Plaid

We’ve reached book IV in Rupert Clervaux’s series of “Zibaldone” audio diaries, at which point we find him telling a different kind of story. 

“The first three all had very specific themes, while this one feels a little bit looser and doesn’t have just one thematic thrust,” he tells me, which maybe explains why listening feels a bit like annotating. I’m underlining, emphasizing, drawing arrows from here to there, highlighting symbols and noting motifs, realising, questioning, eureka-ing. An impressionistic meaning’s been encoded in and we’re lucky to be given the space to play that most poetic and boundless of all mental games: narrativization. 

There are no wrong answers, but Rupert offers some clues either way. If there’s any cipher here it’s “something like a meditation on the concept of ‘depth’––in all its connotative forms.” Think below the surface, (the) underground, yawning oceans, being ‘down in the dirt’, soil, roots, rootlessness, pulling at the dregs, collapse, profundity, stable and unstable horizons, distance, perspective, intuition, not to mention relative opposites: to be shallow, to be above, to be beyond. 

It’s got me thinking of Bresson’s “Bring things together that have as yet never been brought together and did not seem predisposed to be so.” His: “Dig deep where you are. Don't slip off elsewhere.” Rupert has realized these—two favourite goals of mine!—here. 

This is music that catches you at your own periphery, gives pause, has you offering a little “huh” to, asking “I wonder why” to. Again, it’s got me musing on another mindworm, this time from New York publisher and multi-sensory reading room Dispersed Holdings: “Feeling-making-knowing feedback loop; cartography of feeling; water as text, read to know the land beneath and around it, and body as reader.” 

Is it ok to offer up these other contexts out of context? I think so, because Zibaldone IV articulates a similarly swirly tone. Like, we’ve got Rebecca Solnit talking through Kropotkin’s “Mutual Aid” and later calling out to Michael Ruppert a ways away, and “Easy Rider” is playing in the wings. We’ve got Susan Sontag magically contextualizing Mariah Carey with poet Thylias Moss triangulating in order to sketch out (Rupert again) “something a little more interesting than wilful eclecticism or that laboured and patronising kind of pop-savvy.” 

Are we following? Whether yes or no Vanessa Bedoret follows on with a performance of a performance of Moss’s 'Water Road’: to be once or twice removed, via strange transitions, purposeful confusions, and, suddenly, seagulls. We’re on a boat with Ingeborg Bachmann—and how I wish I could actually be! But maybe thanks to this music I can as literature, films, friends, lethargy, coincidences, little mental links, eternal wormholes, lingering notions come together to imagine something better. 

Text by Natalia Panzer 
npanzer.com 

Artwork by Coline Cornélis 

Music by Rupert Clervaux 

with 
Vanessa Bedoret: voice and violin on Thylias Moss #2 
Eben Bull: trumpet and electronics on Mutual Aid and Departure from England 
Isis O’Regan; voice on Departure from England 
Nick Taylor: electronics on Chthonic ’97 
Ben Vince: saxophone and electronics on Chatsworth ’17 

Artwork by Coline Cornélis 

Warm thanks to James Marrs, as always, and Natalia Panzer 

Vanessa recreates and reads an excerpt from ‘Water Road’ by Thylias Moss. Isis reads ‘Departure from England’ by Ingeborg Bachmann (translated by Peter Filkins). This record is dedicated to both poets––with great respect and deep admiration.

04. Does Pop Culture Interest You?

Not For Threes

Myopia

Kortisin

Extork (feat. Nicolette)

Prague Radio

Peel Session 2

Lazybeams (Peel Session)

Hospital Songs

Songs about hospitals, patients, nurses, doctors, surgeons, ambulances, treatments, illnesses, injuries & fatalities

www.facebook.com/hospitalsongs

The Calico Wall -  I'm A Living Sickness

Flyer

TASTE new single, out June 22nd.
(p) & (c) Les Enfers / Couleur KO, 2023
copyright control

Pile of Guilt

Cocaine Lane

A Web of Braided Willow - The Folklore of the Wickerman

The Jackpot

All alone

🌊 This LIQUID EDM Music Mix 2025 delivers a seamless blend of Liquid Drum & Bass, Liquid Funk, and Chillstep crafted as a No Vocals Music journey for fans of liquid drum and bass mix 2025, no vocal liquid drum and bass mix 2025, and chillout music. With smooth beats, deep bass, and relaxing vibes, it creates the perfect background music for studying, focusing, or unwinding after a long day. From liquid drum & bass mix 2025 to the latest chillstep selections, every track in this compilation flows together into an ambient and atmospheric soundscape. Whether you’re into electronic music, downtempo EDM, or instrumental study music, this liquid mix will bring you uplifting energy and pure inspiration.

Liquid EDM Set - Vol.2 - Track 02

Undoneson

Headspin

Making electronic music since 1988
Official Store | plaid.warp.net
Bookings | marcus@lb-agency.net 
US Bookings | bowen@teamwass.com 
UK Press | duncan@9pr.co.uk
US Press | linda@warprecords.com

Plaid (pronounced \ˈplad\) are the London based electronic music duo Andy Turner & Ed Handley. They are two of the founding members of The Black Dog, releasing their first EP in 1989 and signing to Warp Records in 1991. They have used many other pseudonyms including; Atypic, Repeats and Balil, but have focusing on Plaid since 1995. They have released 11 studio albums as Plaid, from 1991's 'Mbuki Mvuki', to 2022's 'Feorm Falorx'. 

Various sources claim they took their name “Plaid” from the Welsh word for “Party”.

Headspin

plaid

Related tracks