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Archive: red snapper

20 Warp albums — part 1

18 September 2009 00:40

Categories: Entertainment, Music

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 first part of a series in which I will take a brief look at 20 albums from the first 20 years of Warp Records. These are not my 20 favourite Warp albums, or the 20 best Warp albums. But they are 20 of the most interesting — a showcase of the breadth and depth of Warp’s output. They are presented in a randomised order.

Red Snapper — Making Bones

Making Bones coverRed Snapper stuck out like a sore thumb on Warp’s roster in the 1990s. While the label was still most famous for its studio-based techno output, Red Snapper are are live-oriented band with a more organic sound. But conventional they are not. Their sound is a heady mix of smoky jazz, funky dance and edgy hip-hop. Although they could be associated with the 1990s trip-hop trend, their music does not sound as dated as some of their contemporaries’.

Making Bones is a thrilling album. From the very first notes — the beefy and wobbly output of Ali Friend’s double bass — you are sucked in. There are high octane tracks like ‘Crease’ and ‘The Tunnel’, the cheeky and playful ‘Bogeyman’, and the more emotional ’4 Dead Monks’.

Red Snapper produced another strong album, Our Aim is to Satisfy Red Snapper, before splitting up in 2002. Happily, last year they re-formed and have already released an EP. They still sound as exciting as they used to.

This video is for one of the singles from Making Bones, ‘Image of You’.

Brothomstates — Claro

Claro coverClaro was one of the very first IDM albums I bought, and to this day it remains one of my very favourites. He recognises that interesting techno music is not just about making it a bit glitchy-sounding or giving it a funny time signature. There are interesting and unusual sounds and complex drumbeats. But it is still very firmly a dance album, very much in the groove.

Although the experimental rhythms and sounds are very exciting, it is the melodic basis of the music that makes Claro so special. The floaty, ambient, slow-moving melodies sound as though they are being carried by an icy wind. Coupled with what some might consider to be the clinical rhythms, this gives the album quite a wintry feel. This wintry vibe is reflected on the album’s cover, which depicts a rather cold-looking beach. It could as well be my local beach in Kirkcaldy for all I know.

But I call this album wintry, not cold. It is certainly not cold in the sense of emotionless. In fact, the album is packed full of emotion. An album true to the promise of Warp’s Artificial Intelligence project, which posited that electronic by no means lacks feeling.

It is cheesy and clichéd to compare other IDM artists to Autechre. But I will do it. I think Claro, and its accompanying EP Qtio, is the closest anyone has come to matching the sheer awesomeness of Autechre’s best output. For me, the greatest shame is that Brothomstates, real name Lassi Nikko, does not appear to be interested in extending his legacy. Claro was released in 2001, but he has not released another album since, only popping up with the one-off ‘Rktic’ single and a solitary split EP with Blamstrain.

Here is a fan-made video for ‘Kava’:

Boom Bip — Seed to Sun

Seed to Sun coverTechnically, this isn’t a Warp album. It was released on Warp’s spin-off hip-hop label, Lex Records (which is now independent of Warp). Seed to Sun was one of the label’s first releases, and arguably remains one of its best.

It presented a fresh, experimental perspective on hip-hop. Boom Bip emerged at the same sort of time as cLOUDDEAD and the Anticon phenomenon, and with a similar outlook. The music is a thrilling fusion of hip-hop, electronic music and alternative rock.

The artwork is fantastic. Like Warp, Lex has a very distinctive visual identity. But while Warp’s was largely shaped by The Designers Republic, Lex opted for the distinctive style of EH Question Mark. All I can say is, this album has the best barcode ever.

This is a collaboration with Dose One, ‘Mannequin Hand Trapdoor I Reminder’:

Squarepusher — Ultravisitor

Ultravisitor coverI was always a little bit iffy about Squarepusher. I wasn’t sure whether I liked him or not. But then Ultravisitor came out, and there was simply no getting away from the fact that Tom Jenkinson is the real deal; a true genius.

