Warp20

A series of posts

1. 20 years of Warp Records
2. 20 Warp albums — part 1
3. 20 Warp albums — part 2
4. 20 Warp albums — part 3
5. 20 Warp albums — part 4
6. 20 Warp albums — part 5
7. Warp20 (Box Set)

This is the fourth group Warp albums that I am looking at, celebrating 20 years of the seminal record label. To read the other parts of this series, check out the table of contents on the right.

Pulp — Intro

Surprised? Not many people know that Pulp were given a substantial leg-up by the people behind Warp Records. In fairness, Intro technically isn’t a Warp album. It was released by Island, but is a compilation of the EPs and singles that were released on Gift Records, a spin-off of Warp.

Today, Warp would have no qualms about releasing music by a band like Pulp. But this was way back in 1992, before the “sacrilege” of releasing guitar bands was ever considered by Warp. It didn’t fit, but they wanted to help out their fellow Sheffielders.

Jarvis Cocker had already directed a couple of videos for Warp, and Pulp were stuck in a record deal that wouldn’t work for them. So Gift Records was set up to help Pulp on their way to becoming household names. Gift did release music by other indie bands, but none nearly as notable as Pulp. In the words of Steve Beckett, once Pulp signed to Island, “there really wasn’t any reason to keep [Gift] going.”

Intro is of rather variable quality — not as good as their later albums, but clearly much more accomplished than their previous albums. Indeed, the reason the album was called Intro was to obfuscate the existence of the earlier material.

Signing Pulp was a masterstroke on the part of Warp. Given the band’s past record, as a patchy art school-style rock band which had been around for far too long without notable success, other record companies wouldn’t touch Pulp with a bargepole. But Warp / Gift caught them when they were on the upturn, ready to become one of the best bands of the 1990s.

While parts of Intro lack polish, it also contains some of the band’s strongest material including ‘Babies’, arguably their best song.

Autechre — Confield

Electronic music peaked here. Everything since has been a disappointment. I think this album an extraordinary achievement.

In one sense, Confield may look like a natural progression of Autechre’s sound. They had spent the late 1990s gradually moving away from the ambient and more club-friendly sound of their early days, choosing to become increasingly esoteric and experimental. But even against that backdrop, Confield was a massive leap. It also stands out from their subsequent material, which has been slightly more accessible.

For this reason Confield was, and in many ways still is, a controversial album. When people talk about Warp artists being wilfully difficult, they probably have a album precisely like Confield in mind. I won’t pretend that I found this an easy album to get into. Anything but.

However, I am mighty glad I persevered with it. What at first sounds like an overly complex, jumbled mess eventually starts to make perfect sense after a few listens. Moreover, the music is so full of intricacy and detail, ensuring that the album is a fascinating listen. Even today I will spot new little details that I had never heard before.

Autechre’s music is highly unconventional, yet it somehow all makes perfect sense. For this reason, Autechre have probably done more than almost anything else to change the way I think about music.

At first glance, Confield is a very serious-sounding album; quite chin-strokey. The opening track ‘VI Scose Poise’ is particularly detatched-sounding. But this album is not without its fun moments.

Autechre’s heavy hip-hop influence is fully in evidence in ‘Pen Expers’. This track which begins with a very dense rhythmic cacophony, which gradually — almost invisibly, as though it is the audio equivalent of a Magic Eye puzzle — makes way for an intense, triumphant melody.

My highlight, though, is ‘Cfern’. It sounds like a fantasy jazz piece from 200 years in the future. I think I particularly like this track because it almost sounds like it could be performed live. I was delighted to find out recently that the avant-garde ensemble Alarm Will Sound has recently released a live version of the piece. It sounds absolutely remarkable. I have embedded the original version below.

Plaid — Double Figure

For me, Plaid have a tendency to be formulaic. That is not in the sense that their music is similar to other people’s, but that they seem to have a set template which they work around. They sort of get away with it though, because even though their music often sounds strangely similar to older tracks of theirs, it is still good.

But Double Figure doesn’t have that sense around it. I don’t think to myself, “hmm, I’ve heard that before.” In fairness, maybe it’s because this was the first Plaid album I bought.

But I continue to get immense pleasure from listening to it. It starts off with the poignant track ‘Eyen’, which is arguably their best (and was featured in the Warp20 compilation). It sets a high bar for the rest of the album to reach, but it manages it. Plaid’s style — ambient-techno with a rather natural, almost tropical vibe — is unique and engaging, and it has never sounded stronger than on Double Figure.

It was during this period that they began collaborating with visual artist Bob Jaroc, with whom they later made the DVD release Greedy Baby. This is the video for the Double Figure track ‘New Family’:

LFO — Frequencies

I am slightly too young to remember Frequencies and the hit single ‘LFO’ when they were originally released. But it has gone down in history, and is frequently listed among the highlights of Warp’s 20 years, making it impossible for me to ignore.

Electronic music usually dates extraordinarily badly. But even though ‘LFO’ was released in 1990, it is still immensely exciting to listen to today, as is the rest of the album. It’s great to think that, once upon a time, this sort of music could be a massive hit. When it reached number 12 in the UK singles chart, Steve Wright declared it to be “the worst record ever”.

In that case you might say, mission accomplished. But LFO’s Mark Bell, while not being particularly prolific under the LFO moniker (there have only been two LFO albums since Frequencies), has gone on to become a well-regarded producer, regularly working with Björk.

