Plaid - Trainer

Nowadays, Plaid's TRAINER sounds incredibly rough -- but for all its rough edges, it still manages to be ahead of its time, even the slightly embarrassing neo-rave of "Uneasy Listening." “A Slice of Cheese” is uncommonly good piece of lounge before the word was applied to every piece of downtempo out there, and “Link” and “Summit” show the melodic forwardness that made the Black Dog such a seminal group. And you can’t ignore the breaks on the Latin stormer, “Scoobs in Columbia,” that makes much of the current Latin explosion seem like nacho cheese. The unreleased “Chirpy,” “Prig” and “Eshish” shows aspects of IDM at its most beautiful Black Dog-esque heights (indeed, Ken Downie, Plaid’s former Black Dog mate, objected to the release of this material), and “Nort Route” is the perfect distillation of them. On the second disc, “The Whirling of Spirits” and “Choke and Fly,” originally released on the short-lived A.R.T. label, and “Small Energies,” continue this path. The driving “Letter” goes more tribal, while “Soft Key” veers in a more acidic direction and “Uland” goes back to mellow. The final two tracks, which appeared on the late, lamented Clear, lead us to the Plaid’s Warp days. “Android” has a soft electro feel into it, while “Angry Dolphin” is a little more breaks-oriented. If this is considered Plaid’s training, then it’s no wonder that they’re still running strong today.

What was intended to be a comprehensive collection disappoints with the disinclusion of essential early Black Dog tracks. Also, those who have tasted various MP3's of some of these tracks will discover inferior mixes and criminally short edits ("Uland" most notably).
Despite providing essential CD release of some classic tracks, those who know the back catalog better will be saddened by what's missing.