THE BLACK DOG レコード& CD

Review: The Black Dog's Foucauldian 2009 CD opus hears an honorific remaster and reissue through Dust Science on vinyl, extending the trio's concern with Orwellian surveillance and state-capitalist intrusions into the present. "From billion-dollar corporate entities openly mishandling our data for profit to highly targeted and manipulative political propaganda campaigns, the misuse of our data and communications is far more sophisticated and devious than originally envisaged," says tBd's Martin Dust of the sinister side of today's sociopolitical climate. The tracks therein still elicit much emotion, with 'Northern Electronic Soul' especially charging our intensities despite moods of data scouring and electromagnetic hoarding and 'Skin Clock' co-opting even the more glamorous ends of modern techno-life.

Review: Experimental electronic triad The Black Dog see their 2009 CD album remastered and reissued, a missive from a time when the band were particularly concerned with the encroachment of surveillance capital and Orwellian practices carried out by institutions, governments and corporations. Tackling the cynical ironies of weaponised phraseologies such as "for your own safety", and their use by firms whom almost certainly do not have our best interests at heart, the mood of this techno tucker is indeed certainly, if not paranoid, vexed. Emblematic of this are humanity reductions such as 'You're Only SQL', on which gurgly basses churn, and 'CCTV Nation', which bridges Dispatches-style documentary melodies and jittery acid house.

Review: Way back in 2006, when for various reasons they were suffering with insomnia, the Black Dog began making music when sleep deprived - a process the Sheffield trio say made their material more emotive and vulnerable. At various times since, they've returned to the idea, resulting in this album - a collection of immersive musical movements that frequently blur the boundaries between the enveloping ambience the IDM pioneers have become famous for in recent years, and (synth) string-laden neo-classical compositions. Of course, it's not all picturesque sonic beauty, with the paranoia and slow-thinking darkness sometimes associated with periods of sleep deprivation being translated into trippy, melancholic or sonically intense soundscapes rooted in drone and dark ambient. Throughout, it remains surprisingly emotive and - for the most part - pleasingly meditative.

Review: Album number six from Sheffield's electronic heroes The Black Dog was closer to their debut, Bytes, than anything that came in between. "We never set out to make it like Bytes," group member Martin Dust has since explained. "My idea was to create something you could come home to after you'd just ben to a club or gig, that would start at the right pace and then just wind down into a great album and just chill out." Suffice to say, they achieved that and then some. Silenced is an example of downtempo that still feels like it has one foot in the rave, sounds informed by 4AM highs and 10AM quiet, here made precious through the use of blissful and complex tones that envelop and encase your mind. A record everyone should own.

Review: The Black Dog were one of the core early Warp acts, and their Spanners album - the third full length of their career at the time - is one of their best. Despite its roots in the early IDM scene, the album managed to climb to number 30 in the UK charts back when it arrived in January 1995. It's a great mix of unexpected experimental oddness and dancefloor rhythms that makes for a superb trip through what was then the modern world. Pitchfork have rated it one of the 50 best IDM albums ever and this reissue reminds us why.

Review: Here come one of the electronica scene's most famous electronic artists with another concept album that builds on what went before with their own learned new perspectives. The Grey Album is of course best known as a mashup record by Danger Mouse of Jay-Z's The Black Album with samples of the Beatles' self-titled ninth album. But now it is also this record which finds The Black Dog return to their old school and early ways of working after doing similar on their recent Black EP. They used practices, set up with one synth per person and limited the use of their computers to really tap into raw creative intuition - and it has worked. This is a vinyl version with a CD version also available.