Recently, I was unexpectedly asked several times if I had any materials or songs from the band “Plateau.” This interest is likely due to the fact that some time ago, I wrote about my friendship with the band and later published a whole album of studio photos of them on Facebook, where I even sneaked into a few shots myself.
The thing is, the band existed from the mid-90s and effectively ceased its activities in the early 2000s. It was a very distinctive group, blending folk with ethnic motifs, and sometimes just playing cheerful and romantic songs.
In 2000, the band caught the attention of Vyacheslav Butusov, the former vocalist of the band “Nautilus Pompilius.” Together with the members of Plateau and the theater troupe “Licedei,” Butusov performed three acoustic concerts based on his album “Ovals” (one of which, by the way, took place in Minsk). These were not just concerts — they were theatrical performances under the title “Bibigonia.”
On Vyacheslav’s official channel, you can find a TV version of one of these concerts, which took place on February 25, 2000, in Saint Petersburg:
However, those who reached out to me were mostly interested in the audio recordings of the band “Plateau” itself. And when I was asked about it yet again, I finally gave in and contacted the former band members to ask for their permission to upload the songs publicly on YouTube. I received their approval, and today I am publishing the first album I uploaded — “Threads of Lives,” recorded in 1998 at the studio of the company “Inis-Soft,” where I was working at the time along with two of the band members.
For me, this album became a gateway both to the band’s music and to a long-lasting friendship with all the members. At the premiere concert for this album, I even handled all the stage lighting, sitting at the light control console in the “Minsk” House of Culture.
All the songs are available individually but also gathered into a single playlist. Even if you do not understand Russian, I still recommend giving it a listen — some tracks, in my opinion, are mesmerizing more because of their musical arrangement than their lyrics:
