Plaid – Double Figure

Funky, interesting, complex, hooky, this album has it all. Only gripe from me is the cover art, but that's easy to look past because the music is so great. My favorite Plaid album, and one of the classic essential IDM albums.

Just listened back to this in entirety for 70 minutes, in this day and age with so many distractions, it can be difficult to stay concentrated for so long. But 22 years later this album appears more or less flawless, no boring moments. As fresh as the day it was released, a bonafide IDM classic.

I just came to think about "Double Figure" the title, because it was then 10 years since their first release Mbuki Mvuki (1991) ?

This is one of my all time favourite albums, start really good with "Eyen", a great melodic electronic piece and the guitar in this song is great. "Squance" is funny with excellent rhythm. Another great song is "New Family", very beautiful with deeply structured beats. Anyway, all works in this album are very amazing. It's great how Plaid incorporates different instruments into their music.

EYEN starts out Plaid's third album for Warp, DOUBLE FIGURE, on the right foot. The guitar work almost makes you think they're going indie, but the sonic density of the electronics reminds you otherwise. "Squance" is also dense, chocked full of squiggly synth lines, while "Zamami" is much cleaner and more ambient. "Light Rain" ups that ante and goes increasingly abstract, but "Zala" speeds things up. The icy "Sincetta" sounds spectacular, but perhaps the mood resembles other tracks on the album, and the angular jazz of "Ti Bom" doesn't seem to fit here. "Porn Coconut Co.," however, deftly avoids both problems by adding a quasi-Latin melody to its complex rhythmic structure. The numerous "Tak" interludes seem to be a throwback to their Black Dog days, and I wonder if a third member might have given the album a touch more discipline. Luckily, the lovely vocals of Mara Carlyle grace "Manyme" and provide the clincher DOUBLE FIGURE, this album of peculiar strengths, needs.

Two standout tracks on this superb release: Eyen and New Family. Both tracks represent the part of IDM I cherish; Crisp drums and wonderful melodies. No matter how mellow I feel, playing New Family always puts a smile on my face.

"Eyen" is such a nice song. Everything is perfect. "Squance" is quirky and fun. "Zamami" is beautiful. This is probably one of the most varied releases I own. No two tracks sound anything alike. Although some tracks are a bit standard, they're so well done it doesn't really matter much. Highly recommended