Of these side-projects, only Plaid continues to be active. 1993's Bytes compiles an album's worth of tracks by these side projects under the mantle of Black Dog Productions. The initial lineup kept themselves busy with numerous alter-egos and side-projects, including Echo Mike, Close Up Over, Xeper, Atypic, I.A.O., Plaid, Balil and the Discordian Popes. But it captures the spectrum of emotions stirred by airports." Side projects While Eno's album is well known for being peaceful and sedate, The Black Dog intend theirs to be tense and bittersweet, saying "This record is not necessarily a comfortable listen. In May 2010, the Black Dog teamed with creative agency "Human" to create Music for Real Airports, described by them as "a contemporary reply to Brian Eno's work from the 70s". "We’ve helplessly watched with mounting horror, while the government trashed the country, signed away its sovereignty to Brussels (with a flourish of a specially minted silver pen), sold off precious national industries and assets at next to bargain basement prices, and indulged itself with two utterly pointless wars which it couldn’t afford," the group stated on their home page. It was described as having a dark cynicism of Orwellian practices of government and the passivity of the general public. The follow-up to Radio Scarecrow, Further Vexations, was released in 2009. The second, Radio Scarecrow, was released in 2008 and was very well received and nominated for DJ Mag's Best of British 2008. Their first album, Silenced, was released in 2005. Since then, they have started to play live again and have released eight EPs and four full-length albums on Dust Science. In 2001, Downie teamed up with Richard and Martin Dust, owners of the label Dust Science Recordings. Though they completed over a dozen critically acclaimed remixes during this period, only one album was ever released: Unsavoury Products featured the talents of Parisian beat poet Black Sifichi on vocals. With new management, and an increased vigour, Downie then teamed up with Steve 'Hotdog' Ash and Ross Knight ("thek1d"). In 1995, Handley and Turner left to focus on Plaid but Downie continued working as The Black Dog on his own for a while, releasing the solo album Music for Adverts (and Short Films). In the early 1990s, Downie was also running a bulletin board system called Black Dog Towers. The group did numerous remixes, notably for Björk, with whom it collaborated on "'Sweet Intuition" (a B-side on the "Army of Me" CD single) and "Charlene" (a b side on the "Isobel" CD single). The music was often produced under a number of different names, such as Close Up Over, Xeper, Atypic, I.A.O., Balil and the Discordian Popes.
The albums Temple of Transparent Balls (GPR) and Spanners (Warp) followed. The Black Dog released their first full-length album Bytes on Warp Records on 15 March 1993.
These were followed by a number of EPs on the General Production Recordings label. In 1989, The Black Dog was unable to find a label to back its releases and started its own, Black Dog Productions, which released four vinyl records including the acclaimed Virtual.
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