Although Plaid pre-existed the association, the duo's Ed Handley
and Andy Turner spent most of their early recording years with
third-wheel Ken Downie as the dancefloor-confounding Black Dog
Productions. Meshing well with Downie's vision of heavily hybridized post-techno
and obscurantist thematics, the pair brought several nascent Plaid tracks to the Black Dog
table on the group's debut, Bytes, a collection of tracks recorded by various iterations
of the three members. The group recorded several albums and EPs throughout the early and
mid-'90s, helping to forge a style of dance music one step removed from the 12-inch
considerations of the average faceless techno act. Handley and Turner (whose mutual love
for early hip-hop contributed BDP's more bawdy, street-level grit) split from Downie in
1995, and since then have rechanneled their efforts full-time into their first project,
releasing an EP on the neo-electro Clear label and a full-length on Warp. The pair also
recorded an album with European techno figure Mark Broom under the
pseudonym Repeat, two tracks of which also made it onto the South of
Market EP, released on Jonah Sharp's similarly located Reflective
imprint.
Sean Cooper |
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