Download is an electronic-music duo comprising cEvin Key and Phil Western. And so is Plateau. With both acts touring together as part of Subconcious Communications’ Beyond Fest, the unversed might wonder what distinguishes one from the other.

A brief history lesson: Key and Dwayne Goettel started Download in 1994 as a side project of the splintering Skinny Puppy, recruiting Western and Mark Spybey into the fold. Goettel died in ’95 and Puppy went dormant, but Download carried on. The group’s music was arguably more expansive and experimental than Skinny Puppy’s, but still belonged more or less in the industrial genre.

During a Download tour in 1996, Key and Western decided they wanted to channel some of their energy in a new direction. “It was around that time that we started tuning into music that we would listen to when we would come off-stage, which wasn’t as abrasive,” Key says, reached at Subcon HQ, which is his home studio in Los Angeles. “It was definitely a different style. And that’s how Plateau got born: we wanted to make music that was more, like, soft. Or not necessarily soft, but more minimalist—less crazy. So when we got back we started making music that we thought would be suitable to play in coffee shops and stuff.”

Key acknowledges, however, that as the two projects have evolved, their styles have become harder to tell apart, as a listen to the most recent album by each confirms. Download’s Helicopter and Plateau’s Gort Spacebar both showcase thumping, often danceable beats anchoring abstract whorls of synthesizers that drone, shimmer, and oscillate in totally unpredictable ways.

“The two have sort of cross-pollinated, and because it’s the same two people, it does go into similar realms,” Key says. “The Plateau image, to us, is always the band that plays in the café during the Star Wars episode.”¦if it fits into that, then it’s Plateau. If it doesn’t fit into that, then it’s Download.”

There’s definitely a science-fiction vibe to the Plateau record, and its title is in fact a reference to what Key calls “the quintessential alien” from the 1951 classic The Day the Earth Stood Still. Bernard Herrmann’s score for that parable of Cold War paranoia made extensive use of the theremin, which also pops up on the Plateau disc, notably in the opening track, “Gort”.

None of which means you’ll be expected to attend Beyond Fest’s Vancouver stop clad in a Klaatu jump suit, although it couldn’t hurt. Whatever you wear, Key promises you’ll be treated to a two-hour joint Download/Plateau set, with old pal Spybey along for the ride.

But the party won’t end when the show’s over. Key invites fans to turn up at a certain North Van institution at around 10:30 that morning.

“It’ll be Sunday, January 16,” Key says enthusiastically. “Tell everyone to meet there for breakfast at the Tomahawk. It’ll be part of the Subcon function. You can definitely put that in print.”

Subcon Beyond Fest takes place at the Rickshaw Theatre on Saturday (January 15).