This is the final selection of my overview of twenty interesting Warp albums from the record label’s twenty years. To read the other parts of this series, please check the table of contents on the right.

Jamie Lidell — Multiply

Jamie Lidell is clearly a very talented person. His voice is incredible, but perhaps more incredible is the fact that in his earlier career he contrived to hide it. His work as part of Super_Collider (along with Cristian Vogel) and his début album Muddlin Gear were dark, murky, electronic affairs. Although Jamie Lidell sang from time to time, he didn’t show it off.

With Multiply his sunnier persona was unleashed. Instead of the dark and glitchy music of his earlier material, Multiply is very clearly influenced by soul and funk.

But this album is anything but conventional and boring. Jamie Lidell’s considerable skills as an experimental and electronic musician are fully utilised too. This gives Multiply a great crossover appeal. This is on the brighter side of the border that separates pop from experimental music. But clearly there was no way to stop him from pushing the boat out a little bit. This makes Multiply equally enjoyable for those who like to tap their feed and those who like to stroke their chin.

Here is the odd video for the song that effectively introduced me to Jamie Lidell, ‘The City’:

Boards of Canada — Geogaddi

While most favour Boards of Canada’s earlier album Music Has the Right to Children, for me it’s all about Geogaddi. To me, this album is endlessly fascinating, and always an intense listen.

Geogaddi is the darkest of Boards of Canada’s albums. Their other material is known most for its innocent, childlike and nostalgic qualities. Geogaddi retains an element of that, but with a dark undercurrent running throughout.

The music is more complex and multi-layered. Hidden messages are peppered throughout, and some tracks reveal more about themselves when played in reverse. There are hidden references to religion, the occult, mathematics and numerology. Some even say it is a satanic album. (As a joke, the album lasts 66 minutes and 6 seconds — a silent track, ‘Magic Window’, was inserted at the end.)

Whether Boards of Canada were trying to send some sort of message by planting these references is doubtful. Such references are few and far between on Music Has the Right to Children, and absolutely non-existent on the follow-up album The Campfire Headphase. I think the references were planted in Geogaddi to create a talking point and nothing more.

It certainly got fans talking. This webpage lists a full selection of mysterious messages and trivia about the album, even with a track-by-track breakdown.

Needless to say, leaving aside the hidden messages, the music itself is fantastic. Geogaddi is an unsettling album to listen to, but nonetheless hugely enjoyable and an intense experience.

One of my highlights is ‘Gyroscope’, which manages to fuse great music with one of my other interests as it incorporates samples of a numbers station. This is a fan-made video for the track.

Prefuse 73 — One Word Extinguisher

With One Word Extinguisher, Prefuse 73 effortlessly fused experimental electronic music with energetic hip-hop to create a unique-sounding album. The album is jam-packed with ideas — perhaps too many of them. An idea is allowed to develop just as far as it will go and no more, making this an album of many, mainly short tracks.

The music is also quite diverse, fusing many of Prefuse 73’s musical interests, spanning hip-hop, IDM / glitch, rock music and perhaps even a little bit of jazz. As such, the album is a fantastically colourful and diverse journey. There is not much chance to catch your breath.

There are also plenty of collaborations on this album. While he went a bit overboard with the concept in the following album, Surrounded by Silence, on this album the right balance is struck. I particularly like ‘Dave’s Bonus Beats’, containing drumming by David Lebleu from post-rock group The Mercury Program. The track comes complete with the answerphone message sent to Scott Herren to confirm that the drum track had been sent, adding a personal layer to the music.

During this period, Scott Herren was clearly at his creative peak. Very soon after the release of One Word Extinguisher came the accompanying Extinguished, a distinct album made of the “out-takes” from One Word Extinguisher! For a collection of out-takes, Extinguished is surprisingly good — indeed, almost as good as the original album.

At the same time as the material released as Prefuse 73, Scott Herren was also churning out quality albums as Savath & Savalas, a project more focussed on folk and Spanish-influenced music. Sadly, his subsequent material has not been nearly as good. In contrast to the exciting explorations of his earlier music, Scott Herren began to use the same recognisable formulas over and over. I have since lost interest in Prefuse 73.

