The Black Dog - Spanners (2LP)

Spanners finds The Black Dog right in the pocket where UK club science and armchair futurism meet. Released in 1995 on Warp Records, it is the trio of Ken Downie, Ed Handley and Andy Turner at full stretch, tightening the screws on the ideas they’d seeded across Bytes two years earlier and distilling them into something leaner, stranger and more compulsive. It also ended up being their final album together in this formation, with Handley and Turner soon concentrating on Plaid, which gives Spanners a bittersweet place in the story. You can hear three minds pulling in complementary directions, arguing in rhythm and melody, then snapping back into focus.

What’s striking now is how physical it still feels. The drums are clipped and punchy, with syncopations that shuffle rather than stomp. Bass lines don’t just throb, they converse with the percussion, nudging the groove along. Melodies arrive in interlaced patterns, sometimes crystalline and curious, sometimes curt and almost percussive themselves. The sequencing is careful, so you move through pockets of mood rather than a flat set of tracks. It plays like a night bus that keeps turning onto streets you didn’t know existed, all within the same city grid.

There’s a patient, almost conversational approach to layering that rewards repeat listens. A motif will emerge, step aside to let another take the lead, then return changed, carrying some fresh harmonics it picked up along the way. The trio were always wizards at this kind of micro-arrangement, and on Spanners they keep the tricks musical rather than showy. Nothing here screams look at me. It just locks you in and keeps adjusting the lens until your ears recalibrate.

A couple of cuts have become shorthand for the record’s appeal. Raxmus is a favourite for a reason, coiling around a lattice of notes that feel both ancient and sci fi. Barbola Work carries a sly toughness, like it was built to test the limits of a small club system, then brought home to glow at low volume. Even when the tempos step down, they never lapse into wallpaper. There’s a curious mind at work in the details, a sense of design in the negative space.

In the broader Warp timeline, Spanners sits alongside the mid 90s work of Autechre and Aphex Twin, but it doesn’t feel like a museum piece. The so-called IDM tag never quite fit The Black Dog anyway. Too much swing, too many little nods to b-boy breaks and dub pressure, too much delight in oddball hooks. You can file it next to those landmark records and still hear its own fingerprint immediately. That individuality is why it keeps resurfacing in conversations about 90s electronic music that actually lasted.

If you’re crate digging, Spanners is one of those records that can reset a listening room. On The Black Dog vinyl you get that extra air around the pads and a bit more weight in the low end, which suits the music’s balance of precision and warmth. I’ve pulled a copy from a Melbourne record store rack and watched it change the mood of a Sunday afternoon. Same result streaming, but the tactile hit of Spanners vinyl makes a good case for the format. It’s also the gateway if you’re looking to buy The Black Dog records online and don’t know where to start. Among The Black Dog albums on vinyl, this one lands in the sweet spot of approachable and deep.

Spanners also carries a neat bit of historical punctuation. Not long after its release, Handley and Turner focused on Plaid, who went on to their own long run on Warp. Downie kept The Black Dog name active with new collaborators. That branching makes Spanners a hinge point, the last document of the original trio’s studio chemistry. You don’t need the backstory to enjoy it, but knowing it adds a little extra glow to the transitions and the way ideas dovetail.

Nearly three decades on, the record feels lived-in rather than dated. The sound palette is of its time, but the writing is nimble and curious enough to sidestep nostalgia. If you’re hunting around sites that ship vinyl records Australia wide, put this near the top of the list. It’s one of those albums that reminds you how much mileage there is in a good drum pattern, a sturdy bass line and a melodic idea that won’t quit. Play it loud, then play it quietly, and let it rearrange the furniture of your listening space.