Plaid - Scintilli

Autechre confound with their auditory mathematics while Squarepusher synthesize Billy Cobham and Stanley Clarke. Somewhere out there, for many many many years now, Plaid have cut their own row of accessible electronic excursions with little or no notice by virtue of the electronic gurus who inhabit Warp records overshadowing them. As their former compatriot in the Black Dog continues to drift further and further into the ether, this pair have redefined what the concept of balance is due to their knack for writing melodies and deliberately low-key presence both on and off the web.

I should be more excited by this album than I am. The simple fact is that if you've heard either of the film scores they have done during the wilderness years between an actual Plaid record, you'd be rather underwhelmed by what's on offer here. Fans of the 'Double Figure' release will no doubt eat this up as it contains, like that one, some of their most direct and melodic compositions yet but for those who wanted to be challenged by this pair again as Plaid... it's not happening. Despite how well produced and executed the music is, there isn't the depth of feeling and overwhelming emotional tone which their earlier works contained. I find myself looking at the 'Heaven's Door' material they did, trying to understand how it is that they watered 'Scintilli' down with such abandon. I suppose the public were clamoring for a new album and it was time to shut them up.

None of these songs are very long, which may say more about the future of Plaid than any interview or facebook wall posting. It feels more and more like they prefer to operate behind the scenes composing incredibly dynamic works for films or bastardizing the sounds of others via their somewhat dissecting remixes. I would not hold your breath for another album from this band, they have simply diversified too much to be contained as simply Plaid any longer. A lot of what is on here sound more like film cues than songs so on that level, it's a great thing to get more of them but that indefinably subterranean manner in which they gave us Plaid appears to have been abandoned. It's still Ed and Andy but the similarity ends there. This could have been remarkable after such a long gap between albums but as it is, this is simply the ghost of Plaid going through the motions and unashamedly phoning it in from time to time.

Oh well. Sep 08 2011