Nonetheless, One Word Extinguisher remains an excellent album. Here is a track towards the end of the album, ‘Styles That Fade Away With a Collonade Reprise’.

Grizzly Bear — Veckatimest

Warp played a blinder by signing Grizzly Bear. Their pre-Warp album, Horn of Plenty, was charming but not particularly special. After signing to Warp, they came up with the wonderful Yellow House which was full of hidden beauty.

This year, with Veckatimest, Grizzly Bear have released an indie-rock / chamber-pop masterpiece which has propelled them onto the cusp of stardom. Every track is a winner. Gently enticing and maturely constructed, I can’t get enough of this album. This album ought to become a rock classic.

Grizzly Bear is easily the greatest triumph of Warp’s recent policy to diversify further from electronic music. I look forward to hearing what they come up with in the future.

Here is the lead single, ‘Two Weeks’:

This month the seminal Warp Records label is celebrating its 20th anniversary. There is a heap of festivities planned, and I am expectantly waiting for the very awesome looking Warp20 box set to arrive in the next week or so.

They have a lot to celebrate. The label has personified the cutting-edge of electronic music for most of its existence. Few labels can claim to have been so seminal, and remain so strong for so long.

I discovered Warp at the beginning of this decade. I had already been developing a taste for experimental and electronic music, but before getting internet access I had no way to explore it. I had heard bits and bobs about Warp, but my first real exposure was when I saw the band Broadcast on one of those late-night music programmes on Channel 4. I remember very little about it, but I think the song that mesmerised me so much must have been ‘Illumination’. Here is a video of the band performing it live in 2005.

Once we got the internet, I was able to explore further. When I visited the Warp Records website, ‘Eros’ by Tortoise was playing on its front page. It was one of the most amazing and unique things I had ever heard.

The mixture of soaring sci-fi electronic sounds, intricate multi-layered drumming and funky guitar playing transformed my expectations of what music could achieve. Compared to the standardised indie-rock I had previously been listening to, hearing something as distinctive as this was an utter revelation.

I knew I had to continue on the path of discovery. Given that Tortoise shared the same label as Broadcast, there could be no starting point other than Warp. I was also quickly. attracted by Warp’s striking visual identity, which was largely shaped by The Designers Republic.

As I investigated the artists of Warp on the label’s website, I was surprised and delighted to discover a huge variety of new (to me) and exciting music. It is no surprise that today many of my favourite albums are ones released by Warp in 2001, when I was 14 and discovering all this amazing, diverse music.

But the Warp I discovered was already very different to the Warp that began in 1989. Back then, the promise of label founders Steve Beckett and Rob Mitchell was for the Sheffield-based Warp to be a “recognised, credible, uncompromising dance label”. Inevitably though, a label cannot survive 20 years without evolving.

Between 1992 and 1994 the label released the seminal series of albums including the eponymous compilation Artificial Intelligence. The idea behind the series was to showcase “electronic listening music” which designed more for home listening than the dancefloor, or more for your head than your body. This series contained music by musicians that were later to become huge: Richard D James (best known as Aphex Twin), Autechre, Black Dog Productions (containing the members of Plaid), Alex Paterson (from The Orb), Richie Hawtin among others.

The cover of Artificial Intelligence depicts a robot reclining in an armchair with copies of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and Kraftwerk’s Autobahn lying on the floor — an indication of Warp’s ambitions. The label became the most famous outlet of what is known as Intelligent Dance Music or IDM.

The IDM moniker makes everyone cringe. Few of the best IDM artists think of themselves as IDM, and the artists that describe themselves as IDM are usually not worth listening to. Musically, it might be fair to describe it as dance music’s equivalent of progressive rock. It was the necessary next step, but is denigrated by those who think it is too pretentious and impossible to enjoy.

Like prog rock, IDM had a limited shelf-life and it peaked around the turn of the decade. Electronic music as a whole is not the money-maker it once was. So Warp have further diversified. In the words of Steve Beckett, “probably the first sacrilegious move” was to sign Seefeel in the mid-1990s. They are a more conventional band with guitars and drums, associated with shoegaze as much as techno.

