RUSTIE
Glass Swords
WARP217
Warp Records 2011
13 Tracks. 42mins14secs

Amazon UK: CD | LP | DLD US: CD | LP | DLD Boomkat: CD | LP | DLD iTunes: DLD Spotify: STRM

Hailing from Glasgow where he’s slowly been imposing his sound alongside the likes of Hudson Mohawke and the Numbers collective, Rustie landed on Warp last year on the back of a fistful of EPs released since 2007. His first EP for the label, Sunburst, was published just over a year ago and received wide critical acclaim, instantly placing Russell Whyte, as he was christened, alongside the like of Warp non-conformists à la Aphex or Clark.

Glitzy, playful and in yer face, Glass Swords is a thrilling machine indeed. Caught up between bleepy video game soundtrack, futuristic R&B, bombastic eighties electro-pop and E’d-up rave, Rustie heads this roller-coaster of an album with the brazen presumption of a maverick on a rampage. Continue Reading »

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Warp20 (Box Set) / Warp20 (Recreated) / Warp20 (Chosen)
WARP20.0 / WARP201 / WARP 202
Warp Records 2009
– / 21 Tracks / 24 Tracks. – / 99mins13secs / 127mins18secs

Warp20 (Box Set)
Boomkat: BX

Warp20 (Recreated)
Amazon UK: CD Amazon US: CD Boomkat: CD iTunes: DLD

Warp20 (Chosen)
Amazon UK: CD Amazon US: CD Boomkat: CD iTunes: DLD

LFO. Three metallic blue letters, straddled by a ghostly shape, set on a black background. Three letters that changed things forever. The year was 1991, I was browsing through the new arrivals in my local records store, and the Designers Republic artwork of LFO’s Frequencies was standing out from the blur, calling out for my attention. An hour or so later, I was left baffled by a record which I was struggling to understand. On one side, the lush flow and shattering bass of LFO or Simon From Sydney irresistibly titillated my appetite for crisp evocative electronics, on the other, I had never experienced anything quite as bare as Mentok 1 or We Are Back. This album bore its influences on its sleeve, literally, and it took a few listens to ‘get it’. But ‘get it’ I did. More than I could have ever wished for. I was hooked. Not only on LFO, but also on Warp.

The brainchild of Steve Beckett and the late Rob Mitchell, who founded the label twenty years ago in the former metallurgic city of Sheffield, Warp found itself at a crossroad between the dying acid scene and the nascent UK techno/electronica movements Continue Reading »