Autechre - elseq 1–5 album

mesh cinereaL is currently one of my favorites off this record. Was sort of "meh" when this first came out but I've slowly learned give their records at least a *month* (normal shit might take a day...) before you write it off as *meh*. :) Also, if using headphones- which I recommend- make sure they are at least decent studio monitoring headphones, something for focused listening... el seq / nts sounds incredible on my Sony MDR-7506's. Turn the technology off and the lights out for this one...the only bad thing about this record is once you get into this "style" of music, almost everything else starts to sound WAY TOO STRAIGHT-UP...not a good thing...lol...

This is their best release since Confiled in my opinion. Pure immersive ambient.

latentcall is blowing my mind today. everytime I play elseq a different track clicks with me

MY LIFE IS INCOMPLETE WITHOUT THIS RELEASE ON VINYLSEAN PLS

vinyl box set when. . . . . . .

daftcombo "all end" is put on 3 sides of vinyl. That said one could split elyc6 0nset in 2 parts.

"all end" from NTS4 will.

Very impressed with this release, which to my ears continues a trajectory we've seen from Autechre over the past decade. Given the luxury of time and space, the duo treat us to a series of intricate and beautiful sonic landscapes that reward active and repeated listening, but can also be enjoyed in the background. (I've fallen asleep to this on a long plane flight, which led to some lovely dreams!)You can hear shades of much of Autechre's past work over the course of the four installments; a real treat for the fans, while still being something very new and cutting edge.I recommend buying the FLAC or WAV versions. There is a lot of subtle detail here that should not be missed.

A truckload of sketches that go nowhere and overstay their welcome without exception. Hopefully they come up with something worthwhile again, after they cleared this junk out of their system.

I'm not qualified to say what is or isn't a masterpiece but they really are getting a lot out of that if/else sequencer.

I always going to admire that attitude of keep making things, despite of the good or the bad critics.

To me it somehow makes perfect sense NOT to release this on physical formats. These are (alien?) sounds from the distant future. There won't be any vinyl, CD, cassette, MiniDisc or DAT in the year 3.984.

It would make even more sense to not release them on files either - that's sooo 2017. Better to wait until 3984 when the machines can decipher this lunch order themselves.

So, just a few days after I scribbled out some thoughts on Autechre's previous record Exai, calling it "one unfriendly beast", the duo drop a release that's even beastlier and less friendly. That'll teach me.One theory going around is that "elseq" stands for "edited live sequences", as many tracks on this release are basically longer versions of live material played during a 2015 tour. And indeed, if you hunt through last year's AE_LIVE series, you can hear mutated hunks of many bits from elseq.Like those live recordings, elseq is a digital-only release, which has clearly put off some people. But we've gotten something new in return, as the absence of physical limitations lets the music expand and flesh out ideas that would've been omitted from a CD or LP. The most extreme examples appear on volumes 2 and 3, where we're treated to several 22-minute-plus behemoths.While I appreciate having that extra room for the standout tracks (and there are many), the longest pieces on elseq test my patience and tend to get skipped. "eastre" is an ominous ambient drone experiment that doesn't really go anywhere; "mesh cinereaL" spends 16 minutes dicking around before finally getting interesting. And "elyc6 0nset" should satisfy anyone wanting to see Autechre go off the deep end completely, as it wobbles off into amelodic bleeps and squelches halfway through its 27 minutes (!) and stays there.Among the shorter tracks there's lots to enjoy, like "feed1", a sort of palate cleanser before the album proper. It sounds carved out of restless noise — like "Gantz Graf" but less grating — and forms a bubbling groove that clicks for me. "pendulu hv moda" begins bright and cheery before morphing into a nasty, lithe swagger over a fractured hiphop beat. "latentcall" feels like it's continually pushing forward with a spacious reverb sound recalling Exai's best moments. "freulaeux" is a little island of normalcy with a pulsing, cavernous 4/4 Berlin feel, like hearing Basic Channel played in a huge underground warehouse. It features a sort of swelling, constantly-shifting reverb effect that's pretty neat, although unkind to my speakers.Overall elseq is even more sprawling, ambitious, and extreme than Exai. And that exemplifies what I like about Autechre: their willingness to experiment, to reinvent, to take their music places that are novel, alien and out of our normal comfort zone. This can lead to tedious and frustrating moments (and lord knows, elseq has those)… but I think it's also why Autechre can still produce fresh, creative, somehow futuristic music while many of the contemporaries they've been compared to over the years have retired or confined themselves to one particular style.If you're wondering how to approach this release, I'd say focus on parts 1, 4, and 5 first.