More non-techno artists followed, including the jazzy trip-hop act Red Snapper, 1960s-influenced Broadcast and, er, the downright odd Jimi Tenor (I never really got that one). There was also an increased focus on hip-hop with the likes of Prefuse 73 and the Antipop Consortium. Later, there was a distinctive move towards more conventional rock. This was most notable, controversial and successful with the chart-friendly indie-rock band Maxïmo Park.

Today Warp has artists as diverse as its history suggests. It probably remains best-known for electronic music leaders such as Aphex Twin, Autechre, Boards of Canada and Squarepusher. But on the same roster you can find electro-rock shape-shifters Battles, folk-rock bands like Grizzly Bear, the increasingly soul-oriented Jamie Liddell, hip-hopper Prefuse 73, indie band Maxïmo Park and even the satirist Chris Morris. Oh, and in addition to music they also now make films.

This diversity has been good and bad. Undoubtedly Warp lost its way a bit a few years ago as it struggled to find its feet after electronic music waned in popularity. But even after twenty years, Warp remains a path-finding label that anyone interested in experimental pop music should keep an eye on.

When I discovered Warp in 2001, the range of styles on offer was already massive. But each artist was notable for being interesting and innovative. It was easy to view the Warp label as a mark of quality, no matter what the genre was.

Long may it continue. There is absolutely no question that Warp Records transformed my outlook on music more than anything else. I am looking forward to the next 20 years of innovative music.

Over the next week or so I will write about 20 of the most interesting Warp albums from its 20 year history.

Updated to include the full 20 — I messed up the original post. Thanks to Ali for pointing it out.

Hmm, a bit late here. That always seems to happen nowadays. Sorry about that. But I like to wait until the very end of the year to do my end-of-year list, unlike others who sometimes compile their list in December or even November.

In my view, 2007 was a very good year for music indeed. But competition for the top spot in my list wasn’t close. But before we get there, here are some of the albums that appear lower down on my list, going up to #21.

40. Mira Calix — Eyes Set Against the Sun

The biggest disappointment of the year for me. This album has had all year to grow on me, yet it is still to grab me.

39. Bonde do Rolê — With Lasers

I guess baile funk is an acquired taste. I didn’t get CSS, and this album grates on me a bit. Perhaps I was blinded by the association with the rather good Diplo when I bought this album. Not my finest purchase of the year.

38. iLiKETRAiNS — Elegies To Lessons Learnt

My brother goes on and on about this band. So I’ve given them a go. I like some of their older songs — particularly ‘The Bible’ and ‘Go To Sleep’. So it’s beyond me why these tracks will remain as obscure demos or b-sides, while the album is full of samey dross.

The worst thing about iLiKETRAiNS for me is that this is one of the most obvious examples of post-rock by numbers I have heard. It really sounds like a poor man’s Godspeed You! Black Emperor. It’s not just the derivative nature of the music that gets me. It’s the fact that the original post-rock music was about pushing the boundaries.

In the past the ‘post-rock’ tag was applied to bands who were wary of being labelled in that way. But now there are bands out there who are actively trying to sound like ‘post-rock’. It spectacularly misses the point of the entire approach of the original post-rock bands.

37. Maxïmo Park — Our Earthly Pleasures

A disappointingly by-the-numbers follow-up to the exciting A Certain Trigger. You’d normally hope for a band to broaden its sound for the second album, but Maxïmo Park have done the opposite.

The greatest deviation from the norm comes in ‘Russian Literature’, which starts off sounding like something that their old pals Field Music would have come up with before descending into the bland Maxïmo template.

36. Bogdan Raczynski — Alright!

Not sure about this one. I’ve been meaning to buy a Bogdan Raczynski record for ages, so when he brought out Alright! I thought I would give it a go. I guess I must have bought the wrong one to start with because it has not impressed me as much as I was hoping.

