The track you are (hopefully) listening to now has taken more than 10 years to get to you.

Planeswalker began as a side project of Todd Bowes (he of Providence's Downcity Armory) in 2000, while he was a member of seminal Western Mass industrial band From Angels To Ashes (1998-2000). At the time, Todd pursued a more danceable sound, mixing trance music with world music into something he called "ethnotrance," and in 2001 released a self-titled 7-song EP to mp3.com, simultaneously released to the now defunct Pitchpig Records. It even sold a few hard copies on CD using mp3.com's DAM CD service.

Eventually mp3.com came under government scrutiny as the RIAA and other groups investigated the legitimacy of file sharing (this was all before BitTorrent and whatnot, in case any of you kids were wondering) and while many of the independent and unsigned acts utilizing mp3.com's services were not committing any crimes, freely allowing people to stream or download their music, the System's suspicions of the website's motives eventually prompted the shutdown of its most fundamental services.

During this period of time, in the early Noughties, Todd met Christopher Brown (he of Boston's Vary Lumar and the Difference Engine) and as From Angels To Ashes disbanded, Todd elected to write more music under the Planeswalker moniker, with Chris contributing digeridoo to the song "Jenin," presented here. Todd recorded bits and pieces of new Planeswalker material in various home and professional studios, however, as mp3.com folded and artists fled to IUMA.com, the tracks got lost in the shuffle, and were never officially released. Eventually IUMA.com also folded, and ultimately, all the Planeswalker songs disappeared into the digital ether. Todd had neither the resources nor the contacts to recover the lost work.

Years passed.

From approximately 2003 to 2013, Planeswalker, once a blip in the ethnotrance world music movement, was completely silent. Until Christopher Brown, he of incalculable proficiency at retaining everything he ever recorded or contributed to in digital format, discovered an mp3 of Jenin, complete with his digeridoo part intact. He wasted no time informing Todd of his discovery, who promptly sent it to Devon Wedge of Wonderful Color Studios in Boston to master it. The results are here.

'Jenin' of course, is unlike most of the Planeswalker material, as it was written to be a soundtrack piece incorporating elements of classical music, world music, and industrial/techno music all into one. It was Todd's first foray into soundtrack/classical music, and a remarkable harbinger of things to come. However, as all the other Planeswalker songs remain lost to time and cruel human stupidity, it is the only representation currently available.

It also significant as it is the first time Todd Bowes and Christopher Brown collaborated on a piece together, initiating a musical partnership that has lasted over a decade, incorporating many bands and projects including the Ochmoneks, the Difference Engine, Dared the Knot, Downcity Armory, and, of course, the Dungeons & Discourse Original Soundtrack. At the risk of being overly sentimental, this piece is the sound a powerful friendship being born.

Moreover, rumor has it that Christopher discovered more lost Planeswalker tracks in his personal archives, so we may yet see more music come from this aural revenant. As for the other songs, the search is on to find the remains of this musical oddity.

In the meantime, enjoy this artifact. We'll be updating the site with art and pictures as we go along. Cheers!