20 years of Warp: our favourite 20 releases

20 years of Warp: our favourite 20 releases

2 October, 2009 | 4.35AM

• Written by: Beatportal
• Filed under: Music News: warp records

From its Sheffield base, it has revolutionised electronic music countless times and released some of the genre’s finest work. A true pioneer, Warp Records celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, a magnificent milestone for a label that hasn’t once stopped pushing the sonic envelope.

The label has released so much amazing music over the last two decades, that we decided to gather some of Beatport’s staff - all ardent Warp Records fans - around a coffee table to talk about our favourite ever Warp releases.

Don’t forget to let us know what your favourite Warp release is, in the comments section below.

LFO ‘Advance’ (WARPCD39)

While ‘Frequencies’ with the eternal ‘LFO’ anthem might be the most important LFO album, ‘Advance’ in my opinion is the most timeless. After 13 years, many parts of the album still leave me speechless today.

Beautiful ambient pieces like ‘Goodnight Vienna’, ‘Ultra Schall’, or ‘Shove Piggy Shove’ dominate the album, but my personal highlight is ‘Tied Up’, a post industrial nightmare that works perfectly with its disturbing S&M fetish video. Groundbreaking music! – Ronny Krieger (Chief Programming Officer)

Various Artists ‘Artificial Intelligence’ (WARPCD6)

Featuring the first appearance of Autechre and Polygon Window, plus licensed tracks from Speedy J., The Orb’s Alex Paterson, B12’s Musicology alias, and Richie Hawtin’s Up! Guise, Artificial Intelligence was the first collection to connect the dots between chillout, Detroit Techno, and more heady electronic beats.

‘AI’ became the benchmark for which the IDM genre was measured and it spawned a second compilation and an artist driven album series which established Warp as a force in forward thinking electronic music for many years to come. – Peter Wohelski (Label Manager Americas)

Boards Of Canada ‘The Campfire Headphase’ (WARPCD123)

Boards of Canada ‘The Campfire Headphase’ is, for me, one of the most rich and memorable albums from Warp Records. It’s one of the few treasures that will never, ever disappear from my iPod. – Kevin Carlisle (Managing Product Owner)

Maximo Park ‘A Certain Trigger’ (WARPCD130)

Maximo Park ‘A Certain Trigger’ is a very rare example of a contemporary UK indie band making subtle and surprising songs which were in fact hits at the same time. Never mind the boring direction they took after this one. And didn’t Warp sign them?! – Gustaf Sparr (Label Manager (Europe)

Plaid ‘Double Figure’ (WARPCD84)

I bought this on vinyl and the records never left my turntables for at least six months. The album blends sublime ambience with unconventional time sequences and innovative sounds that at the time, and even today, are hard to find anywhere else.

‘New Family’ always makes my hairs stand on end with it’s dark ambience whilst ‘Eyen’ will go down as being one of the legendary electronica tracks of all time, in my opinion anyway! ‘Double Figure’ won’t be noted as a historical album for Warp, but it is one of its best. – Daniel Cole (Content Merchandising Manager)

B12 ‘Electro-Soma’ (WARPCD9)

A staple album in the introduction of Warp’s ‘Artificial Intelligence’ series of compilations and releases, Steve Rutter and Michael Golding’s B12 project had cinematic appeal from the moment the lead-in track ‘Soundtrack of Space’ hit. 

This release and the following ‘Time Tourist’ were polished intelligent techno that shared a soul with Detroit while having a sci-fi touch reminiscent of classic electronic composers like Vangelis, Tangerine Dream, Raymond Scott and Brian Eno. – Clark Warner (Director Of Label Management Americas)

DJ Mujava ‘Township Funk EP’ (WAP250)

With a near-unrivalled wealth of high-brow versatility, it is perhaps easy to underestimate Warp’s knack for uncovering good old fashioned smash hits.

One such example is DJ Mujava’s ‘Township Funk’. If its irreverently catchy melody doesn’t play ping pong between your ears at its mere mention, then you were either born yesterday or someone erased summer 2008 from your brain.

Part grime, part reggaeton, a whole lot funky, this was a veritable dancefloor phenomenon whose genre-bending capacities saw it championed all the way from the underground community to the mainstream charts. An unexpected yet richly deserved entry into the pantheon of Warp. – Jack Haighton (Customer Support)

LFO ‘Frequencies’ (WARPCD3)

I’ve caught every new release from Warp since the 1990 release of LFO ‘L.F.O.’. That track had a huge influence on the Los Angeles EDM and rave scene (once DJs had the balls to mix it in) and it certainly had an impact on me as a young producer exploring the underground scene in LA.

By keeping an early eye on Warp, I was fortunate to be introduced to new artist in genres I would not normally have been following at the time, but have certainly followed since. – Peter Siciliano (VP Of Technology)

Boards Of Canada ‘Geogaddi’ (WARPCD101)

One of my most treasured gems is ‘Geogaddi’ by Boards of Canada which I bought back in 2002. It came in a beautiful, robust triple-LP gatefold, and all three inner-sleeves were printed with kaleidoscopic motifs.

The beauty of the artwork is more than reflected in the album’s mysterious, haunting, and enthralling music: the child vocal samples on ‘Gyroscope’, the searing sounds on ‘Opening The Mouth’, and the pure silence of ‘Magic Window’, to give but a few examples.