35. Savath & Savalas — Golden Pollen

Yet another bland album from Scott Herren. Aside from a few aurally pleasant moments, this album is totally devoid of landmarks, and sounds just like old Savath & Savalas stuff.

After the major disappointment of Security Screenings under his other monicker (Prefuse 73), as well as a string of other increasingly disappointing releases, this was the final straw for me. I have stopped buying Scott Herren records until I hear definitive evidence that he has upped his game. The great days of One Word Extinguisher seem so long ago now…

34. High Priest — Born Identity

I’m quite glad that Antipop Consortium are getting back together because it really was a case of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. Whatever I heard of Beans’s solo material sounded (quite aptly) as offensive as audio farts.

High Priest similarly is not so great on his own. Born Identity isn’t offensively bad though. In truth it has some really good moments — a nice mixture of experimental electronic hip-hop and commercial sensibilities, such as in ‘Banger Up Top’.

My biggest problem with this album as a whole is that it is quite a claustrophobic listen. Songs start and end abruptly, as though there wasn’t the time given to allow ideas to gestate. This gives the album a dizzyingly fast-paced feel. There is just no time taken to pause and take a breath.

Video: ‘Pitfalls’

33. Amiina — Kurr

I found this album quite boring. It has some pleasant moments, but overall I find it flat and lifeless. A bit of a shame as I liked their EP, Animamina.

32. Kieran Hebden and Steve Reid — Tongues

Another disappointing album. When a modern pioneer of electronic music teams up a well-respected jazz drummer you expect magic to happen. What we got was little more than a selection of ramblings.

For Kieran Hebden’s part, the electronics mostly sound suspiciously similar to older Four Tet material, with a particular similarity to Everything Ecstatic. Meanwhile, Steve Reid’s drumming is disappointingly unadventurous and takes far too long to develop.

There is a video on YouTube of them performing ‘Brain’ live, and it is much better than the version on the album. Even though the albums are said to be recorded as live improvisations with no overdubs, I can imagine that it is pretty spectacular to see this live in action. But the album misfires a lot.

31. Trans Am — Sex Change

Hmm. I’m new to this band, and this is a recent purchase. So I’ll have to give the album a bit more time to digest before giving a definitive verdict on it.

But album opener ‘First Words’ is a neat and enjoyable nod to Krautrock. I find nothing particularly offensive about the rest of the album. Indeed, it is impressively eclectic, which is probably one of the reasons why I’m struggling to sum it up. Another impressive thing is that apparently the album only took three weeks from conception to completion. Efficient!

30. Clark — Ted E.P.

A so-so EP from a musician who promises so much more. Many of the sounds are recycled from the already disappointing Body Riddle. To add insult to injury, the final track, ‘Cremation Drones’ is a blatant rip-off of Boards of Canada’s sound.

Video: ‘Ted’

My original review of Ted E.P.

29. The Tuss — Confederation Trough EP

Some good tracks here. A decent taster for the follow-up album, Roughup Edge. (I write more about The Tuss in my review for Roughup Edge, higher up in the list.)

28. Proswell — Bruxist Frog

A landmark album, as it was the last ever to be released on the excellent Merck label. Another nail in the coffin of the ailing IDM genre. Just as well Bruxist Frog wasn’t a honker then!

Mind you, it’s not a completely excellent album either, and in a lot of ways it is a demonstration of what is wrong with IDM just now. The innovation just isn’t there any more, and it has begun to sound as safe as any other genre. Bruxist Frog mostly consists of pleasant and safe melodies, and styles that can be traced back to the 1980s.

There are some good moments in this album though. I particularly give my thumbs-up to ‘Run Loop God’.

Sad to see such a great label go.

27. Ceephax — Volume One

Hmm, I experimented a lot with buying my first album by a lot of artists last year. This one is Ceephax’s Volume One. It’s an album of reasonably good 8-bit style retro goodness, with a good sense of humour mixed in.

There is some banging stuff here, but my favourites are the more melodic and pleasant tunes. The highlight for me is ‘TX Jammer’.

I’m not sure if it’s convinced me to buy more Ceephax / Acid Crew stuff, but this is a fairly good album.

