3 heads of the Black Dog, decades of post-techno and futuristic exotica
June 10, 2016 11:33 PM   Subscribe

Ken Downie, Ed Handley and Andy Turner were mates back in the day, digging into b-boy stuff as it came into England, mixing in sounds from Chicago and Detroit, acid and techno, and making it their own. They released three EPs on their own, and joined Warp Records in 1993 with the iconic album, Bytes, which already showed a fractured nature to the group, with eight different entities attributed for the album and individual tracks, but they wouldn't formally fracture for a few more years. Ken Downie kept The Black Dog, which he named in part for his battle with depression, while Ed and Andy became Plaid. With Plaid's newest album, The Digging Remedy, each now with 11 albums to their names. Read on for more history and tunes.

The original trio set about making EPs, first on their own Black Dog Productions label in 1989 with Virtual (title track on YouTube) and Age of Slack (tt, YT), and Techno Playtime EP (tt, YT) in 1990, then signing on with General Production Recordings (GPR) for Parallel (tt, YT) in 1991, Vir²l (tt, YT) in 1991/2 and Vantool (track: Hub) in '92, before releasing their debut album, Bytes (YT playlist), in March 1993 under the header of Black Dog Productions.
Black Dog Productions' full-length debut is a sprawling deviation from techno-as-throwaway-dancefloor-fare, weaving surprisingly engaging melodic and harmonic passages around complex rhythmic patterns and diverse, somewhat ambient atmospherics. Although all of the material was previously released in 12" or EP form, it holds up surprisingly well as a unified, coherent whole.
The album/ compilation/ thing marked the trio's first release on the young Warp label, notably being included as the third in the Artificial Intelligence series, cited by some as being the origins of "electronica," as compared to prior "floorfillers" in the style of techno and house. A track by Ken Downie under his I.A.O handle was included on the original Artificial Intelligence compilation, and featured as a remix on Bytes, alongside two tracks by Ed and Andy as Plaid, a moniker they had used with their first album as a duo, Mbuki Mvuki, which they released on their Black Dog Productions label in 1991.

The trio reunited and returned to release Temple of Transparent Balls in September of 1993 on GPR, moving between dark, creeping minimal techno and solid head nodders (if not foot movers), followed two years later by Spanners, the final album by The Black Dog as its original trio, in which
the band [drew] on everything from dub to avant-garde experimentalism to create a varied, intoxicating collection. Funk samples are twisted and played with rather than lovingly reused, lyrics eschewed for obscure or unintelligible samples at most, generally straightforward dancefloor tracks still sound slightly hesitant or off.
In 1994, Andy and Ed collaborated with Mind Over Rhythm, the duo of Alan and Dave Hill ("A double-10-inch of anonymous dancefloor fodder barely recognizable as Plaid (and who the heck are Mind Over Rhythm, anyway?).... Not worth the effort of tracking down."), while, Ken Downie went it alone as The Black Dog and made an album of Music For Adverts (And Short Films) in 1996 for Warp Records.
There are nods to Sandoz's ethno-dub and to Carl Craig's rough-cut breakbeat techno; there are pure, drifting syntheszier tones and forays into drum 'n' bass. You can hear the influence of Sheffield's Cabaret Voltaire in crude electric bass and spoken-word samples, and behind them, '70s ambient grandmaster Brian Eno looms like a father figure about whom Downie clearly feels ambivalent. The ambient, drifting nature of the music — particularly on the many placid, almost pastoral sketches — clearly owes a debt to Eno's late-modernist elevator music. But rave culture's jagged shards tear at the wallpaper in breakbeat bursts, and the title itself suggests a wry critique of Eno's coolly composed background listening.
Ken Downie came back the next year with a "live demo" recording, with a limited distribution on cassette, while Ed and Andy released Plaid's second album, Not For Threes.
Whereas most electronic acts stick with crystalline synth shards and chilly beats, Plaid is playful, offering warm washes of sound and buoyant, unpredictable programming. Not For Threes is more akin to the melodic minimalism of Boards Of Canada and Autechre than the complex fusion of Squarepusher, and vocal turns by Björk and Nicolette, among others, add that elusive "human element."
Plaid brought back the funky jazz influences two years later with Rest Proof Clockwork, another foray with Warp, which would be their primary home for their future albums. The album was "so painfully wonderful" that it turned Pitchfork's editor-in-chief into a secret British agent, Snake "Nerves of Steel" Snakeman. Plaid followed up with Double Figure, what may have been considered the third in a trilogy from Not For Threes, and arguably the most well conceived release as a whole by the group. But Plaid was not done, and truly like rest-proof clookwork, they returned two years later to release Spokes in 2003, "a darkly intriguing album that is another notch in the belt of a fine career for England’s reigning kings of melodic IDM," with a number of very Orbital-like tracks.

