SQUAREPUSHER
Squarepusher Presents Shobaleader One: d’Demonstrator
WARP196
Warp Records 2010
09 Tracks. 44mins40secs

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

Do you know Squarepusher? This is what Tom Jenkinson was cheekily asking almost ten years ago, and he’s since regularly deflected preconceptions on his work, which resulted most spectacularly last year with the release of the superb Solo Electric Bass 1 album, which, as its title indicated, stripped his music back down to its most basic component, Jenkinson’s electric bass. With this new album, he moves the goal post once again away from the concussed drill’n’bass playground that he has made his over the years.

This latest affair started when a bunch of kids got in touch with Jenkinson with the prospect of bringing the fictitious band he had dreamt about, which subsequently led to Just A Souvenir two years ago, to life. Continue Reading »

Despite having only released one album and a couple of singles for the label, Seefeel are one of Warp’s most emblematic acts. Over a year ago, the band was resurrected, the time, it seemed, of a celebratory set as part of the opening event for Warp’s twentieth anniversary bash in Paris. That was without counting on the persuasive powers of Warp co-founder and head, Steve Beckett, who got on the band’s case and convinced them to work together again and finally give a follow up to the stunning and seminal Quique, Succour and (Ch-Vox), the band’s three albums to date.

The reunion actually dates back to 2007, when Mark Clifford and Sarah Peacock found themselves answering questions about the freshly expanded Quique, reissued by Too Pure. Continue Reading »

SEEFEEL
Faults
WAP299
Warp Records 2010
04 Tracks. 18mins59secs
Format: 10″/Digital

Amazon UK: 10″ | DLD US: DLD Boomkat: DLD

While Seefeel never officially split up, the project has been lying dormant for well over a decade. The band, was originally formed of Mark Clifford (guitar and programming), Sarah Peacock (guitar and vocals), Mark Van Hoen (bass) and Justin Fletcher (drums), until Van Hoen was replaced with Daren Seymour in 1992. Seefeel evolved on the fringe of shoegaze and were for a while closely associated with the Cocteau Twins, with whom they toured, yet their approach relied increasingly on heavily processed guitars and abstract ambient soundscapes which earned them considerable respect in electronica circles. In the space of three albums and a handful of EPs, released on Too Pure, Warp and Rephlex, they established a sound which remains to this day highly influential and totally unique. Following the release of their third album, (Ch-Vox) on Rephlex in 1996, Clifford concentrated on solo projects Disjecta and Wodenspoon, and collaborative efforts with Simon Kelaoha, better known as Calika, vocalist Sophie Hinkley as part of Sneakster, and more recently with Mira Calix, while Peacock, Seymour and Fletcher went on to form Scala. Clifford and Peacock were reunited three years ago as Too Pure issued an expanded version of the band’s 1993 debut album, Quique, and the idea of working together again slowly began to emerge. Continue Reading »

PVT
Church With No Magic
WARP198
Warp Records 2010
10 Tracks. 37mins58secs

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

A word of warning: Pivot (or PVT as they now call themselves) have gone a bit Animal Collective on us. Well, not quite, but the Australian threesome have made a leap from the textured sound of their previous output, the rather enchanting O Soundtrack My Heart, released over two years ago on Warp to something which may still bear occasional tints of the old, but has become an essentially much more song-based form, with multi-instrumentist Richard Pike assuming a new full time role as singer within the band. The sound has also evolved into a more electronically-fuelled affair, quite a radical departure, this despite often heavy live drums and occasional outburst of guitars spotted throughout. This is made very clear right from the short opener, Community, with its ethereal choral chords drowned in electronic arpeggios which could have been stolen from a sixties sci-fi soundtrack experiment. Continue Reading »

AUTECHRE
Move Of Ten
WAP505
Warp Records 2010
10 Tracks. 47mins48mins
Format: CD/2×12″/Digital

Amazon UK: CD | LP1 | LP2 | DLD US: CD | LP1 | LP2 | DLD Boomkat: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD

It’s been barely a matter of a few months since Autechre released Oversteps, an album on which Sean Booth and Rob Brown greatly expended on the melodic aspect of their work, a move that was started with Quaristice two years earlier. Move Of Ten is a different beast altogether. Darker, grittier, nastier, more angular, this EP drags Oversteps down into the gutter and purposely tarnishes its sheen. Although an EP, at least in Warp’s catalogue referencing, Move Of Ten clocks in at close to forty eight minutes, and ten tracks. Not quite as extensive as EP7, but a pretty densely packed release all the same

After a few years when releases were increasingly few and far between, it seems as if Autechre have entered a more prolific era in recent years. First, there was Quaristice, in all its versions, then a fairly extensive tour, and two year on, came Oversteps, quickly followed by this sister EP. Continue Reading »

FLYING LOTUS
Cosmogramma
WARP195
Warp Records 2010
17 Tracks. 45mins37secs

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

Thought Flying Lotus’s Los Angels was ambitious? Think again. There’s a lot to get your head round on the latest slice of goodness from California-based Steven Ellison, all crammed into a mere forty five minutes of virulent twists and turns, where beats are compressed into hectic sequences and dropped over thick layers of sounds. Ellison refers to Cosmogramma as a space opera, but it is more akin to the soundtrack of a disjointed sci-fi cartoon

It is difficult to keep track of where Ellison is at any point of the record, so quick is he to move from one step to the next. Continue Reading »

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 »