Warp レコード& CD

Review: The hype machine may have kicked into overdrive at the announcement of a new Aphex Twin EP, but after all there's a reason we all get so excited. Richard D. James is just a rare sort of artist - one who can wrench untold depth, detail and feeling from the oddest of angles and still keep it rave-ready in the process. It's been a while since we had some new material from the Cornish wonder, but now he's gifting us four fresh slabs of braindance par excellence which bristle with his distinctive touch. Those subtle microtonal shifts in the melodies, the particular flair with which the drums are dissected, the overall head-spinning tapestry of the whole thing - no one does it quite like Aphex, and this CD single gives you his considerable skills in the highest definition.

Review: Spell Blanket - Collected Demos 2006-2009 by Broadcast offers a rare glimpse into the creative process of Trish Keenan and James Cargill during the post-Tender Buttons period. This compilation features songs and sketches drawn from Keenan's extensive archive of four-track tapes and MiniDiscs, laying the groundwork for what would have been Broadcast's fifth album. The recordings showcase the duo's experimental approach to music-making, with Trish and James exploring new sonic territories and refining their distinctive sound. The photography used in the artwork is captured by Trish and James themselves, adding a personal touch to the collection. Designed by Broadcast's long-time collaborator Julian House, the artwork complements the nostalgic yet forward-thinking nature of the music.

Review: Broadcast's Collected Demos collections span era-defining moments that dot the band's career. One of several new demo compilations to mark the band's sad closing knell, Distant Call is one such record, and comprises fourteen demos that were worked into finished productions appearing on Haha Sound, Tender Buttons and The Future Crayon. Though most of these are tenderer versions of these songs of yore, two cuts here - 'Come Back To Me' and 'Please Call To Book' - are formerly unheard originals, both of whose songwriting is credited to the band's own Trish Keenan, discovered shortly after her passing in 2011. Full of dusty deuteragonies and gothic, tape-hued waltzes, this is a rare, once-in-a-lifetime, stripped back snapshot of the band's cutting room floor.

Review: The highly anticipated follow-up to 2019's old school Q-Tip executively produced Uknowhatimsayin? and the 2023 Scaring The Hoes collab tape with alternative hip-hop savant JPEGMAFIA, Quaranta (Spanish for 40) shall serve as the next solo full-length from the hero that is Danny Brown. A "spiritual bookend" to Brown's 2011 breakthrough success XXX, which correlated with the MC hitting his 30th birthday, this latest batch features both a dynamic collection of producers such as Skywlk, The Alchemist and Quelle Chris, while also boasting features from some of the most underrated voices in the game like Bruiser Wolf, and MIKE. Conceptually, Brown appears poised to take us on a lyrical and sonic sojourn across his expansive success ever since he knocked the scene's door down decades ago.

Review: Given that Warp Records has described this set from ambient legend Brian Eno as "almost as much musical novel, as a traditional album", it's perhaps fitting that this limited edition comes housed in a hardback book. The album's narrative unfurls slowly across the album's four tracks, picking up pace during the 26-minute "Fickle Sun" suite of tracks. Predictably, it's all hugely atmospheric and attractive, featuring a mix of dreamy electronics, twinkling pianos, poetic spoken word extracts and, according to Eno's own notes, "three-dimensional recording techniques". Perhaps most intriguing of all, though, is closer "Fickle Sun I'm Set Free", which sees Eno paying tribute to the hazy, psychedelic pop of Harry Nilsson.

Review: NYC songstress Lafawndah makes her big label debut on Warp with some killer jams produced by Night Slugs lynchpin Lvis 1990. "Town Crier" is bass driven urban dance with her sweet soaring vocals backed by stuttering and clattering industrial textures. "Ally" is a full frontal and funky bass assault with exotic middle eastern instrumentation infused throughout as she declares "I'll take you like in like a firefly". "Tan" is the most restrained and stripped effort on here, with massively reverberated drums carrying the track wonderfully while "Crumb" is the most chilled track: it's pop inflected and will take you on a journey with its immaculately programmed steel drums. Big things!

Review: Few bands have sidestepped expectations as cannily as Mount Kimbie. Initially a duo but now expanded into a quartet, the British band has previously excelled in mixing, matching and fusing a wide range of experimental and left of centre electronic music influences. On The Sunset Violet, their first full-length as a quartet, they've shifted sonically once more, leaning into their indie-rock influences on a set recorded in California. The latter aspect - and the impact of being surrounded by sunshine and desert - is reflected in the warmth and haziness of the sound, which draws on the layered vocals and guitars of vintage shoegaze while also reaching for more familiar aspects of the band's previous experimental electronic sounds (for proof, check the ghostly musical vision that is King Krule collaboration 'Boxing').

Review: Since the release of his last album as Oneohtrix Point Never in 2020, Daniel Lopatin has kept himself busy. Yet for all the high-profile projects - scoring films, producing other artists albums and conjuring up The Weeknd's 2021 half-time show - fans have missed his solo work. Again, his 14th (we think) solo album, is therefore not only big news, but also a pleasingly grandiose conceptual affair - a musical "speculative autobiography" which reportedly imagines "what might have been". Musically, it's typically adventurous, constantly shifting between sounds, styles and instrumental textures; one minute you're hearing star-fall electronics mixed with choirs of children, the next neo-trance style riffs mixed with luscious strings or cinematic style orchestration. Like much of Lopatin's work, it inhibits its' own musical world, and there are very few artists capable of achieving that.

Review: Given the uniqueness of his madcap and mind-altering trademark sound, the release of any new album from Tom Jenkinson AKA Squarepusher is big news. Given that his last new full-length landed four years ago, the arrival of Dostrotime has got an awful lot of experimentalists in a bit of a lather. Like many albums that have surfaced in the last couple of years, it was apparently inspired by the "novel, eerie, sublime silence of lockdown", with the title being a reference to "how time passed differently". Quite how this plays out within the music itself is open to interpretation; for the most part, what's on offer is prime Squarepusher - all distorted, full-throttle acid lines, mutilated experimental D&B beats, analogue electronics and rasping, strobe-lit nods to raves,