Review Summary: An overlooked classic from one of the UK's vintage IDM acts
The late ‘90s were a very happy time for British electronic. The Bristol trip-hop scene was at the cutting edge of things, The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers were popularising dance and breaks sounds to wide acclaim, and (crucially), the IDM hothouse label Warp Records was hitting its prime with a roster of artists that evokes pause for breath even today. Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, Autechre and Squarepusher are household names at this point, but poking a little further into the Warp canon reveals a range of ‘secondary’ names who never achieved the same iconic status outside of the scene, but whose work holds up on a similar level. Enter Plaid, a London duo made up of Andy Turner and Ed Handley. Plaid are still making music today, but they debuted on Warp with an expansive, inventive and continually overlooked early opus that goes by the name of
Not For Threes
Now,
Not For Threes is an IDM album inside-out, but it also provides an antidote of sorts to many of the impenetrable, esoteric qualities than turn some people off from the genre. Endless repetition, ‘insubstantial’ tones and structures and lack of distinctive chord progressions and melodies are all up there with the complaints most commonly levelled in Warp’s direction, but Plaid have a way of sidestepping these potential pitfalls and pull off a long album full of appeal to anyone partial and picky towards this kind of electronic. That’s not to say they’re crass about it -
Not For Threes is very much not a statement “IDM for people who don’t like IDM album”, a fact that is made immediately apparent with the opening track “Abla Eedio.” This song, while not exactly overtly challenging, is by far the album’s longest slow burner; it’s a solid track but feels very much designed as a first hurdle, fulfilling a dual role insofar as it gradually breaks the ice on the remaining sixty-one minutes and weeds out those who won’t have the patience to last the whole album. It’s a smart gameplan, less a harsh entry barrier and more an orientation experience that gives the rest of the album the space to land more invitingly, as quick established by the second track “Kortisin“, which is full of approachable melodies, lilting beats and a clearly defined arrangement that few listeners will struggle to get their heads round.
If “Abla Eedio” is a steady initiation track and “Kortisin” is a perky “Hiya, welcome on board
Not For Threes”, the third track “Headspin” is where Plaid firmly set out their production ethos and the define the approach the rest of the album will broadly follow. Plaid’s craft is built largely on how they balance polarities for points of aesthetic and structural tension and engagement - the polarities in question being their mix of palatable melodies and disorienting tones. “Headspin” is probably the most disorienting track on the album, setting out an amorphous, nauseous foundation in its first three minutes before abruptly introducing a melodic bassline that serves as a foundation for its comparatively straightforward, approachable second half. The scope behind Plaid’s use of disorienting sounds is clear here: it isn’t in aid of a wider effect of disorientation, but rather an effective counterpoint to the track’s more palatable ideas. Neither “Headspin”’s trippy elements nor its latter section would sound half as interesting or convincing in isolation, but the duo evolves from one to the other slickly, coherently and (perhaps most important) ambiguously.
This is pretty much the trick to
Not For Threes - it’s unclear which direction the album will move in at any given moment, but the one thing you can take for granted is that it will
have a direction; whatever twists and turns it takes come off as smart, effective compositional choices. Another great example of this is “Extork”, a track that initially did very little to hold my interest in its first section with its chilled out synth pads and lethargic vocals (courtesy of Nicolette), but which shifts gears midway into a much tenser stretch punctuated by a deliciously distorted glitch tone. When it reasserts a return to its opening section as a coda, its spacey atmosphere feels entirely earned and thoroughly satisfying.
Plaid don’t confine themselves to playing different atmospheres and tonal/melodic palettes off against each other between different sections, however - at many points, the mix of sounds is a point of engagement in and of itself. “Myopia” is probably the best example of this in the way it plays a catchy steel pan lead melody and samba influence off against a warped reprise of the vocal samples that sounded, if anything, a little vanilla in its first half. The song develops into a careful middle ground between merciless glitch and blithe melodicisms, but is especially notable for the way both sides are drawn out to extremes. Closer “Milh” offers another variant of this, starting off as an Aphex-esque reflective piano piece, only for the clarity of this piano tone to be increasingly obstructed by a glitchy beat and synth bass. This allows the album to end on a suitable note of tension, not allowing either half of the track’s arrangement to exist in its own world but rather drawing out a final note of intrigue from each side’s contrast and complement. This is
Not For Three’s ethic in an attitude: complement. Its complements are clear, creative and consistently engaging, giving each track a firm shape around which even a casual listen can orientate themselves hitch-free.
The other major quality the album has going for it is the clear distinction between each track. While its sequencing is well considered and makes for a strong, unified listen, each track represents such an autonomous, distinct set of ideas that the overall listening experience is less a stereotyped homogenous electronic slog and more an ongoing set of pleasant surprises. Plaid’s choice of tones and knack for giving each song an unpredictable, exciting development is a constant, but there’s very little in preceding tracks that will prepare you for “Prague Radio”’s edgy, dubiously danceable industrial or “Ol”’s straight-up techno. “Ladyburst” is a ludicrously catchy track with an irresistible bassline, but it doesn’t drop until beyond the halfway mark; on most albums of this style and length it would be a breath of fresh air to encounter the catchiest track at this point, but “Ladyburst”’s unexpected immediacy plays out as just another fun surprise rather than a necessary relief. The biggest and best surprise, however, comes in the form of an unheralded Björk collaboration on track 13 “Lilith.” I’m not sure what I like more: the gripping excellence of the track itself, or the audacity of its sequencing. It’s as though Plaid had something along the lines of the following conversation”
“Hmm, so by around the three-quarter mark they’ll start to think they’ve got us all sussed out…”
“Can’t have that. Once that that happens, the game’s up.”
“Definitely. Going to need something special here, any ideas?”
“Hmm…could pull a DJ Shadow? Dig up a few samples?”
“Way out of our field, the kids will never fall for that.”
“***, true.”
“Going to have to go for the last resort, aren’t we?”
“A Liz Fraser feature?”
“What?! No. Don’t we still have that ultradark ultrasexy Björk collaboration that incidentally turned out so awesome that it could sit on
Post or
Homogenic lying around somewhere?”
“Erm…oh yeah, that exists.”
“Suppose we’ll have to drop it in, then…”
Needless to say, “Lilith” is essential listening for fans of Plaid and Björk alike.
While this pretty much covers the intricacies of the album’s craft, there’s a little further consideration to be given for its overall scope.
Not For Threes sets out to be an extensive exploration of individually distinct yet broadly stylistically consistent IDM tracks with nods to a wide range of other styles. To this end, it’s generally successful, yet I can’t help but wonder whether sixty-nine minutes is perhaps a little steep a runtime. Picking through the tracklist, I can’t find anything that begs to be cut outright, other than the somewhat superfluous “Fer” and perhaps “Ol” (which I suppose is more than passable, although I’m personally not a big fan). Even the short interlude tracks are effective in bringing a balanced sense of spacing to the tracklist, and so whichever way I look at things, the album seems to demand a one-hour minimum runtime. Kudos to Plaid for seeing it off so successfully; it also turns out that most of these tracks work great as standalone listens, so it looks like they’ve dodged the bullet of the Impeccably Sequenced IDM Album That Simply Must Be Experienced As A Whole. My only caution would be that it’s a little much to process in one go for the first time, but as it’s clearly crafted to follow up this experience up with rewarding repeat listens it’s on you to get out there and give it your worst.
Recommended
Ladyburst
Prague Radio
Lilith
Extork
