Michael Collins: November 2021

Autechre - Sign (Warp, 2020)

It's difficult to discuss any Autechre album by itself, as they are a group who have defined themselves and have been defined through their constant mutations and an unwillingness to look back. Considering some of the output of the last two decades, the undulating experimentation of Confield mutated into the more precise Draft 7.30, which in turn evolved in to the cold hyperprecision of Untilted, before collapsing in to the more digestible, supple jams of Quaristice. This is of course completely ignoring their later explorations of extreme long form, four hour plus albums such as Elseq and NTS Sessions. There's a real sense with Autechre that anything written about them is instantly redundant, with the artists already surging ahead to create something completely novel and completely head scrambling. No single event typified this tendency than the arrival of Sign, which arrived to critical surprise that it fit on to one CD like a conventional album. Less than a month later, Autechre released another 'companion' album, Plus, completely making all speculation of a move to convention superfluous. But what of Sign? Warm, distorted ghosts of synths overlapping inky black squalls of ultraprocessed layers. Undulating analogue sounding pads stutter and duck out, almost as if some kind of processing limit has been reached. Perhaps the cover is leading in this regard, but shuddering tendrils of orange emerge from infinite, scraping sheets of carbon. Unlike the pummeling aggression of their exquisite 11th album Exai, Sign resembles the work of Vangelis if anything, if not in terms of palette, then certainly in terms of its often languid nature and its ability to evoke deliriously complex science fiction dreamscapes. Frankly, this is not Autechre at their most envelope pushing and essential (Exai takes that trophy personally, though Quaristice is edging in there), but in terms of being the soundtrack to a bleakly beautiful science fiction film that hasn't been made, it's certainly an accomplished offering.

Lovebites - Awakening from Abyss (JPU, 2017)

Ultra peppy pop metal with some of the most extremely Japanese production I've heard. Pounding, impeccably precise pentatonic thrashing, often with a vaguely middle-eastern flavour, the whole album is like being trapped in a particularly difficult Dance Dance Revolution track. Scratches an itch.

Darkthrone - Eternal Hails...... (Peaceville, 2021)

Good old dependable Darkthrone. Chugging out almost 20 albums over the last three decades, the Norwegian stalwarts sort of resemble a black metal version of The Fall. While their style shifts from album to album, it's always exactly the same primitive black metal. Refusing to play live or even use an amplifier, Nocturno Culto and Fenriz are possibly the least frivolous rock and roll stars to have existed, trem-picking their way through an ostensibly unfashionable and yet deservedly popular career. Eternal Hails...... is 'EPIC HEAVY BLACK METAL' according to the spartan back cover, which basically means that the songs are approaching ten minutes and some of the riffs sound a bit NWOBHM-ish, but this is still Darkthrone at their dirgey, insouciant best. Big bonus points for not being massive racists or murdering anyone.