In 2002, Ken Downie brought back The Black Dog in coordination with Black Sifichi, a spoken word artist who works with different musicians internationally, for the album Unsavoury Products (rough playlist), which they released on Hydrogen Dukebox. Created by Black Dog as a loose collective, and inspired by Downie's work with Burroughs before his death, with an accompanying unsavoury website, now incompletely archived. The next year, there was a remix album, bringing in a range of weirdness and house beats.

The Black Dog officially became a trio again when Downie teamed up with Martin and Richard Dust of Dust Science Recordings. They released Silenced in 2005, and Radio Scarecrow in 2008 on Soma Quality Recordings. Martin Dust explained that "Silenced was about finding a way of working together. [On Radio Scarecrow] we wanted to move away from breaks and Eastern influences and make [The Black Dog sound] more cinematic."

Ed and Andy turned Plaid into a trio of sorts in 2006 for their album Greedy Baby, which featured visuals by Bob Jaroc (full visual album, tracklist and video details on Wikipedia). One suggestion from a reviewer: Skip the first track and Greedy Baby is a welcome addition to the Plaid catalogue, though not nearly as essential as their earlier works. That same year, they also released a soundtrack to Tekkonkinkreet, the animated take (full film on Crackle) on manga that is also called Black & White after the main characters. The soundtrack almost stole the show when Michael Arias’s manga adaptation Tekkonkinkreet came out in Japan – a major achievement given the vision that went into the film’s animation and cinematography, was performed live in subsequent years (mentioned previously). Plaid stuck with scores for Arias's Japanese films, releasing the soundtrack to Heaven's Door in 2008. The soundtrack is "a complete journey through the Plaid discography and taste with a Tokyo dust on."

The cinematics turned dark and political in 2009 with the Black Dog trio's third foray together, titled Further Vexations. "The amorphous Underground Resistance-style ambience allows machine-rendered melancholy to flow through the record like mercury, while snatches of industrial shunts and tinny clicks add gristle." The Black Dog also released a limited run CDr recording of a live set that year, titled Ov Mind, Ov Magick. Then, 14 years after nodding towards (or scowling at) Brian Eno, The Black Dog takes a solid swing at him with Music For Real Airports. "[G]iven their punk backgrounds amid the steel and perspiration of Sheffield and agit-electro, TBD focus on the more earthly ‘delights’ of your journey," not shiny sci-fi futurism and optimism. Liber Dogma, the group's album from 2011, :moves closer to both the sad electroballads of Darkstar and the dank chambers of Raime and Demdike Stare. It’s not that The Black Dog is catching up; more like the trio has converged with trends already headed in their direction."

If all that darkness has gotten you down, let's hop back over to Plaid, who also released a new album in 2011, titled Scintilli, which was summed up as "a strong set mixing their traditionally restless energy with focused momentum." It's not all happy sounds, and they released a bit more darkness when making a score to an interactive game/short film, The Carp and the Seagull (offline, description, videos and screenshots only; previously).

