In preparation for our new look and new website, we’ll be putting some articles from previous issues directly onto the website, included with links. Just in case you didn’t get a chance to read it, here’s the September 5th issue’s feature story about Warp Records’ 20th anniversary. More to come soon…
A Warped Perspective of the Record Industry: tIF celebrates the 20th anniversary of the progressive electronica label that is constantly rethinking the music business.
As long as computers have infiltrated the musical cosmos, a faction of purists has fought to keep those technological forces at bay. Not one of the 149 artists signed to Warp Records is part of that movement. Warp Records knows no simplicity, and it cares not for old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll – at least not the making of it. Its artists have constantly redefined musical boundaries, incorporating disparate elements and otherworldly textures to create some of the boldest electronic-based sounds for the past two decades. And they haven’t lost an ounce of steam as they continue a year-long celebration of twenty years in the music industry.
Steve Beckett and Rob Mitchell were working at FON Records, a small record store and studio in Sheffield, England, when they birthed the concept of “Warped” Records, a name that quickly changed to Warp Records to avoid confusion. 
Ardent participants in the Sheffield club scene, Beckett and Mitchell noticed a trend: rock labels endured the test of time, whereas dance labels were much more ephemeral. Few 80’s dance labels had remained successful for more than a year or two, and they took it upon themselves to change that. Beckett and Mitchell used local underground venues to both test and promote new music, a method that proved effective and pleasurable.
Starting distribution from the backseat of a rental car, they sold 500 copies of their first release, Forgemaster’s “Track With No Name” in cities across England. Word spread like ecstasy at a Sheffield nightclub, and their sophomore release, Nightmare on Wax’s “Dextrous” sold 30,000 copies. By the time Sweet Exorcist had recorded the label’s first full-length, C.C.E.P. in 1991, it had already made a name for itself on the UK charts. Warp’s first major breakthrough, however, came in the form Artificial Intelligence (1992), a compilation of various, and at the time, virtually unknown, electronic artists and DJs, many of whom remain with the label today. Over the next couple years, seven other parts of the AI series hit the market, and Warp officially solidified itself as a forward-thinking, innovative company in the eyes of critics and listeners all over the UK and the US.
One particular artist featured on the AI series seems to stand out. Credited as The Dice Man, Richard D. James contributed the single “Polygon Window.” Electronic fanatics may know him better by his most common alias, Aphex Twin. Since 1994, James has released four LPs under this name, as well as a healthy stock of singles and EPs. In 2001, Paul Lester, writer for the British newspaper The Guardian, dubbed James “the most inventive and influential figure in contemporary electronic music” as well as “the most unpredictable.” Aphex Twin enjoys the company of Nightmares on Wax, LFO (no, not the tools who like girls that wear Abercrombie and Fitch), Autechre, and the Black Dog as artists who were with Warp during its budding years, and they all stuck with it. What is Beckett’s secret to keeping the big fish he reeled in nearly twenty years ago? It’s simple really.
“We’re one of the few labels that actually pays artists right on the dot when we say we’re going to pay them,” reveals Beckett, a man known for his reasonable approach to an often mismanaged field. Another key, 
he’ll tell you, might seem like a no-brainer: thinking positively and making fearless decisions. “The music business at the moment has got such a negative, paranoid fear about what’s coming in the future. I haven’t got any of that fear, whatsoever. We’re looking to the future.”
Though music was central to Warp’s goals, Beckett and Mitchell understood that a sharp visual style, not just musical prolificacy, is what sells records. That’s why the company teamed up with the visual masterminds at Sheffield-based graphic studio The Designer’s Republic to design a logo and a number of record covers. Still unsatisfied with their slick look and chic album covers, Beckett and Mitchell decided they needed to take the visual aspect even further.
Sadly, in early 2001, Mitchell lost an almost yearlong battle with cancer, but he was just in time to catch a glimpse of the earliest stages of the label’s newest extension, Warp Films. On November 14, 2002, multi-talented satirical director Chris Morris released My Wrongs #8245-8249 & 117, a twelve-minute short film for which he also wrote and helped compose the soundtrack. The movie won the British Academy of Film and Television Arts award for best short film. As the production company progressed, Chris Cunningham earned accolades for his video artistry, especially regarding his music video projects.
One of the first labels to take full advantage of the opportunities the Internet held in store, Warp records set up a blog to spread the word about the latest releases and singles. The cyber world was certainly an appropriate setting for the discussion of a record label that had become synonymous with cutting edge technological music. Unsurprisingly, Warp founded Bleep.com, its own online digital music store in January of 2004, and again they stepped foot where no such company had ever dared enter. Unlike other digital download sites at the time, such as iTunes, Bleep.com sells mp3’s with no digital rights management whatsoever. In other words, Bleep was the first digital music store to actually provide customers music without copyright limitations. Rhapsody and iTunes would likely consider this business suicide, but perhaps they should consider following suit. Beckett estimates that Bleep accounts for a quarter of Warp’s profits, and various other record companies now sell through Bleep, including Domino, Twisted Nerve, and XL.
Since its genesis as a dance-label, Warp has embraced a number of genres and artists. Dance-punk naturals !!!, indie-pop up-and-comers Grizzly Bear, math-rock quartet Battles, and experimental big-beat group Gang Gang Dance tie wonderfully together with solo electronic projects Flying Lotus, Prefuse73, and Squarepusher. These disparate musicians share an electronic foundation and instrumental expertise. More importantly, though, they share Beckett’s vision of a brighter future for music and a deeper worldwide appreciation for electronic music of all kinds.
“I always thought that we would have electronic music everywhere,” Beckett admits, “and I was certain that music based on the guitar and other instruments would die out. That just goes to show how wrong you can be if you try to predict the sounds of the future.” For now, I’m just content listening to the sounds of the future…today.
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