Plone

Plone began in Birmingham in late 1994 as a hobby with a shopping habit: Mark Cancellara and Mike Johnston started buying up old analogue keyboards and guitar effects boxes and rehearsing drifting soundscapes under the name Rehab. Johnston's housemate Billy Bainbridge, then playing in a band called Supernal, bought himself a keyboard, joined in, and the trio became Plone.

They cut their teeth opening for local bands Pram and Broadcast, and in 1997 the Wurlitzer Jukebox label put out their single "Press a Key". That was enough for Warp, who released "Plock" in September 1998; NME, Melody Maker and Dazed & Confused all picked it among the year's best singles. For Beginner Piano followed in 1999, and it's a small wonder: toy-box melodies, wobbly analogue tones and tunes as sunny as a children's TV theme, beamed in from a slightly warped Saturday morning. "Plock" and the cheekily titled "Be Rude To Your School" are the pick of it, little bursts of daft joy.

The story ends sadly. Rob Mitchell, the Warp man who had signed them, fell ill with cancer in 2001 and was gone by that September, and Plone's second album never got an official release, though it has since circulated on file-sharing sites.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.