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Last updated: 11/10/2006 - 13:00

Want to know where can you find the Aphex Twin; Squarepusher; Broadcast; LFO; Autechre and Jimi Tenor all on one shiny disc? There is a place...

Warp Vision - The Videos 1989 - 2004

Warp Records release their first ever DVD collection, featuring the best of all the Warp video clips since the staunchly independent label's inception, over fifteen years ago. Featuring a dazzling array of directors, coupled with some of the last two decade’s most influential and memorable tunes. Simply put, this is a stunning collection.

MTV

Since the label's inception in 1989 Warp Records have been quietly producing some of the most challenging and innovative promotional films to go with the musical output of their diverse stable of artists. Rarely seen on British television (for shame!) many of these promos have been occasionally glimpsed late at night – or very early in the morning - on shows such as MTV’s 120 Minutes, but their exposure in the mainstream has been , for the large part, minimal. Until now, that is! Now, with the release of this DVD, fans of the more experimental, innovative side of filmmaking can revel in the visions of directors as diverse as Martin Wallace, Pulp front man Jarvis Cocker, Jimi Tenor, Sökö Kaukorant, Jean Luc Chansay, Ed Holdsworth and many others – each set to a quite fabulous soundtrack.

The track-listing for this inaugural compilation from Warp looks like this:

1. Sweet Exorcist - Testone (dir: Martin Wallace & Jarvis Cocker)
2. LFO - LFO
3. Nightmares on Wax - Aftermath (dir: Jarvis Cocker)
4. Aphex Twin - On (dir: Jarvis Cocker)
5. I Smell Quality (dir: David Slade)
6. LFO - Tied Up (dir: David Slade)
7. Sabres of Paradise - Wilmot (dir: Douglas Hart)
8. Seefeel - Fracture
9. Aphex Twin - Donkey Rhubarb (dir: David Slade)
10. Autechre - Second Bad Vilbel (dir: Chris Cunningham)
11. Aphex Twin - Come To Daddy (dir: Chris Cunningham)
12. Squarepusher - Come On My Selector (dir: Chris Cunningham)
13. Jimi Tenor - Midsummers Night (dir: Jimi Tenor and Sökö Kaukorant)
14. Aphex Twin - Windowlicker
15. Jimi Tenor - Total Devastation (dir: Jimi Tenor and Sökö Kaukorant)
16. Broadcast - Papercuts
17. Jamie Lidell - Daddy's Car (dir: Frederic D)
18. John Callaghan - I'm Not Comfortable Inside My Mind
19. Antipop Consortium - Perpendicular/Vector
20. Plaid - Eyen (dir: Jean Luc Chansay)
21. Antipop Consortium - Ghostlawns
22. Autechre - Gantz Graf
23. Aphex Twin - Nannou
24. Chris Clark - Gob Coitus
25. LFO - Freak
26. Luke Vibert - I Love Acid
27. Mira Calix - Little Numba (dir: Daniele Lunghini)
28. Plaid - Itsu
29. Prefuse 73 - Half Of What?
30. Opto - Scientific
31. Beans - Mutescreamer
32. Jamie Lidell - The City (dir: Frederic D)

Warp Films

In 2001, Warp started a film company, Warp Films, earning a BAFTA in 2003 with its first short, My Wrongs #8245-8249 & 117, the directorial debut from Chris Morris. Director Chris Cunningham has long been associated with Warp, through his infamous videos for Aphex Twin – most notoriously for the disturbing Come to Daddy and for Windowlicker, as well as for Squarepusher and Autechre,

Other projects underway include the feature-length film Dead Man’s Shoes, from director Shane Meadows (A Room for Romeo Brass, Once Upon a Time in the Midlands) starring Paddy Considine, and another film in development, to be directed by Jarvis Cocker.

So who exactly are Warp? And where exactly did this astonishingly eclectic collection of music come from? Well, it all began back in the late summer of 1989 a hand-stamped record started to appear in dance shops, first in the north of England, then gradually permeating its way into the whole country. This record heralded the birth of a new label and confirmed the emergence of a new form of twisted British music inspired by the house pioneers in Chicago and Detroit. The label was Warp and the record was the Forgemasters’ Track With No Name.

Nightmares on Wax

Forgemasters went on to sell 11,000 copies and the next record simply walked in through the doors of the Warp shop that Rob Mitchell and Steve Beckett had set up two years previously. George Evelyn brought the Nightmares on Wax Dextrous white label into the shop hoping to sell a few copies and walked out with a record deal. The new scene, centered around legendary clubs Jive Turkey and Occasions started to inspire the old hands, with Richard H Kirk - of Cabaret Voltaire - and local DJ Parrot producing the bleep anthem Testone as Sweet Exorcist, a tune famously sampled by Bill Drummond’s KLF for 3am Eternal.