Squarepusher’s multi-talent genre-spanning skills were already well known. He has produced excellent albums covering a wide territory. Madcap drum and bass heavily influenced by jazz. Virtuoso bass guitar playing and drumming in addition to his electronic production skills. Then, with Go Plastic, a brief flash of an incredible vision of the a darkly experimental garage music of the future (a precursor to dubstep?).

With Ultravisitor, he moved up a notch by combining all of his skills in all of these genres in one massive album. What Ultravisitor exhibits which his previous albums did not is a heavy prog influence, something which has remained in all of Squarepusher’s subsequent albums.

Something else which makes this album special is the fact that is merges live performances (you can clearly hear the crowd in some tracks) with his studio-based work. This brings the listener into a strange dimension, combining the rawness and intensity of the live performance with the depth and intricacy of the studio output. It is an unusual technique, but strangely it is not unsettling and somehow makes perfect sense. It certainly gives Ultravisitor a unique ambience.

You can hear all of these elements on this incredible track, ‘Tetra-Sync’, probably the best track Squarepusher has made to date.

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20 years of Warp Records

15 September 2009 21:59

Categories: *, Entertainment, General, Music, Personal

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 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.

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Music of 2008: #25–#11

1 February 2009 23:44

Categories: Entertainment, Music, Reviews

Music of 2008

A series of posts

  1. Music of 2008: #25–#11
  2. Music of 2008: Top ten

At the end of every year I write a post ranking my favourite music releases of the year. But for 2008 I was very busy, and I had other things I wanted to write about more. Now that it’s February, I think I’d really better get on with it. I know not many people will still be in the mood for looking back on 2008, but for those who are interested in what I was listening to, here we go.

25. Flying Lotus — Los Angeles

Los Angeles artwork
I used to look forward to any new electronic music that came out, but I find myself becoming increasingly jaded by the scene. Los Angeles is the perfect example. There is nothing particularly offensive or wrong about it. But it just doesn’t sound original or interesting enough to justify many repeated listens. I bought this on the basis of the strong reviews, but I would say this album is not much better than average. Maybe I’m just getting old…

24. Hot Chip — Made in the Dark

Made in the Dark artwork
Shark jump! Not as good as The Warning, which in turn wasn’t as good as Coming on Strong, Made in the Dark shows that Hot Chip need to have a rethink before they descend into mere self-parody. Having said that, there are a couple of good songs here (most notably the lead single ‘Ready for the Floor’), but overall this album is pretty weak.

23. TV On The Radio — Dear Science

Dear Science artwork
It was difficult to ignore this album, mostly because it received such great reviews — seemingly unanimously. The way people acted, you’d think this was the most important rock album since OK Computer. Sadly I must disagree. Even though there are some good songs on Dear Science, for the most part I find it bland and uneventful. It’s not a patch on their previous album, Return to Cookie Mountain. Although this is a good album, the hype leaves me scratching my head.

22. Harmonic 313 — EP1

Here is a fun EP from Mark Pritchard. The first track, ‘Word Problems’, sets the scene, led by vocals from a Speak & Spell inviting you to solve the problem. The tracklisting isn’t supplied conventionally. Instead you have to crack the code using the decoder on the spine of the record sleeve. A bonus MP3 is available if you can solve all the problems on the website. A great piece of fun electronic music.

21. Kelpe — Ex-Aquarium

Ex-Aquarium artwork
I rather like Kelpe. But although the music is pleasant enough, I don’t think it is original enough to merit a higher position. The style sits somewhere between Four Tet, Freeform and Boards of Canada. But in some tracks the Boards of Canada influence is a bit too obvious, and he doesn’t quite manage to nail the sound correctly which makes the album slightly unsatisfying.

20. Four Tet — Ringer

Ringer artwork
This four track EP exhibits a different kind of Four Tet. The new direction is slightly more minimalist and repetitive, but no less enjoyable for it. This really only appears so far down the list because it is so short. I hope Four Tet releases more material like this in the future. I am getting rather impatient for a new Four Tet album!

