In Strict Tempo, vol. 119: Warp Deep Cuts
I really enjoyed writing last weeks article looking into some Weatherall deep cuts, and it got a great response from everyone I spoke to about it, so I thought I’d do it again, but this time for a foundational label to me.
Warp needs no introduction. They’d probably be the first name on a Mount Rushmore of independent dance labels. Discovering Warp in the mid-late 1990’s was like opening a gateway to a whole world of new, interesting and incredible music. As I grew older and moved to London and started to work in record shops I would find new gems in their catalogue all the time, buying what I could afford when I was able. They soon became my favourite record label, from the big hitting stuff from Aphex Twin and Squarepusher, to lesser-known gems from a host of other artists. I read everything I could about the label, and listened to as much as I could find. I didn’t like it all, and it’s fair to say they diverted from dance music to mixed results (although I will argue till my dying day that Maximo Park’s debut album is the best record released in that landfill indie period, and absolutely doesn’t deserve to be lumped in with the rest of it), but the majority of what I found, especially from the earlier releases was right up my street.
Starting in 1989 Warp were one of the leading lights in the nascent ‘Bleep techno’ scene. Records from the likes of Forgemasters, Nightmares on Wax and LFO sold in their tens of thousands, impacted the charts and saw Sheffield become a hub for this new sound that would have a massive impact on the shape of British music in the 1990’s (although LFO were from Leeds).
The early 12”s had distinctive purple sleeves designed by The Designers Republic - like Underworld and Tomato there aren’t many other labels so wedded to one design agency, and those sleeves really stood out in the racks of record shops. They still stand out on my shelves now, even if some of the spines are pretty worn. As the label approaches it’s fortieth anniversary it’s navigated the changes of the music industry and put out a wide variety of records across multiple genres. Recently it’s reissued some much-loved classics, whilst still releasing new music. Anyway, here’s a few records you might not know, a few you might know, and some you probably will know from the Warp back cat.
DSR - Miami (1991)
One of the weirdest records in the early Warp days isn’t even that weird at all. For a label that built it’s reputation of forward-thinking, experimental and ‘intelligent’ dance music, it’s strange to find a fairly straight-up deep house record in the purple sleeve. DSR was Aldo Hernandez and Ralph Falcon, who of course would go on to produce a number of incredible deep house records as part of Murk. I feel this one is often overlooked when talking about the labels legacy, but it’s just as important as any other record they put out. A real DJ’s secret weapon, it’s a surprise this isn’t better known.
Sympletic - At Long Last (1996)
A duo of Mark Broom & Dave Hill, this EP again is one that never really got that much love at the time, but sounds like it could have been released yesterday. The Warp catalogue remains a goldmine for committed diggers, and whilst a lot of the more recognised tunes have started to attract high prices on Discogs, a lot of this stuff can still be picked up under a tenner. There was a time when you couldn’t give a lot of older Warp bits away, and some of mine are covered with 50p and £1 stickers from Music & Video Exchange. It’s legacy (plus the general demand for anything old & retro) means those days are long gone now, but there’s still good tunes out there at good prices if you look hard enough.
K Hand - Global Warning (1994)
As I write this in 34 degree heat this one feels pretty apt you know. It feels like 1994 was a real pivotal moment in the Warp history - Autechre dropped their second album, Aphex his first, Squarepusher & Boards of Canada still a couple of years away. The second Artificial Intelligence comp started to cement Warp’s reputation as more than just a 12” label as the IDM boom really started to kick in… but… at the same time, they were still dropping dancefloor shellers like this, from Detroit’s Kelli Hand. I reckon this one would still do serious damage today, especially if the air con starts to fail in the club.
Resoraz - Art of Time (1993)
Bridging the gap between the bleep sound and the emerging progressive house scene that was developing in the early 90’s this one takes in elements of electro and fuses them nicely with that trancier sound that would end up dominating commercial dance music for a while at the end of the 90’s. Trippy, and psychedelic, I can only look back on this one through the lens of 2026, but imagine it would have been a real head-melter at some of the parties the following year’s Criminal Justice Bill put an end to. As a side note - the shortest track on this EP is six-and-a-half minutes long, the breathing space afforded to each tune to develop and simmer is something that’s sorely missed from music these days
RAC - Tangents (1994)
RAC were Richard Benson and Swag/Primitive man Chris Duckenfield. This ’94 EP sees them deliver four hard-edged tracks of techno/electro crossover trax. A lot more maximal than a lot of the dub techno stuff that was emerging at the time, this perhaps hasn’t aged quite as well, but it still stands out over a lot of the more monotonous techno that was beginning to clog the charts around then. If we’re ever due a progressive techno revival then this record will be the one they’re all after.
LFO - Tied Up (Spiritualized Electric Mainline Remix) (1994)
Getting into the better known stuff, this isn’t really dance music, it isn’t really IDM, it isn’t really anything other than a high-as-fuck nine minute long drone remix of LFO’s Tied Up by J Spaceman. We don’t even get a drum beat until about halfway into the song, and ultimately it comes across as more of a Spiritualized track than the LFO one it used as it’s source material. Could you play this out, in a club? It would take a braver man than me to do so, but done right I imagine the rewards would be almost religious. The B-side is a new mix of Further from the Frequencies album, it’s more what you’d expect from LFO and in my opinion, better than the album mix. Have two sides of one record ever sounded so different?
Nightmares on Wax - A Case of Funk/21st Kong (1991)
Okay, this isn’t the deepest of deep cuts, as Nightmares on Wax were pretty synonymous with Warp, but this four tracker often gets overlooked for the bigger hits of Dextrous and Aftermath. A Case of Funk sets the scene here, a bass-heavy, broken soul tune that featured on the album A Word of Science, but the real highlight for me is 21st Kong, a stuttering, dubby track, with the merest hint of bleeps that was hammered everywhere at the time.
Drexciya - The Journey Home (1995)
Alright, this isn’t a particularly deep cut either, but as Drexciya’s only outing on Warp it definitely passes mention. Sounding like only Drexciya could, whilst also sounding like nothing else on the label it’s an important release, and even though most of the tracks on the EP were subsequently reissued by Clone it’s still worth noting. Warp is often (unfairly) thought of as just an IDM label, and the stereotypical IDM producer is white guy with a big bank of synths and laptops. This doesn’t do justice to Warp’s rich heritage of putting out music by black artists such as the likes of Forgemasters, including label co-founder Robert Gordon, Nightmares on Wax, Kelli Hand, Tuff Little Unit and more recent releases by Flying Lotus, Kelela, Danny Brown and Yves Tumor. This wasn’t the last Drexciya-related release on the label, as the late James Stinson would also release LPs as Elektroids and The Other People Place.
Squarepusher - Love Will Tear Us Apart (2002)
An oddity to finish on, and the only thing post-2000 that makes the list, but this is a cover that I’ve always loved. As part of the Do You Know Squarepusher? Mini-album it’s a beautiful ending to a frantic EP of ‘Pusher at his most immediate - stripped of the context of the other tunes it’s a haunting cover of a classic song, and something I used to play out quite a bit in my DJ-ing days, to admittedly a fairly mixed response.
