Autechre – SIGN

Over the past 34 days due to having so much time now, I took it upon myself to listen to ae's entire discography in chronological order, including everything they ever officially released, singles, eps, etcetera leading up to today, the 16th of October for the official release of SIGN. I could have listened to the live stream on the 8th tho I neglected to, just to keep with the spirit of my listening sessions. Each session I followed more or less the same protocol, listening in isolation on headphones, closed eyes in the dark, uninterrupted. For NTS Sessions I did it in two four hour sessions. For over a week I was listening to two or three AE_LIVE sessions in a row per day. Some of those live sessions it was my first time listening, because let's be honest, that's a lot of material to go through. It was very, very cool to progress gradually through their discography this way. I also want to mention that I only listened to each release/track once, and have not gone back to re-listen.

So what can I say about SIGN? Like every autechre album it is a departure from previous efforts. My first impressions are that it is a very emotional album, very raw, and perhaps their most straightforward, human album to date. The sound palette is not dissimilar to some of the pieces on NTS Session 4 and the 2016/18 LIVE material. But from what I can tell, none of this material has been heard before. The melodies are beautiful, at times breathtakingly so. The beats and bass are thick and rumbling, the sound design is masterful. Some tracks stuck out to me more than others, tho none of them felt lacking or out of place. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Having only heard it once, I can't say where I might place it among all their other works, but it certainly is a worthy piece of art, deserving of many a listen. If you are looking for more driving and catchy tunes, at least in the style that autechre does them, this likely isn't the album for you. This is more of a deep introspective experience. I have gotten into star gazing recently, and found myself imagining the music as a backdrop for that. Not to say the album sounds like outer space necessarily, but it does at times have that 'falling through space' vibe that autechre are so good at creating. I want to listen to this outside one night while looking at stars and nebula thru my binocular. I don't want to give it a rating just yet, but I would say it very well may grow to be a favourite of mine in time.