At 10:18 am +0100 29/9/97, Simon Walley wrote:
quoted 15 lines From: "James" <JSEO@us.oracle.com>>>From: "James" <JSEO@us.oracle.com>
>>Subject: (idm) NME in Plaid
>>
>>and Not For Threes is rather disappointing.
>
>Hmm - ever so slightly disappointing. I love this LP because the sounds,
>the structures, the skewed funk, the little melodies, basically everything
>I loved about old BDP stuff is on here. The only problem is the production
>- it's just that bit too smooth and over-worked - as a result, any kind of
>roughness (which was the icing on the cake of tracks like _Focus Mel_) has
>been sanded over and lost. Nearly all the tracks have the skippy little
>beautiful melody/bass/chord mixups that's their trademark - it's closer to
>the smoothness of _Spanners_ though than the variety and more chaotic
>nature of _Bytes_. Still damn astounding in places - completely recommended.
>
It's rather unfortunate that the contextual element in any appreciation of
Not for Three's is so strong. I'm just as guilty of it myself but if you
try to listen without allowing your perception to be coloured by the Black
Dog baggage you'll find it is indeed a very fine album. If listened to
blind (by someone not familiar with the Black Dog/Plaid oeuvre) I suspect
it would be lauded as the discovery of the year.
For me there is a similarity with Music for Adverts in that in both cases
it is the first time the 'creative unit' has produced an album on its own.
Yes, all the tracks for the BD albums were recorded separately, but
presumably the process of compilation entailed input from all parties.
Well, maybe that's completely wrong but it's a thought I had.
More importantly, there is much to wonder at and admire here, the main
surprise being the range of styles represented, including a happy
steel-drum driven number and two mournful piano-based tracks at the end.
Possibly Simon is right about the production but I think that's inevitable.
Musicians often deliberately move away from the roughness of their early
works, which was probably more a result of circumstance than design in any
case.
adam