Exai

Exai Artist Autechre Released 7 February 2013 Label Warp Records (WARP234)

Move Of Ten (2010) Exai L-event (2013)

Exai is the eleventh studio album by Autechre released on Warp Records. It was originally released on February 7th, 2013.

History

The sessions that spawned both Exai and L-event were initially compiled as a series of 12" records before having one of them split off into L-event. As mentioned in the WATMM Ask Autechre Anything, they saw Exai "as a box of four 12"s" with L-event being interchangable with any of them.

Exai was made using much of the same setup and process that were used for Oversteps -- mostly Max-made with edited live jams and some planned compositions. Many of the tracks on Exai were from trial runs of The System they were building for live shows.

Tracks

FLeure

• The original titling is "FLeure", uppercase L, however via bleep and other streaming services it was incorrectly changed to Fleure, lowercase l.

T ess xi

• The sequencing in "T ess xi" was mostly done in Logic as opposed to Max.
• The first track on Hanalgig is "T ess xi" with a longer outro (likely cut off), which is also listed as being made in 2011.
• Despite the title similarities to "r ess" from Oversteps, Rob noted in the WATMM Ask Autechre Anything that they don't share meaning.
• The main harmonic progression of the track consists of a 16 bar progression which is repeated twice, after which every repeated version moves one semitone down from the previous loop.

tuinorizn

• An earlier version of "tuinorizn" appeared in the Oversteps tour shows (example)
• A common interpretation of the title is that it is phonetically pronounced like "twin horizons".
• Rob mentioned that there's "glottal shit on the bas[s]line".

bladelores

• In a Pitchfork Interview in August 2018, Autechre noted that they had a 2011 jam that later became "bladelores"
• The reverb wash that appears at the end reappeared later on "splesh" and "all end" from NTS Sessions 1-4.
• Part of the name likely comes from lores~, a resonant lowpass filter max module.

1 1 is

• "1 1 is" was done by Sean.

runrepik

• Alongside "tuinorizn", "runrepik" also appeared in the Oversteps tour material.

deco Loc

• One of the samples for "deco Loc" was found to be from a Bols liqueurs ad, which was uncovered via one of the 4utechre's streams.. The other sample is still unknown.
• The sample manipulations are archived via a video-cut up patch made around 2005-2006 by Rob. Sean took the patch and "did some hip hop type stuff with it." Sean noted the percussion he added was "wood and rubber."
• "deco" may refer to the assembly command of the same name for "decimal output".

recks on

• "recks on" may be a reference to the slang term "wreck shop."

18 (keyosc)

• The track title “18 (keyosc)” is likely in reference to it being the 18th track on the album.

Tracklist

#	Title	Length
1	FLeure	4:51
2	irlite (get 0)	10:01
3	prac-f	4:20
4	jatevee C	4:14
5	T ess xi	6:43
6	vekoS	6:42
7	Flep	6:43
8	tuinorizn	3:40
9	bladelores	12:19
10	1 1 is	7:18
11	nodezsh	8:40
12	runrepik	4:35
13	spl9	7:06
14	cloudline	10:13
15	deco Loc	5:27
16	recks on	9:21
17	YJY UX	8:24
		2:00:39
18	18 (keyosc) [Japanese CD exclusive]	8:57
Total		2:09:36

Trivia

• At just over 2 hours, Exai was by far the longest Autechre album upon release. It was quickly beaten by their next album, elseq 1-5, which was more than double the length of Exai.
• The album artwork is a heavily stylized/pixelated rendering of the text “Exai”. It is also exactly 11 by 11 pixels large, furthering the "eleven" motif in the album.
• The album name itself is a phonetic spelling of “XI”, the roman numeral for eleven, as well as being an anagram of “AE XI”, meaning “Autechre eleven”, or “Autechre’s eleventh album”

Links

• AE_STORE
• Apple Music
• Bandcamp
• Bleep
• Discogs
• Soundcloud
• Spotify

Credits

• Autechre (production)
• Rob Brown (writer)
• Sean Booth (writer)
• Noel Summerville (mastering engineer)
• The Designers Republic (design)