Mere weeks after Autechre released SIGN, their first standard-length studio album in a decade, the duo issued PLUS, a companion effort bearing a similar cover design, this time with lush greens instead of flame-like orange shades. While SIGN was often far more textural than rhythmic, recalling more ambient-leaning Autechre works such as Amber and Quaristice, PLUS places a greater emphasis on steely beat constructions, and it generally feels colder, though not necessarily less human. "DekDre Scap B" opens the album with a series of splatters, stutters, and convulsions, yet close attention reveals that a nearly inaudibly faint pulse is barely holding it all together. "7FM ic" is a bit more chipper, and sounds like a fleet of alien spacecraft activating to a beat…

Autechre have surprise released their second album of the month. PLUS, released digitally at 11 a.m. Eastern on Warp, follows SIGN, the uncharacteristically accessible LP they released on October 16.

Autechre albums are like language immersion programs: At first they don’t make sense, but listen close and familiar shapes emerge. Not that SIGN is accessible per se: We’re still talking about something closer to computer programming than what most people would consider music. But for a group that can be almost mythically forbidding (2016’s four-hour-long—and 12-hours-dense—elseq), SIGN is almost pop. Thirty years in and the UK production duo’s roots still show: Hip-hop on “M4 Lema,” house on “psin AM,” far-out synth soundtracks on “F7” and “Metaz form8.” But it all remains deconstructed and once removed. Most music depends on memories of something you’ve heard before. With Autechre, you can feel your brain stretch as you listen. Normally they sound like they’re pushing forward or settling in. With SIGN, it’s both.