26. Battles — Atlas

The only reason this is so far down is because it is really a single. Apart from ‘Atlas’, this only contains a DJ Koze remix of Atlas. But it has to be mentioned because it pointed the way to the phenomenon of the year and definitive proof that there is still room for innovation in the world of music.

The song came as a shock to fans of Battles. It marked a fairly radical departure from their previous material. The in-your-face vocals (which some have likened to the Chipmunks) took some getting used to.

But that is the point. It is challenging, but also wonderfully fun. All music should be like this.

The album version is great enough, but Atlas really comes into its own in live form. That’s what Battles are all about. As a studio album, Mirrored is great, but it is most astonishing to see these sounds being made live. Here they are performing it on Later with Jools Holland.

25. Clark — Throttle Promoter

At last, Clark moves into new territory. Throttle Promoter is a teaser EP for Clark’s ’surprise’ upcoming album, Turning Dragon, which is due out later this month.

It certainly makes a change for Warp, whose hype machine usually can’t resist announcing new albums several months ahead of their release, making for an agonising wait for the sometimes obsessive fans of Boards of Canada and the like. Another treat for fans is that you get 25% off the new album by entering the serial number from the runout groove on Throttle Promoter.

As for the music, it is a pleasing change of direction. Gone are the overly-intricate backdrops. There is clearly an emphasis here on just producing good, fun tunes. ‘Kin Griff’ reminds me a bit of Aphex Twin’s ‘Naks Acid’, in a good way. It bodes well for Turning Dragon.

24. Bumps — Bumps

The percussion section of Tortoise decided to make their own album of “raw, drums, breaks, beats”. I guess it will do while we wait for a new Tortoise album.

As you would expect, it is masterful. Being essentially an album of drumming and little else, there is obviously little in the way of melody. But that doesn’t keep this from being a captivating — if brief — album.

Most of the tracks are quite short, and there is little breathing space between them. Yet the album covers a surprisingly large variety of moods and styles. If you’re a fan of Tortoise, you should definitely pick this up, although I fear lots of people will have missed it on the radar.

23. !!! — Myth Takes

I have to admit to being slightly disappointed by this album. !!! always felt to me like a band who could achieve more than they did, and Myth Takes is a bit of a missed opportunity.

There are some top songs here. ‘Must Be the Moon’, ‘Heart of Hearts’ and ‘Sweet Life’ all deserve a special mention. But they don’t reach the heights of previous !!! songs ‘Me And Giuliani Down By the School Yard (A True Story)’ or ‘Intensify’.

Video: Must Be the Moon

22. Boom Bip — Sacchrilege

A welcome change in direction for Boom Bip. I did not take to his last album. It sounded like he was becoming an old man. The punchy Sacchrilege is a great comeback. A bouncy, dancey joy. I hope this EP is a taste of things to come from Boom Bip.

Also, Sacchrilege has the best packaging of the year for my money. Even by Lex’s high artwork standards, this is a cracker. Styled like some fantasy confectionery box, with the winning combination of hot pink and baby blue. Best of all, you pull out the record to find that it is pink coloured vinyl!

21. Luke Vibert — Chicago, Detroit, Redruth

A fine album, further improving on the style developed in previous Luke Vibert albums YosepH and Lovers Acid. For me, the track ‘Comfycozy’ is a highlight of the year. It sounds like a genius mashup of two long-lost Muzak classics.

There are some other top-notch tracks to be found here — ‘Brain Rave’ and ‘Swet’ spring to mind. Having said that, the quality isn’t consistently high throughout the entire album. But it’s definitely worth a look.

This will be a short post, outlining what I think were the three most disappointing releases of the year.

Prefuse 73 — Security Screenings

At least Surrounded by Silence grew on me. But Security Screenings is far too mundane, and I’ve had almost a full year to let it grow on me.

