The seminal Sheffield label Warp is 20 years old this year, celebrating two decades of explorations in sound and music. Take a snapshot of them now and you’ll find them in extremely good health – never more diverse than they are now, with Autechre, Boards of Canada and Squarepusher satisfying the electronica heads and Maximo Park, Grizzly Bear and Jamie Lidell doing much for the development of song based material. ‘Chosen’ rounds up the top 10 Warp tracks ever, as voted for on warp20.net, and predictably has long standing classics in Aphex Twin’s ‘Windowlicker’, LFO’s ‘LFO’ and Clark’s wondrous ‘Herzog’. CD2 is chosen by Warp co-founder Steve Beckett, and unfolds pleasingly from Broadcast through to Mike Ink, Seefeel and Autechre. Recreated, meanwhile, is a clever series of cover versions, with Luke Vibert taking on ‘LFO’, Tim Exile on Jamie Lidell’s ‘A Little Bit More’ and other covers from Gravenhurst, Mark Pritchard aka Harmonic 313 and Jimi Tenor. This becomes a fitting celebration of one of the finest labels ever to grace electronic music. ‘We Are Reasonable People’, their motto goes. Inspired, more like.
5 Out Of 5
Reviewed By: Ben Hogwood