After twenty five years of working together, Plaid – Andy Turner and Ed Handley – are releasing their tenth album, Reachy Prints. The title, according to the duo, alludes to “the creative process, the capturing of ideas, and the devotion required to recreate them.” The work confirms their position at the vanguard of underground electronic music production incorporating the latest synthesis technologies in these compositions, whilst retaining their trademark emotive, yet playful, signature style present over their career.
 
Turner and Handley continue their tradition of collaboration that has seen them work with a diverse range of musicians – from Björk, to the London Sinfonietta, to the Southbank Gamelan Players – as well as artists, and innovators in music technology. They recently took part in the Kickstarter campaign for Bruno Zamborlin’s Mogees product, that allows you to turn any object into a musical instrument with just a small device that connects to your smart phone. The Mogees gadget has the potential to become an element of the live show, feeding their interest in live audio visual performance that began with a collaboration with Bob Jaroc for their DVD album release of Greedy Baby (2006).
 
The artwork for Reachy Prints is created in collaboration with installation artist Eric Studer. On the artwork, he says: “The photograph represents a personal reflection after a radical experience. Two elements complement one another: The X-Ray image of my head holds the moment when my life got separated into a ‘before’ and an ‘after’. The visibility through the transparent X-Ray on the other hand is an outlook into my familiar surrounding – it represents continuance. The merging of the two images implies a new starting point in life. It serves as memento since it is hard to recall the incident. Altogether the image clarifies that the past is irreversible. And that an answer to ‘why’ is not relevant any longer.”
 
Musically, much of the new album feels like a journey into a subterranean world, with the grimy robotic tunnelling of ‘Wallet’ and ‘Ropen’, the cavernous elation of ‘Hawkmoth’ and ‘OH’. It surfaces with the sparkling ‘Matin Lunaire’ and driving melodies of ‘Liverpool Street’. Reachy Prints continues the evolution in Plaid’s long nurtured sound world – and reveals some of its hidden, most complex domains.
 
Plaid official site