December 2009: The Black Dog
December 29, 2009
Artist: The Black Dog
Album: Further Vexations
Genre: Electronica, IDM
As this picture exemplifies quite beautiful, it is IMPOSSIBLE for British electronic musicians to look cool. Think of the greats, Fatboy Slim would look more at home behind an IT help desk, Squarepusher has the look of a creepy uncle you keep your girlfriend away from at family functions, whereas if you ever saw Richard D. James on the street you’d probably call the police immediately, whether he was anywhere near that girls’ school or not. If they don’t look like they’re having trouble fitting comfortably into their skin, then they almost definitely struggle not to look like dads who’ve picked up a bunch of strange machines that make noises on eBay.
The boom of electronic music in the nineties ensures that anyone who latched onto the genre during its heyday is now at least ten years older than they were when they first shredded the decks in search of pulsating beats. I can’t deny the deep-down feeling of confusion I feel when seeing that a wicked electro track has not been composed by some twenty-something, anti-social drug-dropping lunatic in his bedroom, but instead by a refined pair of gentlemen who probably have teenage children by now. Anyway, I digress…
The Black Dog along the way has contained multiple musicians. For their most recent 2009 release, Further Vexations, Ken Downie and the Dust brothers, Martin and Richard are the chief creators. In 1995 two members of The Black Dog left to form Plaid, another worthwhile electronic band, and for some reason the two bands are often confused as being the same thing.
Further Vexations is an excellent electronic album. I usually find that modern electronic music has a tendency to rhythmically pulsate itself into the background too easily, with not much going on for the listener to enjoy. This is not the case, and the album starts with the lively Biomantric L-if-e, which is one of the highlights on the album. Checking the odd press release for the album brought to my attention the fact that this album is supposed to be a protest at the increasing Orwellianisation of Britain. I can’t say I really felt anything like whilst listening too it and the album is less eerie than they might think. In parts it is just beautiful, it’s not something that would work very well as a Half-Life 2 soundtrack, for example, because of the cheery hopefulness it conveys in many songs.
Other personal highlights on the album include North Electronic Soul [Part III] and Skin Clock, two songs that are instantly appealing to the extent that even my brother wanted to know what they were when walking past my desk. He listens to L’il Wayne…
I went back and listened to some previous Black Dog releases and found them to be enjoyable, but slightly over-complicated and ‘intense’. It was much more difficult to pick out the melodies in Radio Scarecrow (often lauded as The Black Dog’s greatest work to date) than it is in this beautiful release. Furthermore, being released in 2009, it marks the third month in a row that I’ve actually listened to something relevant and up to date! I’ve yet to find it on any compulsory album of the year lists though. That’s a crying shame.
