Warp, the Sheffield-based label that brought us Aphex Twin, Autechre, Boards of Canada, Prefuse 73, !!!, