So I'm watching television and a commercial comes on with a song I
SWEAR I recognize, and when I finally realize what it is I'm hearing I'm even further confused. This would be a commercial for
Reeses Peanut Butter Cups which features the song Plaything by the band
Plone.
Plone, for the uninitiated, were Mark Cancellara, Mike Johnston and Billy Bainbridge who were all from Birmingham, England. Their sound focused on older, analogue keyboards and they released a few singles in the late nineties prior to their debut album, For Beginner Piano, on
Warp Records in 1999. The band continued to record and finished a second album, but with Rob Mitchell, one of the founders of Warp and the responsible party for their signing, having been diagnosed with cancer and eventually dying in 2001, their album sat in limbo and they eventually disbanded. Billy Bainbridge joined Broadcast and formed the band Seeland with ex-Broadcast member Tim Felton. Mike Johnston did solo work as Mike In Mono and joined the ZX Spectrum Orchestra and the Modified Toy Orchestra. Mark Cancellara is a dj for a reggae club named Silver Dollar in Birmingham.
Plone's unreleased second album eventually leaked to the net and the collective joy of their fans, but Plaything is a footnote which I'm rather shocked has reappeared. The track was released in 1998 on a Warp Records compilation named
We Are Reasonable People. The compilation was given a limited release and is now out of print, apart from digitally via Warp's
Bleep website, and all of the tracks, at least at the time, were not going to be made available elsewhere, although that rule has been broken once or twice. Plaything was ripe to be forgotten, understandably, what with an independent label (a large one no doubt, but independent nonetheless) that added the track to a limited release compilation that was not made available in all countries, making it even harder to find due to having to import it, and also for listing it as a single release instead of an album despite it's length. So, when it showed up in a US advertising campaign, the first thought that came to my mind was "someone is really earning their pay!" The second thought was
"WHY ISN'T THIS MY JOB???"So, for your listening pleasure, I present to you
Plone's Plaything as well as their untitled and unreleased second album. Also, if I may suggest the We Are Reasonable People compilation as a worthy purchase for download as it contains a lot of great, otherwise impossible to find tracks from the cream of the IDM Electronic scene in the late nineties. That list includes exclusive tracks from Boards Of Canada, Plaid, Autechre, Two Lone Swordsmen, Mark Bell (LFO) and a collaboration between AFX, better known as Aphex Twin, and Squarepusher. The AFX/Squarepusher track is worth the price of admission alone, but I'm sure you'll find plenty of fun throughout this excellent compilation. Just don't try to listen to it all at once, it doesn't really suit itself to that purpose as each track is more like aural wallpaper.
Plone - PlaythingPlone - unreleased second album01 Multitonal
02 140
03 Slow Arp
04 Swing It
05 Can't Think
06 Farm Yard
07 Arpeggios
08 Saw
09 Grandfather Clock
10 One Song
11 Smoothie Ribbons
12 Dry Pen
13 Old Shoe
14 RY30
15 Smile Song
16 Another One Of Them
17 No Drums
