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The Black Dog

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Adopting the common pseudonym for depression as their name, The Black Dog are often credited with “inventing” the “idm” style of music, in producing a style of dance music equally enjoyable in the comfort of one’s living room. While their work was showered with praise from a great number of club DJs, the DJs themselves rarely played their tracks on the dancefloor.

The group was founded by Ken Downie along with Ed Handley and Andy Turner, who had already been producing music under the Plaid moniker. In 1989, they were unable to find a label to back their releases and had to start their own, Black Dog Productions. Their first full-length album, Bytes, was released in 1992 on WARP Records, the label later to publish records from some of the most notable of IDM artists, such as Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, and Autechre. Their music was often produced under a number of different names, such as Close Up Over, Xeper, Atypic, I.A.O., Balil and Discordian Popes. These were often names for the different projects of the three artists.

Later on, Ed and Andy broke off from Black Dog Productions, to work full-time on Plaid. Ken Downie continued working The Black Dog on his own for a while, taking it easy, later to return to music production with Richard and Martin Dust, owners of the label “Dust Science Recordings”. Since, they have released eight EPs and two full-length albums.

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idm, electronic, ambient, techno, electronica
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Spanners
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Silenced
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Techno Playtime EP
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Temple of Transparent Balls
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dragunaz wrote:
last week

they are really great :)

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concretica wrote:
last month

отличные старички

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GenZzzz wrote:
October 2009

http://www.lastfm.ru/music/Teleskopique/Teleskopique

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Black_Dog_23 wrote:
October 2009

Free EP for Download http://www.dustscience.com/live/?p=682

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Black_Dog_23 wrote:
September 2009

http://www.dustscience.com - new site up and running

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Black_Dog_23 wrote:
August 2009

@Looking4retro Thank you.

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sub-librarian wrote:
August 2009

Really dig the We Are Sheffield EP. Keep its ups!

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AKIRA666 wrote:
August 2009

Virtual black dog

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Greygoo wrote:
August 2009

Indeed, the Autechre remix and the other two are brilliant!

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reinformpulse wrote:
July 2009

oh god... we are sheffield is physically painful to listen to... it is IMMENSELY BEAUTIFUL

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Looking4retro wrote:
July 2009

@Black_Dog_23, I'm a young producer but a old fan :) I love your atmospheres. Keep doing your magic voodoo you do ahahah. PS: Set to receive is one the most interesting works I've ever heard even with a "small duration"

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Black_Dog_23 wrote:
July 2009

The interview we did with Robert Hood is now online on our blog: http://www.theblackdogma.com/tbd/?p=1025

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Black_Dog_23 wrote:
July 2009

Here's us playing at Pressure, couple of new tracks in there plus an interview at 5am in our hotel room: http://www.eq-mag.co.uk/blackdog3.html

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Black_Dog_23 wrote:
July 2009

@ruiagnelo, doubt? Surely you jest.

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ruiagnelo wrote:
July 2009

@Black_Dog_23: an artists career is only successful if it has evolution and diversity as objectives, so i am happy to hear you won't repeat past sounds and i even doubt you could do that with the same quality and dedication as you did in the 90's. You are absolutely in the right path, good luck for future works!

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Black_Dog_23 wrote:
July 2009

Thanks for the comments guys, but we are artists and can't stay in on place creatively, it would bore us to death. It's cool if you like the old stuff but we are not about to repeat those times or sounds, they have already been documented.

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ruiagnelo wrote:
July 2009

Yes, it's not the same thing - and i say this with a nostalgic feeling - but it's still good and getting better. Sounds modern and a bit harder, but still has the quality!

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Onie-mickeypl wrote:
July 2009

since the departure of andy and ed the black dog just isn't as good as it used to be, but it still sounds quite nice

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ruiagnelo wrote:
July 2009

I was thinking about this... just forget about the line up "changes" in "The Black Dog" since the beginning and notice the tremendous diversity they brought to electronic music: the ambient techno and IDM era (Bytes/Spanners/Temple of Transparent Balls), the experiments on "Music for Adverts (and Short Films) " then a different approach on ambient with "Silenced", and the later harder techno, full of bass and much more dance-oriented "Radio Scarecrow/ Further Vexations". Now they confirmed they are working on a new LP, different from the last ones, more "ambient", influenced by the moments they spend on airports. People seem to forget about this, but these men have unlimited creativity! I hope they continue releasing top quality music in the next years!

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deafdawg wrote:
July 2009

check out an amazing live set with The Black Dog recorded at Sonar and a couple of their videos in HD over here: http://r.fm/artist/the-black-dog /Love from Stockholm R.fm - Acid Squaredance

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03. Dust Science Special Part 1 – DJ Set/Mix
20 Oct 2009 | from www.theblackdogma.com/tbd
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[dustv017] In The North EP
9 Oct 2009 | from www.theblackdogma.com/tbd
Add comment
02. Sometimes – Ambient DJ Set/Mix
2 Sep 2009 | from www.theblackdogma.com/tbd
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Recent Activity

BeenInsane and 14 other people added The Black Dog to their libraries. 5 hours ago
Omega_Switch22B tagged The Black Dog with techno, ambient techno and idm. Thursday morning
Omega_Switch22B and denisosteo added The Black Dog to their libraries. Thursday morning
texoner tagged The Black Dog with ‘idm’. last week
jalojik tagged The Black Dog with downtempo, ambient, electronic and one other tag. last week
Wunder-Euff and PlastikTastik added The Black Dog to their libraries. last week
kuzaviokas tagged The Black Dog with ‘idm’. last week
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MrLJM wrote about The Black Dog in Library: Electronic Music. last month
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