Sweet Exorcist 'Testone' (Warp, 1990)

Early bleep magic from Sheffield's crucible of a machine-driven magic.

This record is made out of almost nothing, it's incredible. A bleepline, some echo, a very simple drum machine, a bassline, a snippet of vocal sample and a bit of synth for the breakdown. That's all there is to it but, my god, it conjures up so much more than the sum of its parts.

It's a groove. It's a feeling. It sums up a whole movement and the euphoria of succumbing to the tryannny of the bleep and echospace in between the notes.

Put together by former Cabaret Voltaire man Richard H. Kirk and Richard Barrett (aka Parrot, later to form the All Seeing I) in 1989, it was one of the first releases on Warp in 1990. Its lineage can be traced right back through Humanoid's 'Stakker Humanoid' to Mr. Fingers to Strings Of Life to New Order to Giorgio Moroder to Kraftwerk. Its impact was to directly inspire ten years of dancefloor mayhem - Tricky Disco, LFO and beyond.

A true work of art.

Download Sweet Exorcist 'Testone' (WAP3, bleep, electronica, acid house mp3 download) (Mediafire)

LFO 'LFO' (Warp, 1990)

'Shock of the new' moment of discontinuity from Leeds' LFO and Warp Records.

Hearing 'LFO' for the first time was one of those moments where the track doesn't make sense the first time you hear it. It sounds wrong because it breaks with what you think music is supposed to sound like. Moonshake's 'Beautiful Pigeon' and New Order's 'Blue Monday' were similarly discontinuities in my musical eduction.

I can't remember where I heard it first but I think it would have been Radio Leeds' indie/alternative radio show on a Monday night. The bleeps rang through the medium wave okay but the bass just sounded like gaps in the track, meaning that when I then heard it properly it blew my mind all over again.

LFO went on to deliver some more sublime records - 'Freak' and 'Tied Up' for starters - but nothing matches this for its sheer 'shock of the new' magic.

Enjoy.

Download LFO 'LFO' (mp3 download) (Mediafire)

!!! (Chk Chk Chk) 'Me and Guiliani Down by the School Yard (A True Story)' (Touch and Go/Warp, 2003) (mp3)

A monstrous piece of funked-up party madness from the impossibly named !!! (apparently to be pronounced as "Chk Chk Chk or any three hard sounds").

There's cowbell, there's a unrelentingly funky bassline, there's choppy guitar and there's an almost whispered vocal, setting up a juggernaut of post-punk-funk.

I guess it's fair to say that in the way !!! have obviously heard PIL or Pigbag or A Certain Ratio, Friendly Fires have definitely heard this 2003 classic. LCD Soundsystem were listening too.

The intensity is built and maintained over nine minutes through an angry pulsating chorus, a strung-out almost shoegazey section with shimmering delayed guitar, a tight, tight breakdown before hitting an outro of just drums and accapella vocals. It's structured like a club track, building, breaking down, building again, breaking down and then going mental.

Available to buy - you know, with money - on their Warp debut UK album 'Louden Up Now'.


Download !!! (Chk Chk Chk) 'Me and Guiliani Down by the School Yard (A True Story)' (mp3) (Mediafire)

Plone 'Press A Key' (Wurlitzer Jukebox, 1997) (mp3 download)

The mysterious Plone were a short-lived Birmingham experimental audio lab that released one album on Warp as well as a handful of singles and this, their debut 7" for Wurlitzer Jukebox in 1997.

Obviously in thrall to the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and peers of Broadcast, Pram and Stereolab, Plone set the ground for the Ghost Box label to deal in their quirkily-synthed hauntology.

'Press A Key' is a mellow piece of library music that is based on a rolling groove of synth bass and analogue-sounding drum machine. The melody is pure Radiophonic oscillation, suggesting a public information film about the dangers of larking about on trains late at night.

Or maybe it sounds like the entry into the Music 2000 competition on Look Around You of Stanford Torpedo a computer programmer from Milton Keynes who has managed to make music by converting the brain activity of toads into machine code.

Download Plone 'Press A Key' (mp3) (Mediafire)