earlier this year, the revitalised black dog collective released the rather wonderful further vexations album.
the fact that the album was released with 12 months of their other classic, radio scarecrow, and followed a well received festival tour, a few cracking mixes for high profile electronic dance sites, as well as being the driving force behind the dust science empire (and its offshoot ds:93), must prove beyond all doubt that there is definitely something in the water up there.
this new ep is 4 tracks comprising of three remixes of tunnels ov set, and one all new track, tripside syndicate.
like the team up with rob hood last year for the brilliant detroit vs sheffield ep, the black dog have designated this ep based upon their hometown, we are sheffield.
for many the money shot is the fact that that they called in one of their old label mates autechre to apply their trademark melodic clicks and eery drones in the form of a rare remix.
over the course of 7 minutes, autechre generally make things at first sound rather unsettling and disjointed.
i have read a lot about autechre releases and always been somewhat intimidated by the reviews, yet, having had this new black dog approved insight, it’s clear i have some catching up to do.
the combination of industrial whirs, deep sonics, fractured tunes for some reason works, though i suspect a whole album of such aural ticks, would probably end up with me searching for the lost chord.
the other mixes, crookes mix, and the bass soldiers manor top mix while not pulling in the punters to the same level, are no less fascinating.
crookes takes the stressed out darker ambience of the source material, and takes it up a level, before dropping the dance floor thump at the 3 minute mark, focusing the track for the movers. darkness may pervade the atmospherics, but there is a hugeness in its saturday night potential.
then for 3 minutes comes bass soldier and his twisted dubstep. while i’m still not a big follower of this type of noise, there still manages to be aspects that make this a worthwhile addition to the flow of the ep.
next comes the aforementioned autechre mix, and then to calm the nerves is the closing, tripside syndicate, a nice and easy slice of bleeped ambience to bring the listener back online.
excellent.
overall, the ep is a fascinating listen providing different styles for different needs.
last year detroit, this year, their hometown, where will the black dog go next i wonder.
only time will tell.
i for one, can’t wait.
more detail : here