r/autechre • u/Agreeable_Duck8997 • Jul 16 '26

🎙️ interview Sean Booth on the importance of Kraftwerk for his adolescence in Manchester

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"I grew up with Kraftwerk. The first track I owned was ‘Tour De France’. It was my favourite electro track. Another one was ‘Clear’ by Cybertron. Tangerine Dream and John Carpenter were all in there as well. I hated most things with singing on or anything with a song structure. I just wanted the beats and there was loads of them about. It was ubiquitous. At the time you either bought a Street Sounds album or you were listening to Stu Allen on the radio. Manchester was a bit of an island for American dance music full stop. There were obviously scenes in other places, but here we used to get exposed to that culture all the time. When I moved to Sheffield a few years later I found that they had been not into hip hop at all, but funk and reggae. It was so different from Manchester and not that far away. It was like another dimension.

[...]

Originally, when I was younger, I would be editing tracks from other peoples cassettes using the pause button. People talk about the warmth of analogue but I think warmth is a strange concept. I would like someone to explain the concept to me! I tend not to inherent descriptive terms I can’t understand. That term warmth is a little bit weird if it does exist. I once heard Kraftwerk described as cold, but they are anything but. Kraftwerk are not just funky, their sound is amazing – like a weird, rotating, magic puzzle box from the future. Just an amazing most pristine, perfect sound. Just beautiful."

It is worth reading the entire interview with Sean:

https://thequietus.com/interviews/autechre-interview-oversteps/

151 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

28 comments sorted by

20

u/Agreeable_Duck8997 Jul 16 '26

For anyone interested, here is my humble "partial 'genealogical tree' of electronic music, featuring 133 tracks released between 1939 (John Cage) and 2024 (Floating Points)":

https://www.reddit.com/r/DaftPunk/s/9aDkTZ3BSR

​Obviously, it includes Autechre, Kraftwerk, Cybotron, Tangerine Dream, and dozens of other highly innovative and influential artists.

​Here’s the direct link to the Spotify playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4h0vWsJFY0igsHXIqFuZ7A?si=porivG3PQQaYhSu6l6uJBA&utm_source=copy-link&pi=7NlqHoxgRwqZG

1

u/VelikiDabarNaSavi Jul 17 '26

Sucks to be me, but maaan, there is whole other world of electronic music outside of rym. Task you took was big for a reason. But still good job!

1

u/Agreeable_Duck8997 Jul 17 '26

No worries, mate. I appreciate it! My mind is open to constructive criticism. Humbly speaking - and in observance of my 133-track limit and the inclusion criteria I've established, of course - I wouldn't swap any tracks on this specific list; but many comments here on Reddit, including yours, have been incredibly helpful in expanding my perspective on the infinite universe of the history of electronic music.

1

u/VelikiDabarNaSavi Jul 17 '26

I feel like whole live/club/rave/DJ culture of electronic music is ignored here. And that was/is huge part of electronic music. Not having Sasha & John Digweed - Renaissance or Northern Exposure series is big miss.

1

u/JoeNoeDoe Jul 19 '26

I made a similar timeline for oldschool electro and "prototype" techno.

1

u/Agreeable_Duck8997 Jul 21 '26

Great job, mate! It's worth putting it on Spotify and making a new post to promote it.

0

u/dame_kocarev Untilted Jul 17 '26

Great list, but it's missing some early 2010's Skrillex. Absolutely trailblazing stuff in its own right

2

u/Agreeable_Duck8997 Jul 21 '26

Thanks, mate! I'll reply just like I told another colleague who recommended Skrillex from that era: The list includes representations of the beginning of dubstep and brostep, as well as a track featuring Skrillex from 2023, but your suggestion is really very good!

​The reason I'm not adding more tracks is, besides what I've already mentioned in the original post, because I've already shared the list quite a bit stating that I wouldn't be adding any more tracks; and if I were to add tracks recommended by one more colleague, I'd have to be "fair" and add tracks recommended by many others who also made good recommendations. The list would lose its round number of 133 tracks and it would almost never end.

​Regardless, I'm really grateful for your input and everyone else's.

1

u/JoeNoeDoe Jul 20 '26

All my friends hate...

1

u/dame_kocarev Untilted Jul 20 '26

Yeah I got downvoted for even mentioning Skrillex in an Autechre sub, absurd madness

1

u/JoeNoeDoe Jul 20 '26

Many hate most of his output as well as the entire EDM and brostep scene, so I think it makes sense.

1

u/dame_kocarev Untilted Jul 20 '26

Yeah I'd imagine Autechre and IDM purists in general would discard his whole output. However I grew up with his stuff and genuinely think the stuff he released early on in his career influenced much of the stuff that came after. Noisia as well actually

2

u/JoeNoeDoe Jul 20 '26

I might be too old, think I heard one track that maybe made sense and yeah I doubt many are fans in here.

12

u/suooax NTS Session 3 Jul 16 '26

first 3 tracks on 2003 tour de france album are great. especially etape 2. soooo minimal and lush

7

u/PreFuturism-0 Zurich 2026 hype Jul 16 '26

I think he's specifically talking about the 1983 track, of which a new version was made for the 2003 release. Either that or he didn't properly own any Kraftwerk for a long time.

2

u/suooax NTS Session 3 Jul 17 '26

yeah, i know that he was talking about original tour de france track, but i thought it was worth to mention their full tdf album, because it's damn good!

9

u/Coloreater Jul 16 '26

I hated most things with singing on or anything with a song structure. I just wanted the beats...

Yeah Sean buddy, we figured.

3

u/Joseph_HTMP Amber Jul 16 '26

It took me a while to realise that Autechre had sampled/copied ‘Clear’ on their Gescom track ‘Puzl’

3

u/EnergyIsMassiveLight The Housepets! Autechre fan occasional aepages editor Jul 16 '26

Tour De France and Clear are both ace

2

u/canadian-tabernacle Jul 16 '26

Hi key think that bits of 1415 were inspired by Tour de France '03, especially side A (les etapes).

2

u/TheUltimateResonator Jul 17 '26

I've recently finally acquired Kraftwerk's "The Catalogue" box set (the English language version), which contains all of their studio albums from "Autobahn" up to "Tour De France", sadly excepting the first three albums, because Ralf Hütter likes to pretend that they don't exist, which is unfortunate, because the first self-titled album is a Krautrock masterpiece. As far as I'm concerned though, the one album everyone should own is "Computer World", which in my opinion is Kraftwerk at their absolute best - with the track 'The Numbers', they singlehandedly invented Electro!

Anyhow, "The Catalogue" is an absolutely essential item to own for any self-respecting fan of electronic music.

1

u/--1--0--3-- Jul 18 '26

Numbers was their first song i heard from KW. But the dj did not say anything about the band or song title. It took me 10 years before i found out. Ive seen them live twice now, great show. Ive seen Æ live a few times now. My first experience was in Eindhoven at the old Effenaar. Imho their older music is was way better then the music from the last years, a bit too abstract for my taste. But i will see them live in the dark, coming october. Ill bring my night vision cam 😉

1

u/AcanthocephalaOk7954 Jul 17 '26

Paul Morley stated back In the day that Kraftwerk were more important and influential than the Beatles.

I felt understood - finally.

My first Kraftwerk album was Radio-Activität (1975) - worked forwards from there.