Plaid

Plaid are the English electronic duo of Andy Turner and Ed Handley, whose work has moved between intricate electronic composition, ambient textures, breakbeats and techno-informed rhythms. Before establishing Plaid, both were founding members of The Black Dog and worked under other names, including Turner’s Atypic and Handley’s Balil. They began recording as Plaid while still involved with Black Dog Productions, releasing their first Plaid album, 22422, in 1991.

In 1995, Handley and Turner ended their five-year collaboration with Ken Downie and left The Black Dog. That year they released the 5002 EP and focused their efforts on Plaid full-time. Their records have appeared through Clear, Peacefrog, Black Dog Productions and Warp, as well as Trent Reznor’s Nothing Records.

The pair have worked with vocalists including Mara Carlyle, Nicolette and Björk, while their remix catalogue spans artists such as Red Snapper, Björk, Goldfrapp and The Irresistible Force. Two releases collect substantial portions of that work: Parts in the Post, issued in 2003, and Stem Sell, released in 2021.

Plaid’s work has also extended into audiovisual performance and film. With video artist Bob Jaroc, they developed Greedy Baby, a 5.1 audio and visual project completed on 20 July 2005. It premiered at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London’s South Bank Centre, later screened at the BFI Imax cinema in Waterloo, and was released on DVD by Warp on 26 June 2006.

In 2006, Plaid composed and performed the original score for Michael Arias’ anime film Tekkonkinkreet. They later reunited with Arias for his second feature, Heaven’s Door, and for two subsequent short films. In 2009, they contributed a cover of a Plone song to the Warp20 (Recreated) compilation. Their music has also been used in the LittleBigPlanet series, and in 2014 they helped produce part of the soundtrack for LittleBigPlanet 3.