Michael Sadison himself says it best when he describes Geogaddi as “a record for some sort of trial-by-fire, a claustrophobic, twisting journey that takes you into some pretty dark experiences before you reach the open air again. It has a kind of narrative. – Noura Labbani (VP Of Content)

Sabres Of Paradise ‘Haunted Dancehall’ (WARPCD26)

Andrew Weatherall’s experimental band was active in the early 1990s, and ‘Haunted Dancehall’ is their second album. It is a stunning masterpiece of electronica produced without any vocals, which remains one of the most treasured albums I own.

It sounds as fresh today as it did when it was released in 1994. Ultra talented Weatherall was in top form here, and gave us a late night, ultra dubbed out and trippy groove that he’s so much appreciated for now. – Dave Heugel (Label Manager Europe)

Boards Of Canada ‘In A Beautiful Place Out In the Country’ (WAPCD144)

The four tracks featured on this EP are flawless. They’re very melancholy, extremely dreamy and absolutely beautiful. If all chill out music sounded like this, I’d never listen to anything else. Amazing! – Mike Chapman (Genre Manager)

Autechre ‘LP5’ (WARPCD66)

Rob Brown and Sean Booth have created some of the pioneering electronic music of the 20th century that defies categorisation and I would rank them amongst the Raymond Scott’s and Don Buchla’s of this world, for their contributions to the development of man-made sound.

‘LP5’ is a full vision of their crazy, chaotic and meticulous sequencing of analogue instruments and hacked samples. Continually shifting time signatures somehow create uneasy but pleasurable listening, and combined with haunting and emotional melodic elements, they created a masterpiece. – Matthew Styles-Harris (Label Manager Europe)

Jamie Lidell ‘Multiply’ (WARPCD131)

This album brings together the best of the throwback soul thing going on these days. Lidell’s mind blowing voice and unstoppable song writing make this a phenomenal record. - Marc Wren (Scrum Master)

Plaid ‘Not For Threes’ (WARPCD54)

Plaid’s ‘Not For Threes’ combines everything that is so superb about Plaid - beautiful music bathed in the liquor of life, suffused with shafts of light.

Particularly noteworthy is the quietly detailed collaboration with Björk on the jazzy and warm ‘Lilith’. – Stephan Mossmann (Label Manager Europe)

Aphex Twin ‘On’ (WAP39CD)

Aphex Twin’s very unique sound was evident even back in 1993, on the EP ‘On’. A game changing sound that morphed over the years into the calming tripped vibe of ‘Come To Daddy’ (1997), ‘On’ still stands the test of time today. – Peter Siciliano (VP Of Technology)

Prefuse 73 ‘One Word Extinguisher’ (WARPCD105)

This album helped to bring glitch and electronica to hip hop. Its influence is immediately obvious when you listen to any hip hop music coming out these days. Tracks like ‘Storm Returns’ and ‘Chocking You’ are classics, and you can’t help but mutter the name Prefuse in any sentence that might contain the names DJ Shadow or RJD2. - Marc Wren (Scrum Master)

Various Artists ‘Pioneers Of The Hypnotic Groove’ (WARPCD2)

As the epicenter of the Bleeps and Bass scene of the early 90’s, Warp was the first to champion this sound coming out of their hometown of Sheffield, beginning with ‘LFO’ by LFO, the label’s first release. 

Recalling the halcyon days of UK rave, ‘Pioneers Of The Hypnotic Groove’ compiles the (now classic) highlights of the label’s first singles, including tracks from Sweet Exorcist (aka Cabaret Voltaire’s Richard Kirk), Tricky Disco (aka GTO/Greater Than One’s Michael Wells), Forgemasters (aka Rob Gordon), the mysterious DJ Mink & K.I.D. Carruthers, Nightmares On Wax, and of course, LFO.  – Peter Wohelski (Label Manager Americas)

Hudson Mohawke ‘Polyfolk Dance’ (WAP261)

It’s amazing to think that after 20 years, Warp are still pushing boundaries. Just this past January they released Hudson Mohawke’s debut EP ‘Polyfolk Dance’, a stunning tapestry of instrumental hip hop and 2-step melodic soundscapes that sounded like nothing that had come before. Except maybe Flying Lotus, who is of course, another Warp artist. – Terry Church (Beatportal Editor)

Plaid ‘Spokes’ (WARPCD114)

Out of the big six on Warp (Aphex Twin, Autechre, Squarepusher, LFO, Plaid, Boards Of Canada) my favourite is probably The Black Dog follow up project Plaid. While ‘Double Figure’ was already an album hard to top, ‘Spokes’ is my personal Plaid highlight and one the best electronic music albums ever.

‘Marry’, ‘Even Spring’, and ‘Zeal’ literally give me goose bumps every time I hear their first few notes. Complex beat structures and touching melodies par excellence! – Ronny Krieger (Chief Programming Officer)

Polygon Window ‘Surfing On Sine Waves’ (WARPCD7)

While Richard James was defining the myth of his Aphex Twin identity in the early 1990’s, the Polygon Window album ‘Surfing On Sine Waves’ went slightly under the radar. The work saw metallic, near industrial percussion collide with off-world ambience and pure tones. An important piece. – Clark Warner (Director Of Label Management Americas)

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