Around the same time word got out of a taped track played at The Warehouse in Leeds- a track with a subsonic bass that threatened to blow club systems and shatter windows and eardrums alike. The track’s creators were hunted down and immediately signed up. The speak-and-spell mayhem of LFO by LFO was unleashed on the nation’s dance floors and raves, and from there romped up the national charts to peak at No. 12, selling 130,000 copies. LFO went on to record the era-defining album Frequencies, one of the first British house/techno albums, still sounding fresh and influential today.

The very next week, the eponymous Tricky Disco by Tricky Disco entered the charts, followed six weeks later by Nightmares on Wax’s Aftermath. No-one knew it at that time, but this was to be the last hit off the label for 3 long years. Warp would have to reinvent itself to survive and continue its mission: to release music from the most exciting and original musical minds on the planet.

Artificial Intelligence

The Rave scene exploded in ’91/92 and the club sound moved on. With 12” sales dropping by the day, Warp hatched a plan born of frustration, a plan that would give the artists room to let their vision shine through in its fullest. They compiled an album of the best electronic music around, powerful emotive music too subtle to breathe among the inane hardcore anthems of the moment.

That album was called Artificial Intelligence. The sleeve featured a smoking robot crashed out in his armchair, with reference-point records scattered on the floor: Germany’s Kraftwerk were represented by Autobahn, Pink Floyd were there, with Dark Side of the Moon as was the Warp classic Pioneers of the Hypnotic Groove. What started out as a musical protest became a musical movement and brought the next wave of artists to the label. Aphex Twin, The Black Dog, Autechre and FUSE (Richie Hawtin/Plastikman).

Bands like The Orb, System7 and others went on to take ambient up and into the charts, but it seemed the scene was descending into parody and new-age cliché. Although it still debuted at number 11 in the album charts, the release of Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works II (a worthy successor to the more accessible but era-defining Selected Ambient Works 85-92) took things back to the dark side, with its sparse and edgy dreamscapes owing more to Brian Eno, field recordings and power station hum than the ubiquitous dolphin-noises and cod-Indian mythology.

It was from this landmark album onwards that Aphex began to be widely touted by the press as a kind of crackpot genius, and has since delighted in alternately wowing and confounding both his harshest critics and his diehard fans, constantly evolving his sound to encompass everything from symphonic strings, caustic industrial techno and the frenetic breakbeat of his most recent output. Impossible to ignore, Aphex has indelibly changed the musical landscape forever, witnessed by the 2003 double album 26 mixes for Cash, an eye-opening roundup of remixes done for everyone from David Bowie and Philip Glass to Beck and Jesus Jones.

US Hip Hop Underground

Next came Squarepusher, graduate of the Essex rave scene and virtuoso bass guitar player. Finding immediate favour with the hardcore Warp faithful for his uncompromising live approach and electrifying releases like Port Rhombus and Red Hot Car he is now one of the cornerstones of the roster.

Birmingham's Broadcast are another major addition to the label from this time - the Birmingham based four-piece whose ethereal beauty is born of a shared passion for 60’s psychedelia, John Barry and electronica. They first released records on the awesome Stereolab’s Duophonic label and were signed up by Rob Mitchell soon after. Their second album proper (foregoing the – excellent by the way – early singles compilation Work And Non Work), entitled HaHa Sound was released in 2003 to a rapturous reception from their feverishly loyal fanbase.

This year, the Warp roster has continued to grow, encompassing a myriad of widely different styles, and has a truly international outlook. In recent years, the US hip hop underground has emerged as a key breeding ground for new musical mavericks, and some of the most respected names operating in the more electronic fringes of the hip-hop world naturally gravitated towards Warp. Anti Pop Consortium, the NYC trio of avant-garde poets, rappers and beat makers, released the widely-acclaimed album Arrhythmia album in 2002, and Atlanta based Scott Herren AKA Prefuse 73 has emerged as one of the most exciting musical minds in the world.

!!!

Also on the label, from the USA are !!!, one of the newest members of the Warp family and the perfect embodiment of the live aesthetic that has come to be such an integral facet of the label. !!! are an 8-piece explosion of drums and electro funk energy whose time is only just beginning, but already have ecstatic live reviews and sold-out shows under their belts, not to mention a single (Me and Giuliani Down By the Schoolyard) that topped many pundits’ ‘best of 2003’ lists.

The Warp Vision - The Videos 1989 – 2004 DVD also comes with a bonus CD featuring one hour Warp mix by soon-to-be legendary London-based DJs, Buddy Peace (Lex Records) and Zilla. Continuing the Warp mix tradition established by DJ Food's legendary Blech mixes in the 1990s they have pieced together an awesome and intricate patchwork of Warped beats and sounds. This addition makes the whole package very attractive indeed – a worthy purchase for anyone looking to sample a few of the audio and visual delights living out on the edge of the mainstream. Every home should have one...

Warp Vision - The Videos 1989 – 2004 is available now, on DVD only, from Warp Records.