"mesh cinereaL" is awesome start to finish. if you're any near to making electronic music you might know why.

elseq 3 - is perhaps the best Ae release in 10 years - simply mind-numbingly beautiful - sorry for you if you don't see it.

There's a certain sadness that comes with seeing someone unable to appreciate something you adore. The reason we share and read reviews is to build sympathies with other viewpoints. Sometimes those sympathies are ones of regret.

Why concerned with other people? Isn't your experience of "mind-numbing beauty" enough for you?

Excellent, beautiful, different, once again.There will of course be the usual bashing, as there always is, from those who don't actually love Autechre, but love a certain PART of Autechre and wish that Autechre would totally destroy their Autechreness by actually making the sound you happened to like the most, over and over with slight variations.

I've got to be honest, I'm not going to buy this until they put out a physical version. Vinyl is obviously impossible but come on, lads, at least put out a CD!

I am befuddled as to why they wouldn't release it, a CD release of elseq seems a no brainer - Warp even put out that 5 disc EP boxset a few years ago (and in the process spread out EP7 and Cichlisuite over two CDs), no such issues here, all five parts would comfortably fit on a CD each.

Can anyone give an indication of the sound quality of 'mesh cinereaL'. I dipped out on the lossless and bought the LAME mp3. All tracks have plenty of space/dynamics/imagery etc. but the track I mention seems to have a lot of nasty 'grain' in the relentless metallic percussion. It sounds like there's a tear in a cone and is very distracting. Anyone's experience at any file quality would be appreciated.

After the kind loan of a 24bit WAV copy I can confirm the track 'sounds' this way in both lossy and hi-res formats. Many thanks to [redacted]!

This last Album is one of the less interesting by Autechre, nevertheless its satisfying. Starting with Elseq 1, there's this track that i dislike called "C16 deep tread" its distressing and i can't understand it, as opposite my favorite track on Elseq 1 is "Pendulu hv moda" and i also like alot "13x0 step". Moving to Elseq 2, this one is the less interesting elseq part. The first track "elyc6 Onset" is too long , besides there isn't much going on with this track, it reminds me a music that was made a couple years ago for a unofficial quake 3 arena used on a spaceship with the CPU out of control, the second track "chimer 1-5-1" is my favorite of Elseq 2, the third track "c7B2" is somehow aggressive and long. going to Elseq 3, this part has two long tracks which can be monotonous at some point despite their beautiful melodies, track "TBM 2" is my favorite of Elseq 3, it sounds like Loess, and the track is not long. Now Elseq 4 is my favorite part of this Album. "Latencall" is my favourite track of the whole Album, it sounds like a fusion between Aphex twin, Autechre and Loess. I also like the rest of the tracks, but "Accdwn 2" is too long and a bit boring. last but not the least Elseq 5 is also a satisfying part, my favorite track is "Freulauex" the rest of the tracks are good but not outstanding. if i don't give a higher rating to this Album its because it wasn't released in CD format , and also because there should have been a better selection of the tracks included on Elseq, its better to have few outstanding musics than alot of musics and find among them ordinary tracks. Thank you torrent for giving me this Album for free. I don't support digital.

pathetic or not, it exists and it has its own voice, or better saying it has many voices expressing the same discontent. It's my right to no support digital format only. Elseq 1-5 never got a single penny from me, now "NTS Sessions" had all my financial support with the cd format.

Agree that this could have been a much better album if more selection took place, reducing it to 1 CD length... this is indeed the curse of digital formats

I believe that this should be regarded more in relation to an earlier precedence, namely "Quaristice Quadrange", which was released digitally as well. I purchased both and I do not regret it. "Elseq" might stand for "L sequence", to which there also seems to be an "L event". There is an apparent play on the letter "L". The twelvth letter of the alphabet. But does this necessarily mean that this is a sequence of releases constituting their twelvth album?

" Thank you torrent for giving me this Album for free. I don't support digital."I think this just might be the most pathetic thing I've ever read on this site.

So why exactly is the 24 bit version $22 more than the MP3 version? For that matter, why a price difference for any version? An ugly precedent.

Because if some one is ignorant or deluded enough to think that they can hear the difference between 24 and 16bit, then they're an obvious target to rip-off.

