Warp20...

One of the easiest ways to discover new music and expand your musical knowledge is to become that symbol of geekiness...the label spotter.

It was a trait I developed early in my days of fandom when, without a soul to turn to for advice and still a relative newbie in the intertubes, I could safely rely on a small number of record labels to release consistently good and interesting music.

Thankfully many of them are still around releasing great stuff (for example 4AD and Mute) but some are sadly not (either existing or releasing interesting stuff).

One of the very finest, Warp, celebrates 20 year of bringing the weird and wonderful to our ears. Not only can they be immensely proud of bringing us artists such as Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Battles, Grizzly Bear and yes, Boards of Canada, but they have also managed to collect these guys in probably the most achingly beautiful box set I have seen:

Here are a few of my Warp favourites:

Squarepusher - Come On My Selector <- horrible audio but the video is still a classic.



Squarepusher - BBC interview & absolutely amazing live bass solo



Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks <- Still one of the tracks of the year



Aphex Twin - Girl/Boy Song



Battles - Atlas