Its been a good year for Electronica DVDs. At one point we just had Underworld's Everything Everything to shout about, but check out there now and you'll find a few Global Underground DVDs, Chemical Brothers Singles, Daft Punk's Interstellar 5555 and the Directors Series but to name a few. This collection shares a few videos with one Mr. Chris Cunningham's efforts in his Directors Series, but don't let owners of that be disuaded from purchasing this. For one, the version of Autechre's Second Bed Vibel appears to be a different edit to the one on his DVD, and two, there is much more to behold on this DVD!
Cast your eyes over the tracklisting on the back of the DVD (if such a thing can be done in cyberspace), and you'll see the rather familiar name of Jarvis Cocker directing alot of the early Warp efforts. Basic, but when you consider the competition at the time of these videos, you can really appreciate the fact that a bit of art has gone into it. Easily betters most of the recent efforts as far as what flys into the charts under the guise of dance music, plus it sound a hell of alot better. No 3D animated fairies doing ballet to screaming bint trance here.

Each video strikes a unique chord, Anti-Pop Consortium's Ghostlawns has their eerie electro-rap set aptly to a futuristic Japanese pop show with band members eagerly tweaking away at strange future synthesisers. LFO's Freak in directors cut form has a playground of Japanese schoolchildren aptly freaking out to acid rave sounds blaring over the school tannoy system. Previously undiscovered gem, Jamie Liddel, has two great efforts on here. His tunes could be described as Warped Indie if anything, plus he cuts a nice bit of charisma in his videos. Makes you wonder why this guy isn't getting a fair bit of attention instead of some dullathon like Keane. Finish off the package with efforts from all your usual Warp big hitters like Aphex Twin, Autechre, Plaid and Nightmares On Wax and you're onto a winner. Beans and Broadcast turkeys? Perhaps the not the usual IDM fare but too much of one thing makes Johnny (Rubber) a dull boy. Nice to have something a bit organic in place.

If I finished my review here, I would conclude that its a good solid package of cutting edge electronica and visuals, but Warp are not done yet. Bundled with the DVD is an astonishing 55 minute mix of the Warp catalogue. Something like 70 or so Warp tracks are spliced up, layered over each other, generally given a good shaking and not stirring, leaving you with a fine aural cocktail. I've listened to nothing else for the past week. It sounds amazing and then you can have trainspotting joy trying to pin down bits of familiar tracks.