CRASH? BANG! WALLOP£

I was given a chance to interview IDM legends Autechre. This was just before Quaristace dropped and they had just made the new ensemble. We couldn't sort out anyhting film-wise but we got a pretty good interview that appeared in ATM and on DP, the full version of which appeared in the last issue of FITP so I won't print it all here.

ME: So regarding your own music-making process, how did you go about writing this record?

ROB: “Most of the tracks for Quaristice were made on our live set-up and edited down.”

SEAN: “We would literally jam out for about an hour and then edit everything down to a few minutes.”

ME: So is it improvisation? Your tracks seem like they take whatever direction they like. Nothing is predictable. How do you manage that with electronic set-ups? Is it all about using hardware over difficult-to-program software programs like Logic and the Cubase?

SEAN: “When you are on a hardware set-up you can come to look at it as being the same thing, a solid set-up that will always make the same sound but the interface is infinitely malleable. On a computer you have the same interface but an infinite number of possible configurations and software racks, it’s almost the same difference.”

ROB: “We write very freely but don’t improvise, we have a basic idea of what we want to do but it can also depend on the audience.”

ME: When I spoke to V. Snares he was talking about how if you want to do abstract free-flowing music you need to avoid side-scrolling sequencers as they are too difficult to program in a freestyle manner.

SEAN: “I would say Aaron is right to say that… in a way, but he is also very wrong. I would probably leave it at that.”

ME: No, no you can’t leave it at that. What do you mean man? Explain yourself or I’m going to make it look like you’re slagging him off and he’ll come over and kill you in your sleep.

SEAN: “No I’m friends with Aaron and respect what he does but you don’t want to revert to Renoise or something because it’s easy to program with. Anything is easy if you learn to use it properly and learn all the key-commands and shortcuts.

ME: What about your i.n.s.a.n.e Myspace? Who did that and how? The last one was pretty impressive too.

ROB: That was just me trying to take Myspace apart. It’s all so uniform. It was kind of like ‘fuck the way Myspace looks’ we wanted to do a good job of turning it on its head.

This article appeared in the last issue of Flash in the pan magazine which is way to cool to bother with a fuckin' website (duh)

WORDS: SHORRN X

PHOTOGRAPHY: Oli Longmore