SQUAREPUSHER
Ufabulum
WARP228
Warp Records 2012
10 Tracks. 51mins20secs

Amazon UK: CD | CD LTD | LP US: CD | CD LTD | LP Boomkat: CD | CD LTD | LP iTunes: DLD

In the sixteen years that separate Squarepusher’s debut to his latest delivery, Tom Jenkinson’s music has mostly been fueled by strong fusion jazz currents and massive rave effusions, but whilst these two poles have cohabited, his albums have for the most part been under the dominance of one or the other, never quite the two in equal measures. With its heavy synths lines and playful keyboard washes, Ufabulum clearly belongs to the latter category. Following an excursion as lead-member of Shobaleader One, an enigmatic formation which delivered the somehow crowd-divisive d’Demonstrator two years ago, Jenkinson is back as Squarepusher, and it would appear that his little escapade has done him a world of good.

After the acoustic tendencies of Hello Everything (2006), which eventually led to the entirely beat-less Solo Electric Bass 1 in 2009, Ufabulum is Jenkinson’s most overtly electronic record to date. Continue Reading »

CLARK
Iradelphic
WARP222
Warp Records 2012
12 Tracks. 39mins53secs

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

It has been over three years since Christopher Stephen Clark last carved a hefty slice of electronic music for Warp. Following the lush abstract feasts that were Empty The Bones Of You and Body Riddle, Clark, having moved to Berlin, descended on the dance floor with his following two album, Turning Dragon and Totems Flare and smeared his heavily distorted electro-infused techno all over it, claiming once and for all his share of the club scene.

It is a very different Clark who is at the helm of Iradelphic. Ditching heavy-footed beats and hyper-active distorted electronics in favour of much more nuanced soundscapes, Chris Clark looks out towards the world and absorbs a rich palette of psychedelic hues Continue Reading »

LEILA
U&I
WARP220
Warp Records 2012
13 Tracks. 45mins54secs

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

Leila stands as quite a unique artist on the music scene today, and has done so for nearly fifteen years with uncompromising fervour and vision. Born in Iran in 1971, Leila Arab emigrated to the UK with her parents as the Islamic revolution swept across her native land in 1979. Some years later, she became part of Björk’s touring band in the early nineties and started recording and releasing music a couple of years later, but it is with her first album, Like Weather, published in 1998 on Rephlex that she really made an impression. The album combined stunning oblique electronic instrumentals and complex pop songs, sung by a host of vocal contributors, one of which, Lucas Santucci, has since become a regular feature on her records. Following a second album, Courtesy Of Choice (2000, XL), Leila appeared to put her solo career on hold as she joined Björk once again and contributed, notably, to the Icelandic’s soundtrack to Matthew Barney’s Drawing Restraint 9. She returned with a new album, Blood, Looms & Blooms, new vocalists (Specials founding member Terry Hall, former Tricky collaborator Martina Topley-Bird, Khemahl) alongside regulars, and a new home, Warp, in 2008.

Leila’s fourth album, here second for Warp, marks a sharp turn into much drier and more corrosive mutant electro pop. Continue Reading »

SWEET EXORCIST
RetroActivity
WARP218
Warp Records 2011
23 Tracks. 151mins24secs

 Amazon UK: CD | DLD US: CD Boomkat: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD

‘If everything is ready from the dark side of the moon, play the five tones’. This sample from Close Encounter Of The Third Kind is a very familiar attribute to any self-respecting early British techno fan for being one of the defining features of Sweet Exorcist’s debut EP, Testone, Warp’s third EP, released in January 1990.

Two years ago, Warp celebrated its twentieth anniversary in fanfare with a rather splendid box set, a set of compilations and a string of events across the world. Although Sweet Exorcist were noticeably absent of these celebratory publications, Warp have put a double album together to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the release of Clonks Coming, the label’s very first album, originally published in early 1991. Continue Reading »

Richard H. Kirk was already a legendary figure on the electronic scene when he teamed up with DJ  Parrot, then one of the main DJs at Sheffield’s club Jive Turkey, to form Sweet Exorcist, and recorded a series of minimalist techno records which were released on a fledgling label called Warp. The following album, Clonks Coming, was to be the first album released by the label. Twenty years on, to celebrate this momentous event, Warp have collected the album and EPs into a double album. Here, we catch up with Richard H. Kirk and look back at the whole Sweet Exorcist story, from how the pair got acquainted to working with Warp and becoming part of the label’s legend. Continue Reading »

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 »

AFRICA HITECH
93 Million Miles
WARPCD199
Warp Records 2011
11 Tracks. 58mins19secs

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Africa Hitech dropped a substantial first EP of broken dubstep and hip-hop-infused grooves just over a year ago, setting the hype machine in full swing in the process. The project of Mark Pritchard (of Global Communication/Jedi Knights/Harmonic 313 fame) and Steve ‘Spacek’ White, the idea of Africa Hitech came out of a desire to blend Detroit techno, soul and Jamaican dancehall. This was first synthesized into the razor-sharp urban textures of Blen, which was followed a few weeks later by an even more hard-hitting second offering, Hitecherous.

