaffirms (not that they need reaffirmation at this point) that they are fucking amazing.

[Infinite E]

autechre have been relentless futurists for the past 15 years or so, and oversteps is the result of the inherent contradiction in that fact

i think that they've realised that we will pretty soon reach the point where any person will be able to create any noise possibly imaginable, and consequently that foregrounding sound design, valuing extremities, each time trying to make the last record obsolete, is losing ground as a viable artistic strategy. i think with quaristice and oversteps, they're trying to draw some of that frontier insight inward, and instead of creating something deliberately alien that shits all over anything remotely old fashioned they're trying to create a context and a resonance for their work, here and now instead of in an imaginary future. it's arguably closer to 'music' (in social sense rather than a snobbily strict technical distinction, in that it has applications and corollaries wider than its own self-justifying self) than most of their mid-2000s work. just look at the artwork. that is not a 'traditional' autechre sleeve.

(personally speaking, it's pretty overdue. this approach reached an apex with pen expers and almost everything since has been a bit of a rabbit hole. but i get that a lot of people love and value the later records, and find things to intrigue and draw them in. i just dont get why )


THATS WHAT I THINK ANYWAY

[saturdayindex]

i think that they've realised that we will pretty soon reach the point where any person will be able to create any noise possibly imaginable, and consequently that foregrounding sound design, valuing extremities, each time trying to make the last record obsolete, is losing ground as a viable artistic strategy.

Brilliant points.

[Sac]

Isn't over it lovely, that everyone has their own unique opinion towards these lads music?
I mean, there are the ones that aren't that into their new stuff, but adore their older releases, vice versa. I would never in a million years consider Chiastic Slide their greatest effort, but it's nice to see that someone does.

It's kindda' tricky to explain, (especially in a second language) but what I'm trying to say (I guess) is that Autechre's music is so diverse, and has varied a great(!) deal since their first release, and it's just great to see, that every record or period has got it's own
sub-fanbase of diehard Autechre fans.

Hats off to all of you Autechre-fans, whether you think Incunabula or Untilted is their best!