Customer Reviews

Trainer

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Truly, one of the greatest early releases of an 'IDM' artist. From the moment it starts off with Uneasy Listening, it will have you dancing till the very end, hitting the listener with everything from strong, driving techno, to relaxed jive and beautiful, etheral ambient mixtures. While the first CD is more oriented towards tonal, listener friendly dance, the second CD consists of pieces which focus on either ambient motifs and more abrasive percussive tunes, which means it is definately going to be harder to digest for a lot of listeners. Reagrdless, this CD is truly an amazing compilation, and will help listeners to discover where the roots of the IDM genre come from. This is a must have along with Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Nos. 85-92, Autechre's Incunabula, and U-Ziq's Tango n' Vectiff.

Balil, Atypic, Tura, The Black Dog, call them what you will. This album is a great collection of those lesser-known tunes that came from the minds of Ed Handley and Andy Turner before they gained their most recent popularity as the ingenius duo, Plaid. It's amazing and inspiring just how easliy the "Plaid" sound graces genres from the whole spectrum ranging from Rock to Classical and everything in between and to the sides. I love the Latin flavor of "Scoobs" and the live techno ambience of "Choke and Fly" is absolutely gorgeous!! You really cannot explain what it is to hear Plaid. They don't work in genres; they don't imitate stuff they've heard. Rather, they have their own original sound, and any influences you might hear in their music are altered to sound like Plaid, yet remain recognizable! Plaid is truly their own type of music. You'll love this album and all their others even more.

First of all: I woudln't recommend this album to a newbie of electronica, IDM or Plaid specifically. Not that it is bad, but there are more important albums to buy first, such as "Bytes" (under the Black Dog name) or "Not For Threes" or even "Rest Proof Clockwork". Yet, this is a good album for the very simple reason that the music has aged gracefully. It is not at the edge any more, and bears traces of late 80s pop music and a certain falir for exotic sound (like animal sounds) that were popular at the time (listen to "Lifeforms" by FSL to get an idea...). Still, this is supremely enjoyable music. Although its structure is simpler than the later production by Plaid, everything is here already: polyrithms and catchy melodic loops.

I would suggest this to anyone with some knowledge of electronica and a philologic interest in its roots. In this respect, this album is valuable at least as much as the "Warp 10+x" series.

listening to this plaid release is like looking at a box of photographs spanning your childhood up to your early twenties. there will be many similaries throughout yet as you get older you become more mature. such is the case with 'trainer'. those who are giving this CD poor ratings or bad reviews either are not diehard plaid fans or were expecting plaid brilliance found on 'double figure', 'rest proof clockwork' and the like. if you're looking for that then you'll be disappointed. instead, offered here is a double CD of plaid (and their various incarnations) in their early years. granted, this stuff is primitive but what electronic music made back in the late 80s/early 90s wasn't? the plaid sound is still here, less refined and honed as in later years and some tracks ARE pretty bad. other tracks sound as cutting edge today as i'm sure they did back in the day. 'tan sau', 'norte route' and 'android' are outstanding tracks that with a little bit of modern day tweeking could easily slip onto a new plaid release. my favorite track would be 'choke and fly' or 'slice of cheese'. i'm not sure which as the packaging makes it difficult to tell what is on what CD. Each CD is encased in a paper slipjacket with the titles printed on the outside and only the number of the CD printed on the CD. If you take both CDs out of their slipcasing you may be hard pressed to tell which CD goes into which case as there is no indication on the slipcasing. this happened to me. anyway,track three on one of the CDs is awesome. kind of jazzy. oh yeah, 'scoobs in columbia' is also a really cool latin flavored number. this CD is NOT junk... or really bad. it's a wonderful document of an incredibly talented group. highly reccommended only for true plaid fans. if you're not a true plaid fan, stick with their newer stuff because you'll probably hate this.

Don't get me wrong, this album is not a museum piece in the sense that it should be seen as novel only in that it's an object of history. No way, it's a museum piece in that it's a piece of history and that it's priceless. Of course, lucky you, it does have a price tag and you can buy it thanks to Warp Records. "Trainer" contains re-releases of old Plaid material plus many previously unreleased gems. As usual, the palette of sounds Plaid uses isn't all sparkly and catchy like those used by just about every other techno producer out there today. Some of it may sound simple at first, but with a sharp ear you'll find a most engaging, beautiful dynamic sheen and internal core to every track. Excellent classics "Norte Route" and the impossibly rare "Angry Dolphin" are included here. Don't miss. A must for any serious electronic music fan.

...then listen to Plaid's Trainer. This is the best way to see how 80's techno, after diversificating into diverse branches and, in this case, early-houseish techno, gradually evolved into that which is called "IDM" (or Plaid's brand thereof... in the case of other bands like Autechre you should rather listen to some Front 242 or Coil, apart from straight 4/4 electro, and then just follow the band in case's evolution.)
So, perhaps, you should keep in mind that if you don't appreciate that period around 1986-92 when techno stopped being "electro", you will find this release sort of lackluster. But if you're into that sound, and, moreover, if you think that Plaid's trademark "plastisound" synths are worth listening at all, you should quite definitely get Trainer. Perhaps not all the collection is outstanding (keep in mind that this is a quite complete compilation), but, really, you just can't skip tracks like Uneasy Listening, Blah, Summit, or the classic Jolly. But if you don't like late-80's techno or early 90's IDM, just get the best tracks from a friend and that's it, really. Still, it might make you want to listen to early post-techno, so why not try it?
In short, Plaid's Trainer is very recommendable, but still a case of "listen-before-you-buy", so be cautious.

Plaid show how incredibly influential they continue to be in regards to the whole 'IDM' scene. This is a collection of old recordings that have, until now, been so rare they were virtually impossible to find. Those people who whine about their sound not evolving after listening to this (listen to their NEW album Double Figure if you have doubts), it's because the music on this album is all 7, 8, even 10 years old. But that doesn't hold any water anyway as this stuff is still dripping with soul and more innovative than 95 percent of new electronic music being pumped out today. This really is an essential purchase!

First off, I believe I have the import and yes, it contains all of the songs listed on the US release as well.

This is a collection of Plaid's rare yet released and also previously unreleased work spanning 1989-1995 which includes material recorded as Balil, Atypic, and Tura as well. Everything from their rare Mbuki Mvuki debut is included. On the CDs is listed their "name" at the time, released/unreleased & label, and year recorded, so it is thankfully informative enough to add understanding to the listening experience.

Granted, a few tunes will no doubt sound very dated; but come on, now, some of these tracks go back as far as '89!!! It's very interesting to hear what they were coming up with back in that period of time and how their sound evolved. It was definitely a transitional period for modern music.

There are a few extra tracks I'm certain glad to own, not out of "interest" alone but truly for their listening value. This most especially includes Angry Dolphin, which I only previously owned on Nicolette's DJ Kicks. Apparently the song has a few more minutes to it than I was aware of!! So, yes, it is here in its complete form.

Scoobs in Columbia is very funny :)

I'm surprised Amazon chose the tracks they did for sampling. Don't let them discourage you - the rest gets better than those older songs.

I give it three stars because 2-star discs bear an irritation element that this collection does NOT have. Three stars is fair, I feel, because while songs like Angry Dolphin are 5-star essentials, in my opinion, others are various renditions of working songs that often didn't quite pan out. Let's be realistic here!! All diehard Plaid fans interested in the workings of the Ed & Andy would enjoy this 2CD set.

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.

This is a decent album by Plaid, I have the other three by Plaid, and this compares to the rest. It is yet another excellent release off of the Warp record label.