As the headphones electronica scene is now as quaintly mid-nineties as an episode of Home and Away with Donald Fisher in it, the Warp roll call has recently expanded to move with the times. They've signed bands who play instruments such as Maximo Park, Battles and Broadcast. Also, after hiccups with bigger distributors, Shane Meadows now releases his films on Warp and Chris Morris will be putting out a project rejected by channel 4 on the label, a film satirising that hot halal spud, Islamic fundamentalism.
All good stuff I'm sure you agree. And though the label doesn't set the electronic agenda in the way it once did, it still spits out the odd brilliant artist from the wotthefuckhappendtomyearsjustthere?? school of music. Musicians like Tim Exile and Hudson Mohawke. Exile's recent album Listening Tree is so staggeringly new-sounding I suspect those Warp wiseguys might have signed him in the future and sent him back for the craic to mark their 20th birthday.
MP3: Tim Exile-Family Galaxy
4/20/09
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Warp Records, the label beloved of greasy computer science postgrads with thousand yard stares and serious men with record bags biologically attached to their hoodies, is twenty years old this month. For a long moment, in the early to mid nineties, Warp was at the vanguard of the type of headphones electronica that is sometimes called intelligent dance music (IDM) by cretins - 'cos all other dance music is by that definition not intelligent, right? I know it feels alienating to these sorts when more rhythmically inclined people enjoy it in social contexts...but unintelligent? In its heyday the label spewed out classic drum n'bass, tech house, dub and ambient releases by the likes of Aphex Twin, LFO, Boards of Canada, Sabres of Paradise and Black Dog.
As the headphones electronica scene is now as quaintly mid-nineties as an episode of Home and Away with Donald Fisher in it, the Warp roll call has recently expanded to move with the times. They've signed bands who play instruments such as Maximo Park, Battles and Broadcast. Also, after hiccups with bigger distributors, Shane Meadows now releases his films on Warp and Chris Morris will be putting out a project rejected by channel 4 on the label, a film satirising that hot halal spud, Islamic fundamentalism.
All good stuff I'm sure you agree. And though the label doesn't set the electronic agenda in the way it once did, it still spits out the odd brilliant artist from the wotthefuckhappendtomyearsjustthere?? school of music. Musicians like Tim Exile and Hudson Mohawke. Exile's recent album Listening Tree is so staggeringly new-sounding I suspect those Warp wiseguys might have signed him in the future and sent him back for the craic to mark their 20th birthday.
MP3: Tim Exile-Family Galaxy
As the headphones electronica scene is now as quaintly mid-nineties as an episode of Home and Away with Donald Fisher in it, the Warp roll call has recently expanded to move with the times. They've signed bands who play instruments such as Maximo Park, Battles and Broadcast. Also, after hiccups with bigger distributors, Shane Meadows now releases his films on Warp and Chris Morris will be putting out a project rejected by channel 4 on the label, a film satirising that hot halal spud, Islamic fundamentalism.
All good stuff I'm sure you agree. And though the label doesn't set the electronic agenda in the way it once did, it still spits out the odd brilliant artist from the wotthefuckhappendtomyearsjustthere?? school of music. Musicians like Tim Exile and Hudson Mohawke. Exile's recent album Listening Tree is so staggeringly new-sounding I suspect those Warp wiseguys might have signed him in the future and sent him back for the craic to mark their 20th birthday.
MP3: Tim Exile-Family Galaxy
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8 comments:
When Broadcast were good they were just amazingly good. Work and Non Work (which I think is before they signed to Warp?) and Ha Ha Sound are astonishingly good, particularly the former. I wasn't crazy about Tender Buttons for some reason.
My favourite Warp album is either Frequencies by LFO or Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works II. What's yours?
Jesus - I was at the Warp 10th birthday tour what feels like a few years ago.
Lots of dancing at that. There was some american act that were half comedy. Someone dressed as a tampon jumped into the crowd and they threw glowsticks into the crowd while they played ironic rave. Yeah I can remember at least one serious chinstroker being unimpressed with that.
Bola played live too though and that and was pretty amazing.
The Black Dog guys once had an amusing public spat on the IDM mailing list.
They (Warp) did promote some amazing music back in the day.
@ Ciaran,
Broadcast are still amazing
;D
Frequencies by LFO sounds better than most any dance music released in the past decade
@Ciarán I love amber by autechre, frequencies by LFO and surfing on sine waves by Aphex Twin.
@John that sounds mental. No chance of a 20 year re-up?
That Tim Exile tune is a whopper beast. Definitely going to drop that shit when I'm djing.
Lolo I dont know what it will do to people. I imagine the way it revs from a gelatinous trip hop beat to 160bpm drill'n'bass will make people involuntarily puke on themselves.
I'll test it out in Spy on Thursday. I don't think the regulars in Clarendon would be ready for it. Brothersport is enough weirdness for them!
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