RhoDeo 1305 Beats

Hello, the beats go on....so as the last two weeks were all about The Black Dog it stands to reason to direct some attention to the other part of the Productions, Plaid. They have'nt gained a mainstream following. Their music, however, has not failed to garner positive reviews, on average. While IDM, and techno in general, they have experienced a fair amount of popularity at times, they have worked largely within the confines of the low mainstream appeal of their style .. .... NJoy

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Although Plaid preexisted the association, the duo's Ed Handley and Andy Turner spent most of their early recording years with Ken Downie as the dancefloor-confounding Black Dog Productions. Meshing well with Downie's vision of heavily hybridized post-techno and obscurantist thematics, the pair brought several nascent Plaid tracks to the Black Dog table on the group's debut, Bytes, a collection of tracks recorded by various iterations of the three members. The group recorded several albums and EPs throughout the early and mid-'90s, helping to forge a style of dance music one step removed from the 12" considerations of the average faceless techno act; Handley and Turner's mutual love for early hip-hop contributed BDP's more bawdy, street-level grit.

The pair split from Downie in 1995, and began rechanneling their efforts full-time with an EP on the neo-electro Clear label before signing to Warp. (The pair also recorded an album with European techno figure Mark Broom under the pseudonym Repeat, two tracks of which also made it onto the South of Market EP, released on Jonah Sharp's similarly located Reflective imprint.) Both of Plaid's first two full-lengths, 1998's Not for Threes and the following year's Rest Proof Clockwork, were issued in the U.S. through Nothing. Once Warp set up a home on American shores, however, Plaid made the natural switch with the long-awaited collection Trainer, a retrospective including much of their early, pre-BDP work. The proper third album, Double Figure, followed in spring 2001,

Aside from their own material, Plaid have done extensive remix work for many other artists, including Red Snapper, Björk, Goldfrapp, and The Irresistible Force,  the handy Plaid remix collection Parts in the Post was issued in 2003 by Peacefrog. The end of the year brought the duo's fourth proper LP, Spokes. Plaid were quiet on the recording front for several years,  Plaid collaborated with video artist Bob Jaroc for their live performances and on the 5.1 audio/visual project entitled Greedy Baby. The project was completed on 20 July 2005, and was first shown at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in the South Bank Centre, and subsequently at the BFI Imax cinema in Waterloo, London. Greedy Baby was released on DVD from Warp Records on 26 June 2006.

Furthermore in 2006, Plaid composed and performed the original score to Michael Arias' anime film Tekkonkinkreet, and then went on to rejoin Arias for his second feature, Heaven's Door, as well as two of his subsequent short films. In 2011, they returned with Scintilli released on Warp, where their orientation on filmscores is still felt.  .

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This was Plaid's first album. All tracks on this album are contained on the first disc of the compilation Trainer released in 2000. As far as Mbuki Mvuki goes, if there was a record to enter a World Cup of unique and funky as hell electronic records it would win all of the games without conceding a goal and it’s eight tracks crowned players of the tournament. This isn’t such a bold statement when the record’s title in the African language of Bantu means “Dance till your clothes fall off”.

The music on offer is hard to pigeonhole and though the tracks are about 120-125 bpm it is neither a house, ambient or breaks album. Unlike a lot of Plaid’s later releases the music is very accessible and the majority of the tracks are a fascinating brew of deep but playful techno, latin/jazz as well as pitch shifted hip-hop and r&b samples. Needless to say these handcrafted sounds mix together creating colours that you couldn’t imagine seeing with your eyes.