Looking ahead and looking back, The Black Dog "Mark II" returned in 2013 with a modern album that featured some comfortable nods back to Bytes, both musically and structurally, in their album Tranklements. "It’s clear that The Black Dog have got more adventurous with age and some of the best tracks – “First Cut” and “Internal Collapse” – teem with crashing snares, grainy bass and, in the background understated beats." In 2015, Neither/Neither continued the "Mark II" conceptual series about surveillance. "There's still both ambient and clubbier material here, but instead of being blended together over the course of an album, Neither/Neither has a downtempo half preceding the more dance floor-orientated tracks."

In these recent years, Plaid has made two more albums, too. In 2014 they released Reachy Prints, "thoughtful, refined electronica" that pulls in "dreamy harmonies, typifying a style that has infused contemporary pop and R&B," and "a bassier exploration under a melancholy veil." Their newest album was recently released by Warp, The Digging Remedy, is promoted through the music video for 'Do Matter' and 'Clocks', set with artwork from AVD78 (Facebook). "Firmly back where they belong: luring us in with quirky, brightly colored and accessible melodies, then trapping us in their dizzying maze of surprise, delight and hidden depths. Keep digging."

Really, you want to keep digging? OK: The Black Dogma is The Black Dog's current website, where you can find a ton of mixes and more, while Plaid.co.uk is Plaid's site, which points the way to The Digging Remedy webpage and its hidden links (though it may take a bit to load). If you want to dig about with less mystery, The Plaided has uploaded lots of Plaid-related tracks, mixes and videos to YouTube (including Black Dog material), and references (well, reposts) The Snapshots Foundation's profile of the duo. To hear from The Black Dog, here's an interview with Martin and Kevin Dust (as noted in Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture by Simon Reynolds (Google books preview), Ken is a bit of a recluse. (And as mentioned in that old write-up and in the interview video with the boys Dust, Black Dog Towers lives on via forum on The Black Dogma.)
posted by filthy light thief (16 comments total) 54 users marked this as a favorite
 
Final links: as noted in this 1996 interview with Plaid, after they split from Ken and The Black Dog, they did a good bit of remix work. Some of those got compiled in the 2003 2CD compilation Parts in the Post, which opens with a sublime remix, Björk's 'All is Full of Love' (Plaid mix).

More from Soundcloud: the official Plaid account, which is pretty dated for the most part, but there was a new Cord mix, and there are some older mixes you can download for free. The Black Dog is also on Soundcloud, and you can find a bunch of their new music on Dust Store Digital, which is a front-end for their Bandcamp account.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:50 PM on June 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


Awesome post, I'm a big fan of these guys. My favorite Black Dog track is Chase the Manhattan. From Plaid I am partial to Dang Spot.
posted by foobaz at 1:33 AM on June 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


Plaid also did the soundtrack for the anime Tekkon Kinkreet.
posted by juv3nal at 3:03 AM on June 11, 2016


In 2011/12 Black Dog collaborated with Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia in side project Dadavistic Orchestra
posted by Kosmob0t at 3:33 AM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


Yay Plaid! Back when I was obsessively into IDM a lot of people in that scene seemed to love to dismiss them as lightweights, but these days their albums are at the top of the list of music from that period that I'm still interested in listening to.
posted by murphy slaw at 4:15 AM on June 11, 2016


Fantastic post, thank you. I last saw Plaid at OSU in the mid-2000s. IDM is the best.
posted by vkxmai at 5:44 AM on June 11, 2016


I have been in love with The Black Dog since that three headed dog purple record

I could swim in this post for days, bye everyone
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 8:35 AM on June 11, 2016


Great fucking post. I cannot emphasize how important Plaid's OST is to Tekkon Kinkreet. A top ten anime, especially notable since it has a western director, Michael Arias.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 9:54 AM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


I found out about Plaid when they were opening for Squarepusher in Vancouver a million years ago. We had eaten pot cookies, and were in line at the venue when they came out and told us Squarepusher didn't make his flight or something. We went to a nearby pub, discouraged, and one of my friends was like, "I think we should go watch the openers - I've heard they're good." So we wandered back and I waded into the middle of the floor and then stood transfixed to slow motion footage of birds flying while Plaid killed it.

