AUTECHRE
Oversteps
WARP210
Warp Records 2010
14 Tracks. 71mins11secs

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

A new Autechre album is always a step into the unknown, so different have each of their records been. Evolving totally outside of any trend or fashion, Sean Booth and Rob Brown have, in the nineteen years since their first EP, Cavity Job, was published, followed a path all of their own and established a language which is tweaked and developed to suit their own evolution. Yet, far from being totally random, their sound is the fruit of a relatively linear evolution, from classic electronica textures to fractured soundscapes and arid rhythmic forms. In 2008, Quaristice denoted a clear step away from the beat-driven structures of the Confield-Draft 7.30-Untilted triptych, where melodies existed mostly in withered state, as once again vibrant musical forms and warm electronic sounds took prominence over rhythms. Continue Reading »

BROADCAST & THE FOCUS GROUP
Broadcast & The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age
WARP189
Warp Records 2009
24 Tracks. 48mins36secs

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

There are few collaborations seeming more fitting than that of retro-futurist popsters Broadcast and library music collagist The Focus Group. Julian House, who heads the latter, and instigator of the Ghost Box imprint, is a graphic designer by trade, and has been responsible for every Broadcast record cover to date. His work is so much part of Broadcast that they described him as ‘like another member of the band’ when we interviewed them six years ago.

While Broadcast & The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age is officially labelled as a mini-album, its twenty-three tracks and near-fifty minutes allow for a fully extended narrative Continue Reading »

Tyondai Braxton is a member of supergroup Battles, one of the most celebrated bands of recent years. Their debut album, Mirrored, saw them join Warp on the back of two EPs and a single released in a matter of months throughout 2004. The son of legendary experimental jazz composer and saxophonist Anthony Braxton, Tyondai follows his debut solo album, released in 2002, with an extremely ambitious second record, Central Market on Warp, which combines experimental rock, electronics and full orchestral sections. We caught up with the man via email ahead of his performance, as part of Battles, for the Warp20 celebrations in New York to talk about how he made the transition from his earlier work to the vast expanses of Central Market and how he wants to take this even further. 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 »

TYONDAI BRAXTON
Central Market
WARP184
Warp Records 2009
07 Tracks. 42mins47secs

CD Amazon UK | Amazon US | Boomkat LP Amazon UK | Amazon US | Boomkat Download Amazon UK | Amazon US | iTunes

Best known as the guitarist, multi-instrumentist and vocalist of experimental super group Battles and as the son of celebrated jazz composer and musician Anthony Braxton, Tyondai Braxton first started to get noticed in the mid-nineties with electrifying live guitar improvisations. His first album, History That Has No Effect, attempted to concentrate the energy and drive of his live incarnation. Since, he has featured on a split LP with hardcore/noise outfit Parts & Labor, has also featured on a number of records, by Prefuse 73 notably, and has been seen performing live alongside people as diverse as Jim O’Rourke, Thurston Moore, Black Dice or TV On The Radio.

With Central Market, his second solo album, Tyondai Braxton has taken a major leap forward, combining the angular rock of Battles and of his own experiments, with electronics and vast orchestral élans. Continue Reading »

SQUAREPUSHER
Solo Electric Bass 1
WARP174
Warp Records 2009
12 Tracks. 39mins20secs

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

Ever since he first appeared on the electronic scene in the mid nineties, Tom Jenkinson has injected his sound with great big slabs of live electric bass, yet this has, until now, been quite secondary in his work. Indeed, it has, at times, been buried deep down beneath crashing drums and lively acid squelches, while, at others it bubbled just below the surface, injecting healthy doses of jazz in his otherwise manic drill’n’bass. This was perhaps never truer than on his 1998 album Music Has Rotted One Note, on which he favoured for a moment a more acoustic approach, but the bass, Jenkinson’s instrument of predilection, has overall remained somewhat in the background, only gaining more attention in a live context. Continue Reading »

CLARK
Totems Flare
WARP185
Warp Records 2009
11 Tracks. 44mins53secs

Buy: CD | LP

It is almost hard to believe that Clark only released his first album eight years ago so much has he become, in that time, one of the strongest, most consistent and emblematic artists on Warp, to the point of challenging the might of heavy weights like Aphex Twin or Squarepusher. His constant deliveries, started with Clarence Park, have since considerably grown in confidence and vision, and his unashamed use of heavily electronic sounds, at a time when others seemed to move away from those, has made him one of the finest purveyors of the genre.

With Totems Flare, Clark’s follow up to last year’s Turning Dragon and his fifth full length, he continues to create strong and gritty electronic music, and he wastes no time showing off his latest dirty grooves with album opener Outside Plume and Growls Garden, the leading track to his recent EP. Continue Reading »

PREFUSE 73
Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian
WARP179
Warp Records 2009
29 Tracks. 48mins24secs

Buy: CD | LP

In recent years, there has been a noticeable shift towards a generally softer and more polished sound in the work of Guillermo Scott Herren, characterised first via his Savath & Savalas project which, following the pastoral ambiences of his debut, Folk Songs For Trains, Trees And Honey (Hefty, 2000), adopted a resolutely sunnier disposition with Apropa’t (Warp, 2004), before drifting into torrid torpor with Golden Pollen (Anti, 2007). Other projects didn’t appear as affected, least of all, for a while at least, Prefuse 73, Herren’s flagship project, which continued to challenge conceptions through his take on abstract hip-hop, but his last release, Preparations, published in 2007, showed some clear signs that the man was indeed mellowing Continue Reading »

CLARK
Growls Garden
WAP272
Warp Records 2009
06 Tracks. 25mins18secs
Format: 12″/CD/Digital

Buy: CD

Warp’s enfant terrible returns with another devastating slice of dirty gritty electronic music. Follow up to last year’s Turning Dragon, his most upbeat record to date, Growls Garden ups the ante once again as Clark launches another digital assault on the dance floor. Counting six tracks and clocking just over the twenty five minute mark, this EP is perhaps Clark’s most eclectic release since Clarence Park, as he revisits the dark hues of Empty The Bones Of You or Body Riddle (Growls Garden, Distant Father Torch), and, as he did with Turning Dragon, cuts some fine body-jerking grooves and harsh beats (Seaweed, Gonk Roughage). Continue Reading »

HARMONIC 313
When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence
WARP175
Warp Records 2009
15 Tracks. 57mins58secs

Buy: CD | LP | iTunes

“Music is now a thing of the past”. With this small detail settled, on Music Substitute System, one could just turn the page and think of other things. The past is, after all, quite important in the case of Mark Pritchard, and is certainly substantial enough to satisfy without the need of adding any new sections to it. That’s where he was in turn Global Communication, Chameleon, Reload or Jedi Knights with Tom Middleton; Link or Troubleman alone, and was involved in truck-loads of other collaborative efforts, scattered on too many labels to care to mention.

His latest project, Harmonic 313, is an offshoot of Harmonic 33, the vessel he created with Dave Brinkworth at the end of the nineties. Continue Reading »