Chosen Words: W is for Warp (Obviously)

Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and their associated "facts"

Warp Records is a record label more renowned than any other in the field of electronic music.

Its cold techno quickly found an audience when Tricky Disco and LFO scored chart hits. At the same time, dance music was going through a renaissance with Snap, Adamski and Timmy Mallett shifting major units.

Artificial Intelligence, Surfing On Sine Waves and Bytes were key albums in those days. Many people expected more computer-related album titles, like PC World Are Shite, What's The Point Of NumLock and My Screen Has Turned Sideways Can You Help Me Wikianswers.

Warp used to be based in Sheffield back in the Victorian days, but moved to London when the bleeps from the music kept getting tangled in the chimney smoke. What they should have realised was chimneys are an ideal shape for the extensive storage of vinyl records.

Warp is an 'backronym', which means 'Warp' later became an acronym for any one of the following phrases: We Are Reasonable People, We Are Rubbish Philatelists and Westlife Abducted Ronan's Pet.

While the electronic sound was taken up by labels such as Rephlex and Planet Mu, Warp itself recently discovered the guitar. Recalling the colour of its early record sleeves, the label is now going through a pretty impressive purple patch: check its latest releases here.

For more Chosen Words, click the tag at the bottom of this post.