Nonsense. Utter nonsense. Only ONE file needs to be hosted, so the storage is negligible. It's not like they actually have to individually store thousands and thousands of separate copies. Yes indeed, an infinite number of copies, lossless and lossy can all be had from that one source file. The additional costs to host and distribute a 24bit version are nominal, perhaps amounting to a couple dollars a month, tops. Heck, let's even assume they had to buy a new hard drive and upgrade a service plan just accommodate this release. Now we're talking about two, three hundred dollars of distributed costs, (the upgraded service benefits ALL downloads, not just this release). Want proof? Just look at the cost difference for the 24bit and MP3 versions of exai. $1 difference. Warp are testing the waters to see what the market will pay. As I said, an ugly precedent.

That's easy to explain. 24 Bit audio is realy much bigger than mp3 or ordinary 16 Bit. And someone gotta pay for that. Nothing unusual, really.

The lossless files offer a higher fidelity experience, while also acting as a backup, from which an almost infinite number of lower encodings can be produced. The higher bit version requires substantially more hosting bandwidth. In both accounts, a higher price of some sort seems legitimate.

This is an incredible album if you are into sound design and great electronic sounds. This album feels like an updated version of L-Event which is a good thing. They actually use percussion and have some insane grooves in this collection. It takes dedication to like Autechre and this album is no exception. Your neighbors will think alien beings have just landed but like i said the sounds in this record are nearly unrivaled which make it worth the lengthy listen.

That intermittent beat over an ocean of microbial outer space made to glow in neon by the rays of the sun in "Foldfree Casual", and in extension also on "Latentcall", it is the spice that will forever draw me to these two!

latentcall is such a fluid beast, easily one of the best distilled electro tracks ever devised by human beings. the only rivals to this in recent times is the avant garde fusion of electrified choral work by Bitstream. dissimilarly eastre is twenty minutes of hyperaesthetic dream convolution made manifest.these are four challenging hours, clearly underlined by the most taxing track also being the longest. elyc6 0nset is... well... umm... grating. mostly due to it's length. it was the only time during my initial listening session when I felt that the track really needed a conclusion. at that point there was still 15 minutes remaining. perhaps it is meant to instill a sense of urgency in the listener? personally I really felt like the remainder did not offer anything but more whimsied drudgery. but that was just my impression, certainly there are some who will praise it as the best track on the albums. this is customary. I posit though, that such a person is more than likely to enjoy being flogged, being suspended from the ceiling by his thumbs - or a habit of commuting whilst listening to a mashup of Vinko Globokar's "Discours II" and "I Was No Longer His Dominant" by NWW - ó,Ø !elseq 1-5 gets honorable mentions from me. i sincerely hope they further develop ideas like latentcall. this juxtaposition of disparate elements really lends itself to Autechre's musical style and holds much promise. prost!

I have played around with the previews available on their store and I noticed that "C16 Deep Tread" is part of the live set which they released a few months ago. I am used for it to be followed by this nifty purring track, which I kind or miss.

Yes i noticed that the second track sounded like one of the tracks played at live. it´s not exactly a track i can say i enjoy.

Absolute insanity. The extra play time has allowed the boys to get really stuck into some serious noise. Evolution has always been key to their explorations but here it really takes center stage, in that respect I'm reminded of UNTILTED but this is a different, hazier beast. KK Null comes to mind as does Intrigue & Stuff. Massive work, just brilliant.

I really hope nobody will pay 10 € additionally for something one would never be able to hear anyway (-96 db and below).

it's definitely a sad time for autechre fans, artwork and songs used to be much more beautiful and musical :(

theFBI Except they never really produced any "songs" and if you're paying attention to images instead of listening to the music then maybe you should put the music aside for a little and visit art gallery.Design of the cover images, in pair with how they now distribute their music demonstrates absolute disregard to hype, $$$, or general conventions, which is, in case you're new to the Ae, is what they're all about. I couldn't respect them any more for the approach they take in everything they do. As for the music, in my opinion, elseq really is the best LP up to date. Hyar hyar. I was honestly getting a tad spooked by some of the stuff I'd been reading about this album, and then of course to my delight it turns out to be simply beautiful from beginning to end, first class brainfood. Shame on me, hehe. Just when I'd been munting over the major accomplishment that is Exai these past three years too. I vote for elseq on wax, ta vry much.