Fast-forward a year, and 93 Million Miles takes the pair’s original template and expands it to full length format. Continue Reading »

AUTECHRE
EPS 1991-2002
WARPCD211
Warp Records 2011
47 Tracks. 339mins59secs

Amazon UK: CD US: CD iTunes: DLD

For years, Autechre alternated albums and EPs with extreme regularity, the latter often acting as experimental playgrounds for Sean Booth and Rob Brown to try out new ideas. This release documents the first ten years of the band, from their very first, pre-Warp, outting to Gantz Graf. While Autechre have continued to release occasional EPs after that, they have been less prolific with that format in recent years, only two, Quaristice.Quadrange and Move Of Ten, having materialised, the former solely made available as a digital release, both counting too many tracks to be considered proper EPs. Continue Reading »

At the beginning of the nineties, Seefeel, originally formed of Mark Clifford, Sarah Peacock, Justin Fletcher and Mark Van Hoen, who was later replaced with Darren Seymour, found themselves treading the boundary between shoegaze, then in its dying days, and the rising electronica movement, releasing three seminal albums and a handful of EPs between 1993 and 1996. Then, although the four never officially split up, Seefeel was put on an indefinite hold. Now back, with two new members, a new album and a forthcoming tour, we took the opportunity to speak with Mark Clifford and Sarah Peacock about the very idea of Seefeel, their renewed focus and what may be the beginning of a new era for the band.

Continue Reading »

It’s been fifteen years since Seefeel last released a record, and even longer since they stopped performing live. The band returned to the stage at the end of 2008 for a unique live performance as part of the Warp20 celebrations in Paris. Prompted by an enthusiastic reception from Warp honcho Steve Beckett, Mark Clifford and Sarah Peacock, now with new members Shigeru Ishihara and Ilda Kazuhisa, got back in the studio and began working on new songs. The result first materialised with Faults last year, then with a self-titled album, both showing a band experimenting with much rawer and angular forms. Coinciding with the release of this fourth album, the band played a headlining performance at Kings Place, ahead of a series of live dates which will take them through the UK, Europe and beyond in the coming months. Continue Reading »

SEEFEEL
Seefeel
WARP205
Warp Records 2011
09 Tracks. 51mins35secs

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

Fourteen years on from their last album, and with two new members on board, the return of one of the most highly regarded bands of the early nineties is something of a major event. Seefeel never actually split up, but its members had, since the release of (Ch-Vox) on Rephlex back in 1996, focused on various projects and appeared to have drifted apart in such a way that it seemed totally unimaginable to see them working together again. It is the release of an expanded version of Seefeel’s seminal debut album, Quique, by Too Pure in 2007 which brought Mark Clifford and Sarah Peacock back talking. Since, the band, now counting Shigery Ishihara, better known as DJ Scotch Egg, and Ilda ‘E-Da’ Kazuhisa, have performed a handful of live dates, including one in Paris as part of the Warp20 celebrations, and returned in September last year with a brand new EP, Faults, now followed by this new album.

One of the prerequisites of the band ever recording again was always to create something different from anything they had done before. Continue Reading »

BRIAN ENO
Small Craft On A Milk Sea
WARPCD207
Warp Records 2010
15 Tracks. 48mins56secs

Amazon UK: CD | LP/CD BOX | DLD US: CD | LP/CD BOX | DLD Boomkat: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD

Musician, producer, composer… there is little Brian Eno hasn’t tried his hand at. For his latest album, his first for Warp, he has teamed up once again with regular collaborators Jon Hopkins, with whom he had most notably previously worked with on his 2005 album And Then So Clear, and guitarist Leo Abrahams, who has appeared on a number of Eno’s records in the last ten years, to create an album which, like many of his previous work, is inspired in part by film soundtracks.

As one of the pioneers of electronic music, and one of the most influential musicians of his generation, it seems quite fitting that Eno is making an appearance on Warp, a label which has over the years channelled many of Eno’s followers and has, in its own right, been a vehicle for many defining electronic artists of the last twenty years. Continue Reading »