The extent of the Plaid issue is fully apparent on this
extensive collection of remixes. From their early work
with Ken Downie as part of Black
Dog and the first official Plaid long player (Not
For Threes) to their more recent work, the
Plaid sound has become increasingly uniform and weak.
If there’s no doubt regarding the pair’s
capacity to put together tight electronic constructions
and develop beautiful melodic lines, Ed Handley and
Andy Turner seem to have slipped in some sort of comfort
zone and are not apparently keen to get out of it again.
Unlike their label mates Autechre,
Tom Jenkinson
or Richard D James,
Plaid seem to have, with their last album, stalled,
and despite the promising P Brane, evoking
in some parts the work of Boards
Of Canada, the pair’s original electro sound,
better showcased on the excellent Trainer
has given way to a formulaic and uninspiring collection
of clone-like compositions.
Undeniably one of the most high profile outfits on the
original electronica movement, Plaid have, beside their
own releases, always thrived on collaborating with the
most intriguing artists, including Björk,
Nicolette and our favourite Japanese songbird, Coppé.
Collecting remixes mostly done in the last five years,
Parts In The Post offers an interesting insight
into the world of Handley and Turner, without however
providing a satisfying answer on where it all went wrong.
It appears however that the most interesting section
of their work is contained on just a handful of tracks
here, from the reworking of Gregory Fleckner Quartet’s
Juicy Jazz Girls, Grandmaster Flash’s
Scorpio (a rather recent remix which witnesses
Plaid going back to the root of their sound for a moment),
to the ever excellent remix of Nicolette’s seminal
No Government. Three tracks that bare the unmistakable
original Plaid sound, grown on hip-hop beats and Detroit
techno and denoting an imaginative approach to sound
structures. Despite some interesting moments on Björk’s
All Is Full Of Love, Koolaking’s One
Latin, on which Handley and Turner force their
organic electronica to flirt with salsa to quite enjoyable
effect, or Coba’s Parisian After Dinner,
the rest of the album is disappointingly uneven, ranging
from the tedious (Ebz’s Malawi Gold)
to the purely criminal (despite an promising intro,
Goldfrapp’s
haunting Utopia certainly didn’t deserve
this!). Only glimmer of light for the future, Wrong
Ways, an as yet unreleased track from the pair,
shows some progression on the band’s sound, building
on the structures of P Brane by introducing
some darker beats and slightly more varied soundscapes.
Such a collection of remixes would normally be the subject
of intense exchanges from electronica fans (see the
release of Aphex Twins’s
26 Mixes
For Cash), but Parts In The Post has
so far created no more than a ripple, and considering
the extreme lack of consistency of this record when
it comes to quality, it is hardly surprising. At a time
when they former band mate Ken Downie is enjoying a
renewed interest, it is perhaps time for Plaid to react
or disappear.
2.6/5 |
