Black Dog Productions
Spanners

Ken Downie, Ed Handley, and Andy Turner have been experimenting relentlessly for too many years.

That grim reverberation combined with the suspensions of geometric electronic dialogues is the hallmark even in this double album.

Released in 1994 and certainly a flag of the consecration of their art.

Excellent exponents of old-school IDM and heavily engaged in a thousand other projects, including Plaid.

The opener "Raxmus" is already an exemplary mix of chill out, lounge, and drum'n'bass. We're behind by twenty years, but nothing has aged poorly.

We immediately get to "Barbola Work" and its sensational interlocks, while "Psil-Cosyin" is the classic "Black Dog style" dance. A pie of cold sounds but surprisingly well-fixed and lively.

Then the miles-long expanses of lights, breezes, and emotions with "Nommo". Boards Of Canada will head down this path...heavy fogs fall on the black and white synth keys.

The drum kit and its lines are eternally faithful to the jungle carpet of "Chase The Manhattan", where another universe welcomes us benevolently. There is no oppressive breakcore/cyborg shock. It's a further update of LFOs and an enhancement of the fruits of Seefeel's "Quique" (released the previous year). It's a tantalizing voodoo dance between androids and chemical molecules.

Various tracks materialize in six minutes, like the cocktail of "Further Harm", and anyway nothing better could be expected from the "exercises" of a Gottsching's "E2-E4".

Also admirable are the picturesque crepuscular airs unleashed in "Tahr" and in the "synthetic serenade" to the Moon of "Pot Noddle".

The engagement of the mind with a DJ set.