Greedy
Baby is an audio-visual 5.1 Surround collaborative project between
IDM duo Plaid and visual artist Bob Jaroc. The CD/DVD project follows
some gradually declining efforts since Plaid’s seminal album,
Rest Proof Clockwork (1999), and took 4 years to finally complete.
I must say that Greedy Baby sees Andy Turner and Ed Handly
return to something close to top form from a purely musical perspective,
and with Jaroc’s aid also delivers one of the best audio-visual
releases I have seen to date – although, in truth, this still
remains a fairly unchartered area.
The 9-track album opens with the paranoia of War Dialer, fashioning
together vocal speech samples and dial tones to haunting atmospheric
noises – nothing new here, but the album soon gets going on the
irrepressible I Citizen The Loathsome – a classic Plaid
track, with off kilter melodies sprinkled amongst twisted electronics,
it develops into a bruising crescendo of heavy rhythms and mangled electronica.
ZN Zero is equally enticing; in fact this is probably Plaid’s
most melodic and simplistic release to date, although it’s difficult
to tell whether the music has been ‘watered down’ to fit
in with the video aspect of the DVD disc, or whether it was recorded
this way regardless. The only track that sounds like it is wholly intended
for film is The Return Of Super Barrio, but nevertheless this
is still an interesting, experimental piece, with double bass lolling
below a simple breakbeat amidst handclaps and South American percussive
melodies.
As previosuly mentioned, however, Greedy Baby operates on two
levels, both audio and visual. The DVD videos on a secondary disc are
generally very good – ranging from abstract symmetrics to vaguely
political propaganda and nightmarish urban imagery. Then there’s
the outlandish, but beatifully illustrated, cartoon-like video for The
Return Of Super Barrio. The DVD also has four bonus videos, and
therefore music tracks, that are not featured on the CD, which is surprising
because they are as good as anything on the audio disc.
The real beauty of Greedy Baby is that the audio disc stands
on its own two feet as an enjoyably sinister yet melodic album, which
is likely to be considered one of Plaid’s top three albums to
date. Meanwhile, the 5.1 Surround DVD is more than an added bonus –
although personally I’m still not sure if people are ready to
watch albums in this format – especially as music is continually
moving away from home listening in preference to a multitude of easily
transferrable, digital formats.