RhoDeo 1304 Beats

Hello, the beats go on....as announced last week more Black Dog and despite what i said last week for starters it's back to the beginning but then remastered in 2007, all those rare early EP's got to shine for a second time and for a much bigger audience this time. One of those rare occurrences happened to The Black Dog with the introduction of the Dust brothers into the mix and clearly the synergy is evident, together they have released a considerable body of hi quality work some of which is here to .. .... NJoy

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Taking their name from a British euphemism for imminent doom, the Black Dog Productions was founded by Ken Downie along with Ed Handley and Andy Turner. In 1989, they were unable to find a label to back their releases and had to start their own, Black Dog Productions. Their first full-length album, Bytes, was released on 15 March 1993. Their music was often produced under a number of different names, such as Close Up Over, Xeper, Atypic, I.A.O., Balil and the Discordian Popes.
Forging a challenging, relentless combination of early technao, electro, and hip-hop with a penchant for odd time signatures, high-tech atmospherics, and Egyptian iconography, the group immediately distinguished itself from the scores of disposable techno musicians covering familiar ground. They were immediately placed in the emerging "intelligent techno" category upon the release of their full-length debut..

As Plaid, Ed Handley and Andy Turner had already released a handful of material (including an album) prior to meeting Downie, but their time spent in BDP was their most productive up to that point. In addition to the Dog's inclusion on the perhaps more high-profile Artificial Intelligence compilations on Warp and remixes for the likes of Björk, Blondie, and UNKLE, they also released several full-length works as a group before Handley and Turner defected in 1995 to refocus on Plaid full-time. Downie continued on with the Black Dog name, releasing the full-length Music for Adverts (and short films) in 1996. In 2002 Downie collaborated with Parisian spoken word artist Black Sifichi on the William S. Burroughs tribute Unsavoury Products, and the Downie/Sifichi pairing was given the remix treatment on the following year's Genetically Modified. In 2001, Downie teamed up with Richard and Martin Dust, owners of the label Dust Science Recordings. Since then, they have started to play live again and have released eight EPs and four full-length albums on Dust Science. Their first album, Silenced, was released in 2005.

Silenced, although only his second proper album since 1997, is another excellent album of listening techno; it bears all the hallmarks of his Black Dog classics without overly relying on them, and it has to force a readjustment in how critics view him in the history of electronica. Most closely resembling Black Dog's 1995 record Parallel (right down to the "Bolt" interludes), the record is driven more by mood than technology; the drum programs aren't complex, but Downie has a way of bewitchingly conjuring the past with his productions that not even Boards of Canada can touch.

The second, Radio Scarecrow, was released in 2008 and was very well received and nominated for DJ Mag’s Best of British 2008.
The follow-up, Further Vexations, was released in 2009. It was described as having a dark cynicism of Orwellian practices of government and the passivity of the general public. "We’ve helplessly watched with mounting horror, while the government trashed the country, signed away its sovereignty to Brussels (with a flourish of a specially minted silver pen), sold off precious national industries and assets at next to bargain basement prices, and indulged itself with two utterly pointless wars which it couldn’t afford," the group stated on their home page. It was followed by Final Collected Vexations a year later

In May 2010, the Black Dog teamed with creative agency "Human" to create Music For Real Airports, described by them as "a contemporary reply to Brian Eno's work from the 70s". While Eno's album is well known for being peaceful and sedate, The Black Dog intend theirs to be tense and bittersweet, saying "This record is not necessarily a comfortable listen. But it captures the spectrum of emotions stirred by airports.
2011 saw a flurry of activity under a Liber 'umbrella' Chaos, Dogma, Nox, temple, Kult.

2 Days ago The Black Dog announced a series of new 12″s entitled Darkhaus and a new studio album called Tranklements. The Darkhaus series will be released across four volumes and with different labels, with first released on 25 /03/13  Tranklements is a body of work created as 16 unique and individual tracks. Each one is its own little object, something we’ve created to externalise, explain and express the world we find ourselves in. To be released 20/05/13.

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Compiling the remastered versions of their first 6 EP's between 1989 and 1992 Virtual, Age Of Slack, Techno Playtime EP, Parallel, Vir²l, Vanttool, a must have for any Black Dog fan.

Note !

