Black Dog Productions’ Bytes was released in 1993, as part of Warp Records’ scene-shaping Artificial Intelligence series. The story surrounding the album is that the artists involved adopted aliases to get around contractual obligations. There are 11 tracks and 7 pseudonyms. Ed Handley appears on over half. Andy Turner and Ken Downie, 3 apiece. None of this information was available on the original LP. Well, if it was, I didn’t notice.*

Listening, now, to the remastered reissue, that marks the records 30th anniversary, I was wondering I could spot the differences, whose doing what, if any production similarities between the pieces fell out. I’m not sure if it’s as easy as that. A few of the tracks that Andy and Ed feature on do bear a strong Detroit influence. Close Up Over’s Caz and Atypic’s Focus Mel, in particular, could be Transmat / Derrick “Mayday” May tributes. I say / write that as if it’s something trivial, but it most certainly isn’t. Bright synths and laser blasts, like sonic firework displays, showering complex, convoluted polyrhythms, that replace house and techno’s usual rigid 4 / 4. 

Several of the “songs” also have a silicon chip samba vibe, reminiscent of Rhythim Is Rhythim’s Salsa Life. Olivine, for example, is a computer-generated carnival. Lithe lunar module Latin. Brimming, bursting with mad, busy, euphoric electronic, molecular motion. Jauqq playfully ping-pongs, not content to sit still, its eyes set on outer space, the heavens. Here to go. 

The compositions sometimes sound like 2, or 3, records spinning at once. Amazingly summoning a sort of serenity from the unruly programmed patterns, layers of loops and samples, that seem to have a life of their own. Chattering, bubbling, almost sentient circuitry. Pretty, mercurial, melodies miraculously emerging from the combined chaos. Introspective oases, mirages, materialising within tomorrow’s metallic machined tribal rituals. Some, like Balil’s Merck, come without a kick. The pieces are packed with energy, and distracting details for “enlightened” revellers. They are though, perhaps, more the music for an enthusiastic “afters”, or chillout lounge, than the booming big room. The animated backdrop to equally animated “refreshed” conversations.

The Plaid stuff, Object Orient and Yamemm, feels more the product of the pair’s immediate environment. A collage, collision, of hardcore, bits of bleep, and digi-dub b-lines. Sound system business. Hip hop’s love of a breakbeat. Echoes of Tony Thorpe’s Moody Boys and Tony Addis’ Warriors Dance. 

Many of the tracks are alive, thrive on the creation of criss-crossing counterpoint, and intricate, elegant dovetailing of individual elements, and I wonder if any of the Black Dog crew knew anything about classical minimalism, folks such as Steve Reich and Terry Reilly, or whether they fell upon this fabulous phenomenon purely by accident. 

Discordian Popes’ Fight The Hits, a Ken solo outing, displays a different kind of minimalism. A furious banger, it mirrors the music of Robert Armani, Mike Banks and Jeff Mills. A fiery futuristic jack, stripped of hooks, relying instead on mixing desk dynamics, a pushing and pulling of percussion and frequencies to and from the fore. Ken’s Clan, as I.A.O., is another out-and-out “raver”. A breakneck house beat bolstering its tiny snippets of tumbling snares. As Xeper, he also contributes the moody, magnificent, downtempo classic, Carceres Ex Novum, which is a funky as fuck, balancing bleeps, anime voices, and celestial choir-like chords. A simple piano refrain holding it all together. 

The album’s finale takes the form of Balil’s 3/4 Heart. Here, Ed delivers Bytes’ bone fide anthem. Strangely cinematic, it’s one of those old tunes that has a movie screening inside my head. I’m the hero, of course, lighting out for the horizon, disappearing into the sunset. Driven by dramatic keys and snatches of a Civil Rights speech, riding an air of resistance and hope, it’s the closest the set gets to The Second Summer Of Love’s Promised Land. 

Black Dog Productions’ has been remastered and reissued by Warp.

Notes

*I’m pretty sure that I bought my original copy of Bytes from Sister Ray, on Berwick Street, in London’s Soho.