Plaid - Mbuki Mvuki ( flac 249mb)

01 Anything 5:04
02 Slice Of Cheese 5:50
03 Link 6:04
04 Perplex 4:05
05 Summit 4:37
06 Bouncing Checks 5:33
07 Yak 5:53
08 Scoobs In Columbia 5:22

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Plaid's second full-length release, Not for Threes, is separated from its predecessor by one of the most celebrated side trips in electronic listening music's brief but broad history. As members of the Black Dog, Ed Handley and Andy Turner (together with Ken Downie) helped set the standard for experimental techno, bringing a daring range of influences together in a space consistently characterized by quality and innovation. As such, great things were expected of Threes, and with a couple exceptions, the pair delivers. Although treading far closer than any Black Dog material ever did to the sort of pop electronica of Plaid's interim work with Björk (who appears here on the gorgeous "Lilith"), Threes is ambitious on different terms, moving from the abused and distorted breaks of "Extork" and "Prague Radio" to a balanced radio-friendliness that never sacrifices ingenuity for ease. A handful of tracks feature vocals throughout, and while the results had the predictable effect of irritating BD purists, they actually work remarkably well (partly because the tracks contain absolutely no trace of compositional compromise). A few of the tracks ("Headspin," "Abla Eedio," the too-brief "Seph") sit easily beside the very best Black Dog.

Plaid - Not For The Trees ( flac 411mb)

01 Abla Eedio 7:56
02 Kortisin 5:23
03 Headspin 5:34
04 Myopia (Voc.Mara) 4:32
05 Lat 0:46
06 Extork (Voc.Nicolette) 4:11
07 Prague Radio 4:46
08 Fer 4:35
09 Ladyburst (Voc.Mara) 4:19
10 Rakimou (Voc.Mara) 6:02
11 Ol 4:55
12 Seph 1:36
13 Lilith (Voc.Björk) 4:38
14 Forever 1:16
15 Getting 2:55
16 Milh 5:24

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On the surface, Plaid's second full-length charts similar territory as their debut, with the same intriguing mix of old-school flow and electronic programming clout, plus an odd tendency to play with certain synth presets -- steel drums, for instance -- that would make most electronica technicians cringe. True, there's a bit more hip-hop flavor on this one, like the faux turntablism on the excellent tracks "Shackbu" and "Little People." And the novelty angle Plaid have occasionally nodded to in the past is out on two tracks especially: the vocoderized bossa-nova number "New Bass Hippo" and "Dang Spot," the kind of popcorn electronica that harks back to Perrey & Kingsley. When it comes down to it, the technical differences between Rest Proof Clockwork and Plaid's debut Not for Threes are minimal. Still, there's a certain soul to this album that displays the maturing ex-breakdancers progressing even after more than ten years of recording. In fact, two of the most beautiful tracks of Plaid's long career are right here. The first is "Buddy," a yearning downtempo track with echoing effects; the second is "Dead Sea," a beatless piece of glorious synth-strings which evoke past civilization just as achingly as "The Crete That Crete Made" (from Temple of Transparent Balls, the 1993 album by Handley and Turner's former concern, the Black Dog). So, in sum, Rest Proof Clockwork is yet another production masterpiece to file on the shelf with the rest of Plaid's work. The element that puts them far, far ahead of every other beatminer out there is a growing sense of spirit that lets the machines do the singing.

Plaid - Rest Proof Clockwork (flac 389mb)

01 Shackbu 5:26
02 Ralome 4:29
03 Little People 4:06
04 3 Recurring 0:47
05 Buddy 6:35
06 Dead Sea 4:20
07 Gel Lab 4:14
08 Tearisci 0:56
09 Dang Spot 3:57
10 Pino Pomo 5:08
11 Last Remembered Thing 4:18
12 Lambs Eye 1:20
13 New Bass Hippo 5:43
14 Churn Maiden 1:12
15 Air Locked 4:16
15 (hidden 3:42) Face Me (Voc.Alison Goldfrapp) 4:17

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Previously (04/12/08)  new re-rip

Plaid - Double Figure (01 * 174mb)
Plaid Remixes - Parts In The Post I (03 * 145mb)
Plaid Remixes - Parts In The Post II (03 * 137mb)

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