Further Vexations

15 years ago I was in a record shop near where I live and I picked up 'Spanners' after seeing the uber-cool GCI cover. Sadly, I put the album back on the shelf and didn't purchase it that day...

So, in 2009 comes Further Vexations, hot on the heels of the album of 2008, the majestic, towering and intense Radio Scarecrow... Following that album was always going to be laugh out loud tough, but in Further Vexations, the Scarecrow has been given a darker, more claustrophobic but equally staggering twin...

Taken as a concept album which is tBD's "artistic response to 21st century rat on your neighbour smokefree Britain" this is grandiose stuff indeed. The textures are rich, almost suffocating in their intensity, the beats continue to be prevalent and permeate the dense ambient layers, there are clicks and crackles, samples and static, all of which add up to a living, breathing experience of an album which demands attention from track one...

To think that tBD have produced this beautiful work so soon after their finest hour (RS) is difficult to take in. As IDM or Intelligent Techno, this sets a new benchmark and echoes the great Master himself, Richard H Kirk. I'm much reminded of his genre defining double disc classic recorded as Electronic Eye - "Closed Circuit" (please do check iTunes for that). FV has those dark, eerie but warmly enveloping overtones and seeing as that album is the greatest ever recorded, that makes the gap between FV and RS even more astonishing.

I've also gotta just mention Northern Electronic Soul [Part 3]. Surely this is tBD's best track ever...??

So, Martin, Richard and Ken have taken over the mantle, they've recieved the baton. Black Dog v1.0 has finally been eclipsed. It is v2.0 now who are making the finest Electronica ever heard in the UK. It's they who deserve the attention, the applause and the recognition. Bytes & Spanners can now be considered as merely components of a back catalogue, no longer are they the highlights...

Whatever process laid behind making the music on this album, it's taken them to some very heady heights indeed..... Thank You so much for making this record....

A Masterpiece.

I'm one of those people who lost touch with (or gave up on?) the Black Dog after the parting of the ways with Ed Handley and Andy Turner, until they resurfaced on Soma a few years back. What they did in between I really couldn't say.

What I can say is that they don't make 'em like this any more...

"Further Vexations" takes me right back to the Warp Records' "Artificial Intelligence" era and it's probably closer to the true spirit of electronic music than the current crop of releases by their aforementioned former label.

The Black Dog were always very Detroit-influenced - arguably THE most Detroit-influenced UK techno act and this new LP is no exception. If you're a fan of that genre you won't be disappointed. Despite all that, it lacks the inventiveness of their early GPR work - in particular what for me was their finest album "Temple of Transparent Balls". But hey, that WAS sixteen years ago. I'd settle for making a record that sounds as good as this now, never mind in 16 years time.

This thing is unbelievable - seriously, seriously good. Nobody touches these guys for epic, gorgeous, often spartan often dense detroit-inflected lushiousness.
It's tragic for everyone else on the scene really - they may as well take up golf...