PLAID DOUBLE FIGURE ALBUM WARP RELEASE: MAY 29, 2001 REVIEW: JULY 10, 2001

It’s nice to hear such accessible music coming out of the Warp headquarters, for a change. The simple digital beauty of “Double Figure“ is a long way from the drill and bass eccentricities of Squarepusher and Aphex Twin.
What does it take for a band coming out of the electronic cradle of British dance music in the early nineties to survive the millennium shift? I honestly can’t even remember what Black Dog Productions, that Ed Handley and Andy Turner of Plaid used to be members of, sounded like.
As the years passed, bands once in vogue, because of their experimental strangeness or the complexity of the music, lost their appeal, for better or worse. Better, meaning that musicians stopped being difficult on purpose, worse, implying two step and UK Garage.
Personal opinions aside, the key to survival was simplicity, and Plaid seems to have embraced this notion. “Double Figure“ is straightforward, full of nice harmonies and an appealing scent of melancholia. Sometimes, for instance on the wonderful “New Family“ track, Plaid boldly use the kind of pre-programmed keyboard sounds familiar from eighties recordings by artists like J M Jarre and Vangelis. In this instrumental setting it works surprisingly well, and doesn’t sound cheesy at all.

MATTIAS HUSS