SIGN

‘SIGN’ is an album that doesn’t just get under your skin, but in your head. If you give it enough time it will own, you and you will feel better for it. Autechre have returned and the wait was definitely worth it.

With SIGN, Autechre have managed to do something that machines can’t do nearly as well as humans: surprise us.

Highlights a voracious creative appetite and their relationship's enduring strength. [Dec 2020, p.87]

It still sounds like music from the furthest reaches of the galaxy, but after three decades of getting to know Sean Booth and Rob Brown, the feelings wrought in their work have never been clearer or more heart-rending than on SIGN.

For seasoned fans looking for their next fix of boundary-pushing explorations, this will likely seem a tad pedestrian, but SIGN is still an incredible piece of work, even if it's not bending the rules of music production into infinity.

SIGN is a welcome detour, a diversion, and in these difficult and complicated times, a salve of sorts. It’s as close to chill-out music as the duo are ever likely to get, making it the perfect Autechre album for 2020.

Simply put, no one does electronic music quite like Autechre.

While some may miss the utter, blistering, angular noise-scapes of past Autechre albums, be assured that this album is no less Autechre. Despite being, arguably, their most accessible album in over a decade, we are still left with a set of 10 tracks that are just as unpredictable and labyrinthine as ever, and a duo who is trying to work in a slightly different avenue.

With SIGN, Autechre continue to create paradoxical soundscapes that can be simultaneously chaotic and ethereal, harsh and euphoric, mechanical and biological. Sonic atmospheres that are cold and robotic achieve the volatility and ephemeral nature of a living organism.

A few of the album's tracks are somewhat formless and not distinctive enough to make a lasting impression, but overall, SIGN is one of the more approachable Autechre releases in quite some time, and an easier starting (or reentry) point for listeners who aren't committed enough to plunge into their headier works.