Then I went to see them again when they were on tour with another opener I didn't know of, Chris Clark. Chris Clark was so good that I felt bad for everyone who went on after him. There was just no way to be anything but anticlimactic after Chris Clark.

When I still played with Ableton Live a lot, I used to just listen to the first two bars of Plaid's Squance, looped. It could just go on for ever, and I'd be happy.
posted by neuromodulator at 1:39 PM on June 11, 2016


I love Plaid, in part because they do good music in a genre that's hyper-sensitive to microfashions while not giving a microfuck to those sensitivities. But mostly because they do good music. I didn't know about their history for ages - I just bought the albums - so finding out about the Black Dog backstory was fascinating, as has been following the recent progress. Perhaps that's because of my own run through life with said hound to an IDM soundtrack, or perhaps it's because the music continues to be worth the follow.

Great post.

(PS - if anyone knows what the medical slang 'Not for Threes' means, do tell. Been nagging...)
posted by Devonian at 7:38 PM on June 11, 2016


Amazing post, flt, like all your music posts. Cheers. TBD and Plaid have been my favorite bands ever since I started listening to electronic music. Pardon me if the items below have already been linked and I just missed them.

Plaid's Android EP on Clear Records was voted EP of the year in 1995 on the IDM mailing list, IIRC. Two of its four tracks had already appeared on the legendary Mbuki Mvuki but that was at the time nary impossible to find/hear, with Trainer being years away. (Soulseek did get there earlier.) One of the new tracks on Android, Angry Dolphin, appeared in another version on the Clear label compilation.

The AllMusic review of the Plaid + Mind Over Rhythm collaboration seems a wee bit harsh. It might be a minor item in the discography, but if one likes Plaid, it's worth at least checking out. Simpler and giddier side of early Plaid work, perhaps. Ex. Orange Sky.

Another collab was Repeat (Plaid + Mark Broom). The Repeats album is more brooding and less playful than the contemporary Plaid tracks, but somehow I'm drawn to its smoky feel. Ex. G-Thing.
posted by shortfuse at 9:08 PM on June 11, 2016


(PS - if anyone knows what the medical slang 'Not for Threes' means, do tell. Been nagging...)

I believe it's British jargon for "do not resuscitate".
posted by murphy slaw at 10:09 PM on June 11, 2016


Wonderful music. The Black Dog have the world-building, idiosyncratic appeal of BOC or Aphex, and I would rate Spanners alongside their work.

I saw Plaid in Tokyo with Aphex years ago around the time of Double Figure. They had a superb visual show, highlight of which was the unnerving New Family.
posted by Luther_Blissett at 8:12 AM on June 12, 2016


Funny, I always thought Beaumont Hannant was part of or involved with Black Dog. I guess they just have similar sounds and show up in the same places.
posted by Artw at 8:16 AM on June 12, 2016


Plaid also did the soundtrack for the anime Tekkon Kinkreet

Still for me an outstanding collaboration; the DVD extras go some way to depict how intimate their involvement was. TK is just a superb film, always in my top five, for what it's worth.

Great fucking post. I cannot emphasize how important Plaid's OST is to Tekkon Kinkreet. A top ten anime, especially notable since it has a western director, Michael Arias.

Absolute agreement.
posted by specialbrew at 12:05 PM on June 12, 2016


Plaid also did the soundtrack for the anime Tekkon Kinkreet

Still for me an outstanding collaboration; the DVD extras go some way to depict how intimate their involvement was


I read somewhere that they wrote the first score before seeing the film, but realized it didn't fit then re-made the score, but I couldn't find an article or write-up that confirms this.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:01 PM on June 13, 2016


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