Out of the bubble
By Daily Bruin Staff
April 9, 2002 9:00 p.m.
 Warp Records On their current tour, the electronic music
duo Plaid will be playing the El Rey on April 11,
promoting their new EP in the United States.
"P-Brane" is scheduled for release on April 29.
By Andrew Lee
Daily Bruin ContributorÂ
Judging from the flatness of his voice, Andy Turner sounds a bit
tired.
“We had a bit of a nightmare last night in
Tallahassee,” he said on the phone from his room in Orlando,
the group’s next tour stop. “The sound went down 20
minutes during Nobukazemura Takemu’s set and also 20 minutes
before we were due to go on. That was a bit weird; we had to have
people listening from our monitors. So there have been some good
nights (on this tour), but also some not-so-good nights.”
Turner and Ed Handley make up Plaid, a group that isn’t
new to the world of electronic music ““ the veteran duo has
recorded together for over 10 years. Rising from the ashes of the
electronic collective Black Dog Productions in 1989 and signing on
to Warp Records shortly after their start as a duo, the group
remains a vital musical force in the U.K.
But they’re still getting accustomed to bringing their
beats Stateside. The current tour, which includes a stop at the El
Rey on April 11, marks only their second extensive trip across the
country, a country with venues not especially used to accommodating
their particular brand of music.
“I think electronic music has been received slightly
better in Europe than in America; it’s been more accessible
for longer, so there are venues there that cater more to electronic
music,” Turner said. “The venue we played in at
Tallahassee last night was totally a rock venue. The system was in
mono, and that’s kind of dreadful for what we do because
it’s all about sound placement. So we had to rewire the whole
rig when we got in there.”
Despite the bumps, Plaid is still marching forward, continuing
their tour in promotion of their new EP, “P-Brane,”
scheduled for release April 29. According to Turner, the release
follows in the same direction as 2001’s, “Double
Figure,” which abandoned the more unconventional elements of
previous albums to embrace a more purely techno sound.
Their previous sound dates all the way back to when the two met
during high school in East Anglia in Southeast England. As
teenagers, they tried to immerse themselves into an electronic
scene that was still very much underground at the time.
“We certainly weren’t making anything that anyone
else was hearing,” Turner said. “Plus we couldn’t
really get a lot of the music ourselves. Any things we got, we got
from friends in London or stuff that we could occasionally pick up
on the radio. But it really wasn’t that easy to get a hold of
(electronic) music back then.”
 Warp Records Plaid are really good friends when they’re
not wielding axes.
Before teaming up with Ken Downie to form Black Dog Productions,
the two managed to release some material on their own. As members
of Black Dog, Andy and Ed built a following with the release of
1991’s “Byte.” Dubbed by critics as
“intelligent techno,” it was an elaborate album filled
with complex rhythms and structures that easily separated itself
from the more disposable techno coming out of the scene.
After disbanding Black Dog and starting off on their own in
1995, Plaid has since shed the more progressive image, especially
with the back-to-basics style of “Double Figure.” The
album features few actual instruments, relying on synths to carry
the ambient soundscapes and accompany the pounding rhythms. Turner
shows enthusiasm toward the response generated by that style on
their tour.
“There definitely seems to be a bit of a buzz about
electronic music here in the U.S.,” Turner said.
“It’s strange because a lot of the music we were into
back then was the early hip hop and the early techno that was
coming from America. It’s strange that nobody really picked
up on it, or that it was only received in a few places. Detroit
music was the music we really aspired to when we first started out.
The kind of melodic stuff with the funky groove going on underneath
““ that was the kind of the music we really liked then and
really still play now.”
Armed with two Macintosh G4 powerbooks, the two have been able
to craft entire songs on tour and away from their studio. In fact,
starting with “Double Figure,” they began working
entirely on Macintoshes, relying on their computers’ software
synthesizers and samplers.
The ease of recording gives the pair more freedom to experiment
with sounds, as evidenced by the song “Twin Home,” off
of “Double Figure.” The ambient track, featuring
complex rhythmic patterns occasionally interjected with eerie and
melodic synths, was composed using one sample: a recording of
running tap water.
“That was quite fun, actually, just limiting ourselves to
that one 20-second sample,” Turner said. “You can find
so much detail even within such a small bit of audio.”
Surely, Plaid’s exploratory music and Turner’s
tendency to refer to his studio equipment as his “toys”
reflects a rare and unconventional enthusiasm toward recording, as
if the process remains more important than the final product
itself.
“Generally (a song is only finished) when Warp says
“˜we need the songs now,'” Turner said. “I
don’t think you can ever really think anything is finished. I
think it’s a constantly evolving thing, so it’s
basically when you have to provide a master that you say,
“˜well, I’ve got to let it go now.’ That’s
quite a difficult thing to do, really.”
Aside from the occasional experimental explorations, however,
Turner is quick to distance himself from the more avant-garde
electronic music that garners the most attention in the States.
In fact, any negative reaction directed toward the group is
commonly based on their less adventurous musical style when placed
next to Warp Records labelmates like Autechre and Aphex Twin.
“There is that IDM (intelligent dance music) scene which
is perhaps the more left-field edge of electronic music, and
we’re kinda lumped into that,” Turner said, “But
I don’t think we’re that bothered about breaking new
ground. We’re interested in new technology and keeping up
with what’s going on, but that’s not the point of the
music. And you can hear stuff that was recorded in the ’50s
that sounds as avant-garde as what is now touted as totally
advanced. It’s not breaking any new ground anyway; it’s
just a little bit more difficult to listen to.”
“Ultimately for us, the work that we’re doing has to
sort of move us in some way, and that’s the only
criteria,” he added.
