Plaid is a British IDM group consisting of Andy Turner and Ed Handley, formerly members of The Black Dog. Plaid have been signed to Warp Records since 1997, during which time they have released a steady stream of experimental but melodic albums and singles.
Andy Turner and Ed Handley have produced together under multiple aliases. Their first album as Plaid was ‘Mbuki Mvuki’ (Black Dog Productions 1991).
They first rose to prominence however as part of The Black Dog project / collective which culminated in a 1993 album release on seminal IDM label Warp: ‘Bytes’ (Warp Records 1993). The album included various different combinations of Turner and Handley in different guises, including two Plaid tracks.
Gradually Turner and Handley started to work less on The Black Dog project and focus more on their work as Plaid and after the release of ‘Spannners’ formerly left the group.
In 1997 Turner and Handley saw the release of the first of the Plaid albums to be released on Warp: ‘Not For Threes’ (Warp Records 1997) which included the eerie Downtempo Breaks collaboration with Bjork: ‘Lilith’ (Warp Records 1997).
Since the release of ‘Not For Threes’ Plaid have issued a steady stream of albums and singles on Warp records, encompassing an eclectic mix of styles ranging from the tough edged Breakbeats of ‘Itsu’ (Warp Records 2003) to the guitar drenched Shoegaze of ‘Eyen’ (Warp Records 2001).
In 2008 Plaid scored a soundtrack for a Japanese movie Heaven’s Door – ‘Heaven's Door’ (Beat Records 2008) – and released their most recent studio album in 2011: ‘Induction‘ (Warp Records 2011).
Though Plaid’s productions are always innovative, they have an innate sense of melody that prevents their releases disappearing into the wilder experimentation of some of other Warp artists.