What I said about it in May

Sigur Rós — Sæglópur

A lot of people feared that Sigur Rós would become bland after they signed to EMI. Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do and (to a certain extent) Takk… proved them wrong. But the Sæglópur EP is embarrassingly insipid. The B-sides are the three most boring Sigur Rós tracks I’ve ever heard. There were so many obvious Sigur Róssian elements. It was almost like a parody of themselves.

Tortoise & Bonnie “Prince” Billy — The Brave and The Bold

What the fuck is this? Two of the biggest names in alternative / experimental music team up to make a most overwhelmingly mundane covers album. My jaw hurts from all the yawning.

These releases deserve no more of my time. Tomorrow will be a more positive post as I bring you eight ace re-releases!

I already wrote about this album on my Last.fm journal a while back, but I’m really getting into this album at the moment, so I thought I’d write a post about it here as well.

Do you, like me, get it when an album really reminds you of the summer just because of the time of year you bought it? ‘One Word Extinguisher‘ by Prefuse 73 is a very summery album to me, as is OutKast’s ‘Speakerboxxx / The Love Below‘. Even Tortoise’s ‘TNT‘ reminds me of summer, and the music isn’t particularly summery at all.

But some music is perfectly suited to a long summery evening, the sort warm evening where the sun is a deep orange and casts a long shadow, yet never threatens to set. Just right for this time of year then! Lit by Malcom Kipe is one of those summery albums, so it’s a shame it wasn’t released at this time of year.

Although I fear it may be too late for anybody who may be swung by this post to find any copies that still haven’t been sold, I am really enjoying this album at the moment, and it also gives me the perfect excuse to write about the Merck label.

Malcom Kipe is perhaps better known as Nautilis. His mum calls him Skyler McGlothlin. Frankly I’m not surprised that he resorts to using pseudonyms. Anyway, on his website he put up a ‘Locked in the cabin’ mix, which is along the same lines as Lit. He advised, “This mix is a good summer jam, so download it and play it in the ride – on the way to the bbq.”

Lit is chilled out, gently jazzy instrumental hip-hop with a slightly nostalgic tilt. There is nothing terribly groundbreaking or unusual about the album. It is an album of rather enjoyable, relaxed music that won’t tax your brain too much, but might well still get you tapping your foot. I agree with the review that Boomkat gave it: “As long as you’re not heading into ‘Lit’ expecting any blinding bouts of sonic innovation, then you’ll likely be cosily seduced…”

I had only bought one McGlothlin release before — ‘Are You An Axolotl‘ by Nautilis. Even though I really liked Axolotl, I never bought another of his releases until now. I need to catch up some more.

Lit is released on the rather good Merck label. When I was first getting heavily into IDM and that sort of thing about five years ago, I bought a good few Merck releases. The first was the cutesy ‘Pistachio Island‘ by Ilkae, an album of forty-odd short tracks designed to be played in ’shuffle’ mode. Then there was the dark and crunchy ‘Negativ‘ by Proem. I also bought MD’s ‘Between Gaps‘. Later on I bought the excellent ‘Now You Know‘ by Machine Drum. That is numbers 5, 6, 7 and 8 in Merck’s catalogue — and I’ve bought nothing from that label since then. I can hardly believe it! What have I been doing for the past few years?

Well I guess I’d better hurry up and get round to buying whatever I want from their discography, because they’ve decided to call it a day towards the end of this year. Whatever the reasons, it is a shame. It’s never nice to hear rumours of a small record label closing, especially when it is as good as Merck.

Sometimes in the electronic music bubble it’s difficult to remember just how small demand for the music is. With a lot of these labels, releases are limited to maybe 1000, 2000 or 5000. Often that’s not because they want to keep their records rare — it’s because it’s what meets the market demand. Indeed, the Wikipedia article on Merck suggests that the label’s closure is due to financial constraints. But while labels may close, at least great music is never too far away.

That promised Brothomstates release for Merck never came! I heard that he prefers to enjoy life rather than making music though. Fair enough.

It is probably a bit much dedicating an entire post to ‘Lit’. It is not a great album. It is good and pleasent, but not really great. But I anticipate that I’ll be listening to it a fair bit over the summer. Unchallenging, unpretentious, enjoyable music.