Plaid: Go figure
March 15th, 2002 by freddie96
PLAID: Go figure
After many years pondering the mysteries of Plaid, hours spent trying to decipher what they are trying to say, long evenings aurally poring over the myriad of symbols and clues in the belief that they are in possession of some sort of magic ingredient, I’ve finally found the truth.
‘It’s about’, says Ed, ‘laughing, and thinking, and dancing, and having a cup of tea and a nice cake – all at the same time.’
Finally, the mysteries, the same mysteries that inspired a fan to decode the binary sequence of numbers on the cover of Black Dog’s seminal ‘Bytes’ LP, are blown away by a theory so simple, so normal, that it must be magic?
‘It’s interesting,’ says Andy. ‘We were thinking that it’s a bit like reading tea leaves. Somebody puts a bit of energy into swilling a cup round, and you get left with these leaves, and someone goes ″Yeah, I can tell you what that means″, and the person who swilled it round couldn’t.’
‘You get the best meaning out of things that don’t have an applied meaning,’ Ed says. ‘They have an unrestricted meaning, and that is more stimulating. Random and chaotic things are a lot more interesting. We just try to make it as free as possible, and not assign anything to it. Formlessness only really comes into the presentation of it, because the music itself is quite heavily structured, it just fires in all directions.’
‘It doesn’t necessarily mean that the mysteries aren’t there,’ Andy says, just when we thought it was safe to go back in the water, ‘it just means that it’s a kind of coincidence. It’s for people to decide for themselves. They can laugh about it, or decide that it means something really onerous is going to happen.’
Fear not, nothing really onerous happens when you listen to their new album’Double Figure’, apart from my neighbour telling me to turn it down. What it does do is reflect the increasingly punchy live show that they have been nurturing for the last year or so, full as it is, of abstract techno rhythms and more than a fair share of bounce-inspiring breakbeats. Rest assured though, it’s still very much Plaid, and beautifully displays their inherent ability with a joyous childlike melody to crack a smile on the most stony-faced of electronica heads.
‘This album is definitely produced differently to ‘Rest Proof Clockwork’, it’s a bit more meaty and bassy,’ says Andy. ‘But I don’t think we’ve got it in us to be too sinister.’
‘We do have that running theme of being a bit childish,’ Ed admits happily, ‘but that’s just because we are really untalented musicians, and we just play those stupid scales! But we like it!’
‘Yeah,’ Andy agrees, ‘we just can’t get away from ourselves. We just keep writing stuff that we like. Maybe we need brain wipes. It keeps us happy though!’
And, I ask, after saying you wanted to get away from the whole ‘Black Dog symbolism thing’, is ‘Double Figure’ and the ideas of trilogies, mythical symbols, and Pan, designed to keep the mystery mongers happy?
‘Well we haven’t changed that much,’ says Andy. ‘It’s hard to know how much to say.’ ‘Here we go!’ exclaims Ed.
Andy continues. ‘It’s the idea of throwing an idea out there. It’s like a snowball thing. We just thought it would be interesting to create something that gives that sort of impression, which it may or may not do. It’s a bit comedy really. Some of this mystical symbolism that is acknowledged and accepted, how much of it has actually got any weight, and how much of it is just glamour? There is a huge desire to see meaning. The thing is that there may well be meaning in there, even if we didn’t know about it. People are always looking for sub-levels, when it’s probably all there to be seen. I mean, it’s not like we’ve got any deeper understanding or anything, like, I’m totally deluded.’ ‘I’M TOTALLY DELUDED!’
Ed laughs. ‘I might have to get that put on a T-shirt,’ Andy ponders, ‘because I do know that for a fact.’
Ed and Andy have referred to the fact that, for them, ‘Double Figure’ closes a trilogy of albums that began with ‘Not For Threes’. In typical Plaid style, no-one ever mentioned the fact that it might be a trilogy in the first place, so does this mean, I ask, clocking the weighty physics manuals that perch ominously on a nearby table, that they are about to depart for pastures new.
‘The trilogy is not in any grand sort of way,’ says Andy. ‘We do feel as though with this album we’ve developed a certain sort of style as far as it can go. All three were put together in a similar sort of way, and ‘Double Figure’ kind of closes off that period, because we think we might go and do something radically different.’
‘Yeah,’ Ed chips in, ‘we might just take shitloads of acid for the next one.’ ‘So avant garde,’ Andy says, ‘just using a xylophone and a maraca.’ ‘It’s going to be our horrible concept album,’ says Ed, ”Journey To The Centre Of The Atom!”
So yet again, I am leaving Plaid’s studio, suitably known as The Bubble, playing host to that familiar feeling that descends upon you from listening to their records, not knowing which way is up, but not actually minding the slightest bit. Their smokescreens of symbolism, humour, mystery and surprise are still firmly in place, but they sure make some pretty patterns.
Steve Nickolls, June 2001
