The Cost EP

The Cost EP

The Black Dog [Soma Recordings]

6 February, 2008 | 3.31PM

• Section: Music Recommendations Topics: Beatport Blog
• Written by: Richard Brophy

Most music doesn’t age well, and even a cursory flick through a collection of 1990s electronic music — especially the period towards the end of the decade when the monotonous loop techno sound was prevalent — will confirm this claim.

Thankfully, there are exceptions to every generalisation, and, along with Kirk De Giorgio’s work under the As One guise, The Black Dog’s early to mid-1990s techno work still sounds refreshingly timeless.

With Soma Recordings issuing a retrospective collection and one of their classic albums, this EP makes another convincing argument for re-examining the Sheffield act’s work.

The reference to As One is an important one: there is a parallel between the development of De Giorgio’s sound and that of The Black Dog — two-thirds of whom later formed Plaid — from Detroit techno-inspired to pre-junglist break beat scientists.

What makes ‘The Cost’ such a fascinating release is ‘The Actor and Audience’, a track that captures the grey area of this transition, with brittle percussion and mournful, reflective melodies underpinned by hyper-speed polyrhythms.

In so doing, The Black Dog create an interface that determined the future of techno and electronica, and one which helped spawn jungle.

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