19. The Future Sound of London — Environments

Environments cover
FSOL have continued the purge of their archives this year, with the long-awaited Environments coming out on CD for the first time in 2008. Originally slated for release in 1994, the original Environments was scrapped. I’m afraid to say, though, that this hasn’t quite grabbed me in the way other FSOL releases have. It needs a few more listens until I can be absolutely sure though.

18. Sigur Rós — Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust

Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust artwork
A disappointing album. The first track, ‘Gobbledigook’, was released in advance as a digital download. It is an excellent track — madcap, almost with an Animal Collective vibe, and certainly unlike anything I’d heard from Sigur Rós before. It raised expectations. But unfortunately, the rest of the album, while rather pleasant, is disappointingly insipid. You’d hardly think this same band created the stunningly beautiful Ágætis Byrjun.

17. Sébastien Tellier – Sexuality

Sexuality artwork
French hero of the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 Sébastien Tellier released this delightfully eccentric album of unmistakably French sexy electronic music. This is hardly the most technically excellent release of the year, but a highly enjoyable listen nonetheless.

16. Autechre — Quaristice.Quadrange.ep.ae

Autechre spoiled its fans this year, releasing almost five hours’ worth of material in 2008. Unfortunately, much of it sounded the same and by the time you reached the end of Quaristice.Quadrange.ep.ae, itself a two-and-a-half hour marathon, you couldn’t help but wonder if you were having the piss taken out of you. There is no doubt that these fleshed-out versions of tracks from the original Quaristice are very good, by the time this came out all the various versions were starting to merge in the mind as one, and it doesn’t feel like the most value-for-money purchase. And considering not much happens during it, did ‘Perlence subrange 36-6′ really have to be almost an hour long?!

15. Clark — Turning Dragon

Turning Dragon artwork
Turning Dragon represents a refreshing change in direction for Clark, much more fast-paced and plastic-sounding than his previous material. Relentlessly fast-paced and dense, this is a captivating listen. Yet, as always, the lack of originality is Clark’s downfall. The Aphex Twin influence is still painfully evident, and the new style definitely owes a lot to the fashionable world of Flying Lotus and French acts like Justice and Jackson and His Computer Band. Nonetheless, this album represents an impressive diversion in Clark’s career.

14. Red Snapper — A Pale Blue Dot

A Pale Blue Dot artwork
Comeback of the year! I am delighted that Red Snapper are back together, and their first EP back demonstrates that they haven’t lost it since they went their separate ways back in 2002. The new incarnation has more of a live feel than previous Red Snapper releases, but it still maintains the electronic elements and groovy jazzy feel has been enhanced. Opening track ‘Brickred’ is amazing. Full marks also for the packaging, which is a plain white digipack with swing tags attached — interesting.

13. Justice — A Cross the Universe

A Cross the Universe
Justice’s † was one of my favourite albums of 2007, so I was always going to like A Cross the Universe, the live CD and DVD documentary which follows the band on their US tour. Sometimes the live interpretations are not as strong as the album versions, so for me the CD doesn’t quite have the punch it might have done — though it’s a great listen nonetheless. The documentary is odd and scary. I read someone comparing it to the Borat film, because the events depicted are so bizarre.

12. Claro Intelecto — Metanarrative

Metanarrative artwork
I had heard a lot about Claro Intelecto over the years, but this is the first time I have actually bitten the bullet and bought a CD. And how glad I am that I did! There is nothing particularly groundbreaking about it, but there is no denying that the music is wonderful. It is somehow nostalgic-sounding without being retro in the slightest. I particularly love ‘Harsh Reality’. Beautiful melody with a gently driving beat. A fine album.

11. The Future Sound of London — From the Archives Vol. 4

From the Archives Vol. 4 artwork
I rate the From the Archives series very highly. Volumes 1–3 collectively reached number 3 in my 2007 chart. The quality of volume 4 is not perceptibly lower (although it is rather shorter than the previous volumes), but I have not ranked it so highly simply because I have just about had my fill of archived FSOL material over the past couple of years. Still great music though.

I will post my top 10 tomorrow.

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