sleeve art is not as integral to an album as the music of course,but it is undoubtedly a crucial element tied to an aesthetic whole .i can't begin to tell you the number of albums i took a chance on in the 70s and 80s without having ever heard the artist in question based solely on sleeve art,song titles and the bands appearance whether it was roxy music,echo and the bunnymen,ramones or kraftwerk and to take that album home and lose yourself in the combined experience of the music,sleeve notes,lyrics,album art etc was a beautiful thing much less the risk involved with forking over your hard earned cash on an artist you knew little or nothing about,there was a great sense of adventure there that sadly no longer exists thanks to information overkill but i'm not being sentimental,merely factual.that said i have to agree with the OP that ever since around the time of Quaristice AE's sleeve art has been sadly lacking in adding to the cohesive structural theme (although I am generally a fan of The Designers Republic yet how many more AE albums do we need with minimalist geometric shapes or bland typeface posing as 'art'?) and your remark stating 'if you want to see art go to an art gallery was pedantic and ill conceived - you'd prefer a world where all album art was generic and came in brown paper sleeves listing nothing more than the name of the artist/album? right... come on... and for the record yes Rob and Sean have always and continue to write.perform and produce 'songs', just not singles

Except they never really produced any "songs" and if you're paying attention to images instead of listening to the music then maybe you should put the music aside for a little and visit art gallery.Design of the cover images, in pair with how they now distribute their music demonstrates absolute disregard to hype, $$$, or general conventions, which is, in case you're new to the Ae, is what they're all about. I couldn't respect them any more for the approach they take in everything they do. As for the music, in my opinion, elseq really is the best LP up to date.

4 points for the album, -2 for the joke that the 24-bit version is

From Wikipedia: "According to Warp Records there are no plans for a physical release of the album".

"UPDATE (5/23, 11 a.m.): Despite previous reports, it appears that at this point Warp has no plans to release a physical version on Elseq. The label wrote in an update: "There are no plans to release Elseq 1-5 on physical formats.""

Your link has been updated - no plans of any physical release by warp ATM.

I'm wondering how they'll put 5 Albums (if you can call it like this) on four vinyls. Each Album has a length of around 50min though.

what about this ? It seems there will be a physicall release: http://exclaim.ca/music/article/autechre_announce_five-disc_elseq_lp

I understand that releasing this series of albums or extended plays physically would be quite an effort, but they could charge accordingly. They could arrange for something like a binding preorder approach prior to production. If enough customers let them know that they would be thrilled about it, they would have to at least sit down and consider it.

Me too. I don't buy vinyl or digital and I want this album.

I hope to see Cd Format available for this Release . I don´t support digiatl format, for that i can have it for free.

I use to feel exactly the same way... until I started getting into groups and artists that sold burnt CDr's through bandcamp. Now, with all of that mixed in, I've got no problem burning discs from digital releases. Seems whenever I buy a new CD it goes straight to the harddrive and burnt to blank CDs anyway because I want as little damage done to the original media as possible. It took a while, but it was so worth it when I finally did start buying digital media. Now years later (and in a big part because of bandcamp), most of my album purchases are digital. I try to pick up whatever limited edition physical releases I can, and them some vinyl here and there, but the bulk of my music purchases are now digital and I couldn't be happier with all the fantastic music I've got to know and the couple of amazingly mind-blowing musicians that I now know of and follow. You're missing out on so much staying away from digital only releases. =o/

buying digital or get free illegal downloads has the same value to me, either way it never feels like i own anything, i don´t like to have my cd's shelf filled with burned CDr, its not the same has having original Cds, or just to have the music stored in a hard disk, it feels like having a virtual Patrimony.

Buy the WAVs and burn it yourself. Support the artists.

From the Warp site: "There are no plans to release ‘elseq 1-5’ on physical formats."I'm going to make a compilation CDr of my favourite tracks I think, keep the digital on my computer for the occasional extended listening session.

Same here! Especially as I don't have a record player (of my own), only a portable CD player.

Yes that would be lovely ! Excellent idea !

That is what I meant, actually. A tidy little box housing five compact discs in cardboard... thingies.

It seems like the process of spitting out albums has begun. I hope that there will be a physical release available.

what about this ? It seems there will be a physicall release: http://exclaim.ca/music/article/autechre_announce_five-disc_elseq_lp

The Warp website states that there are no plans to release this project on physical formats. https://warp.net/news/elseq-1-5/