To be honest, it hasn’t been a vintage year for music. This year I’ve preferred to buy music from the past, because I worked out that there must be so much better music from the period zero to 2005 than music from today. Which is obviously true because even the top album on this list probably wouldn’t have made it into the top five of last year’s list. If I didn’t separate reissues and whatnot into their own separate list, they would have taken up most of the top ten.

Why has this year been so rubbish? Mostly because the media has been collectively masturbating to the boring drones of The Arctic Monkeys to the exclusion of almost everything else. These dullards are the future of music? I certainly hope not, because they could hardly sound less contemporary. It’s just like when The Strokes became huge five years ago for re-hashing the seventies. What is around the corner? There must be something… please?

Right. What you’re getting today is my list of top albums from #20–#11. The series will be rounded off with a top ten, and in between you’ll get a couple of other posts of other stuff. Enjoy!

20. FM3 & Dou Wei — Hou Guan Yin

A pleasant little album. There’s not much else to say about it. If you liked the music on the Buddha Machine, give it a shot. Even if you didn’t much like the Buddha Machine, you could well like this — although I’ve not spotted anybody else giving it much attention.

What I said about it at the time

19. Pulp — The Peel Sessions

You see, I couldn’t even resist including this one. Although it isn’t technically a re-release, there is not a single piece of music on this record that isn’t at least five years old. It compiles all of Pulp’s Peel Sessions — including the 1983 session which Jarvis hoped would never be released — and some other live bits and bobs. It’s certainly an interesting listen, even if they hit the odd bum note. A must for any Pulp fan.

What I said about it at the time

18. Plaid & Bob Jaroc — Greedy Baby

This audio-visual collaboration was hit by many delays, and it seems as though it was a right pain to make. Sounds like it will be a disaster, but it actually isn’t bad. Which is quite surprising really, considering how boring Plaid’s recent music has tended to be. Both the music and the visuals vary in quality from track to track, but overall this is not too shabby — as long as you’re not expecting too much.

What I said about it at the time

17. Malcom Kipe — Lit

I wasn’t too keen on this album at first. It seemed okay, but nothing particularly special. But I really grew fond of it. I found that it was a great album to listen to in the summer. Very nice stuff indeed. A bit like the Plaid album, as long as you’re not expecting anything revolutionary, you might well enjoy this.

What I said about it at the time

16. Clark — Body Riddle

The damp squib of the year. After all the hype, and the amazing Throttle Furniture EP that came out at the start of the year, this album was a bit of a disappointment. Perhaps this was because expectations were so high, but I just found this album a bit underwhelming. In fact, I thought the freebie EP that came with it, Throttle Clarence (a collection of music from the Clarence Park era), was much better! If you lump in Throttle Furniture and Throttle Clarence, Body Riddle would easily enter the top ten; maybe even the top five. Body Riddle on its own, though, is a disappointment.

What I said about Body Riddle and Throttle Clarence at the time
What I said about Throttle Furniture at the time

15. London Sinfonietta — Warp Works & Twentieth Century Masters

This is yet another album where none of the music came from 2006. Oh well. This is a compilation of highlights from the celebrated Warp Works concerts that explore the links between contemporary electronica a la James and Jenkinson and ‘avant garde’ composers of the twentieth century such as Steve Reich and John Cage. There is plenty of interesting music here. I know I’ll certainly be investigating Karlheinz Stockhausen more in future. Perhaps the most intriguing parts of the album are the bits where classic Aphex Twin and Squarepusher tracks are re-worked for acoustic and performed by London Sinfonietta. The results are sometimes patchy, occasionally rewarding — but certainly interesting.

What I said about it at the time

14. Thom Yorke — The Eraser

It’s certainly been a good year for frontmen to be breaking away from their successful bands to pursue a solo career. Yorke is the first of three in my list, but his was the most disappointing album. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting too much. To be honest, it is quite an average album. But there are some great moments. My particular favourite is ‘Black Swan’, which like grey funk; cold but groovy. There is too much of the old fuzzy pampered rockstar politics as well. He ensured that carbon emissions were kept to a minimum, and he did this by chopping down more trees than was strictly necessary.

13. Boards of Canada — Trans Canada Highway

A lot of people have gone off Boards of Canada now. I guess the novelty has worn thin. I thought The Campfire Headphase was pretty poor, but the Trans Canada Highway EP is a little gem in my opinion. It gives you what you’re looking for as a Boards of Canada fan, without resorting to re-hashes or minor variations of their most-loved albums. What a track ‘Skyliner’ is!

What I said about it at the time

12. Hot Chip — The Warning

This album is proof that all a half-decent band needs to get exposure is a major label deal. Everybody is banging on and on about Hot Chip at the moment — and for good reason. This is quite a good, enjoyable album. But I prefer their previous album, Coming on Strong. I shouldn’t complain though. It’s great to see such good music getting so big. So full marks in that respect.

11. DAT Politics — Wow Twist

This was my introduction to DAT Politics. I didn’t like this album much at first. Its pace was unrelenting, and there was very little variation in style (with the exception of ‘Fake Friend’). But after a while it really grew on me. If you like brash and colourful electronics, you can’t really afford to miss this.

Right, that’s the first ten sorted out. Tomorrow I will bring news of three sloppy turds.