The Black Dog - Book of Dogma 1 ( flac 351mb)

01 Virtual 9:32
02 Ambience With Teeth 5:58
03 The Weight 5:40
04 The Weight (Liposuction Mix) 4:20
05 Age Of Slack 6:44
06 Tactile 5:15
07 Techno Playtime 4:06
08 Apt 4:26
09 Chiba 4:15
10 It Felt Like It 3:13
11 Seers And Sages 4:51
12 Dog Solitude 2:48

The Black Dog - Book of Dogma 2 ( flac 311mb)
13 Parallel 5:02

14 Squelch 4:54
15 Erb 5:00
16 Glossolalia 4:54
17 Hub 4:10
18 Vanttool 6:42
19 Aural Wallpaper 3:48
20 Rainbow Bridge 4:08
21 Virtual HMMM.. 4:37
22 Vir²l 4:38

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If any one UK outfit was responsible for taking the Detroitian templates and blending rather than bastardising their boundaries into something genuinely innovative, then that would be The Black Dog. Remaining as invigorating as ever, visionary early-90s works like Temple of Transparent Balls and Spanners might have been tagged intelligent techno but their cutting edges bled influences into d&b, ambient and electronica. Now a reshaped trio (Ed Handley and Andy Turner long departed to continue their Plaid project), original member Ken Downie and kindred underground spirits Martin and Richard Dust have spent three years labouring on this latest sonic masterpiece.

Beautifully crafted throughout, The Black Dog's signature mosaic-perfect detailing and deeply complex imagery is at once at work on the uncurling ambient reflection Train By The Autobahn. Upping the pace, Riphead V9 is deep techno with enough layers to spend hours lost in, UV Sine is a majestic string-laden soar whilst the ambient sci-fi dub dread of Floods
 V3.9 and Beep permeate the current techno/dubstep boundaries perfectly. But where Radio Scarecrow's electronic frequencies truly charm the soul is on measured melodic tracks like Digital Poacher and Witches Ov, where moments of genuine contemplative bliss emerge out of mournful beauty with an intensity not matched by anyone. Never has techno felt quite so human. This album is something of a masterpiece which, by the time it’s nearly over with the lovely ancient-sounding piano of ‘Ghost Vexations’, can sit as an all-time electronic classic itself.

The Black Dog - Radio Scarecrow ( flac 422mb)

01 Transmission Start 2:52
02 Train By The Autobahn Pt 1 5:03
03 Train By The Autobahn Pt 2 6:39
04 Riphead v9 5:21
05 UV Sine 7:43
06 ...Short Wave Lies 5:01
07 Siiiipher 3:42
08 Digital Poacher 2:47
09 Coda 2:14
10 Set To Receive 3:51
11 EVP Echoes 4:32
12 Floods v3.9 5:54
13 Beep 3:37
14 Witches Ov 3:47
15 Dials & Dialers 1 1:07
16 Ghost Vexations 3:15
17 Dials & Dialers 2 1:30

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While Radio Scarecrow represented quite a departure from its predecessor, Further Vexations appears in many ways as a more in-depth exploration of a particular groove, as if the stones turned on Radio Scarecrow had, with times, brought to the surface much more subterranean life than originally found. On this latest offering, Ken Downie and brothers Richard and Martin Dust have laid out some pretty stark and dense soundscapes and continuously play with light and shade to give their sound its distinctive relief. After a somewhat rather serene opening piece, The Black Dog up the antes and get cracking, first with the deep pulsating 0093, then with the equally dark and ominous You’re Only SQL and We Are Haunted, the latter built around a rather more minimal combination of beat and bass than any other track on here, placing it at the intersection of Detroit and Berlin. The last three tracks in particular pushing deep into The Black Dog’s exquisite dreamy world. Here, the soundscapes become much more open and light floods in once again, hitting various angles to create rich colourful strips which become increasingly vivid to finally take their full effect on closing piece Kissing Someone Else’s D.O.G.

With Further Vexations  The Black Dog continue to dispense their beautifully polished blend of electronica. Faithful to the original scope of the band, yet resolutely modern and fresh, the Sheffield-based trio show no sign of mellowing.

The Black Dog - Further Vexations (flac 332mb)

01 Biomantric L-if-e 5:13
02 0093 4:34
03 Phil: Because Ov, Indeed 0:46
04 You're Only SQL 4:57
05 We Are Haunted 4:00
06 CCTV Nation 4:59
07 Stempel 4:35
08 Northern Electronic Soul Pt 1 2:53
09 Northern Electronic Soul Pt 2 3:24
10 Northern Electronic Soul Pt 3 4:51
11 Skin Clock 6:03
12 Dada Mindstab 5:10
13 Tunnels Ov Set 5:11
14 Later Vexations 6:24
15 Kissing Someone Else's D.O.G 5:24

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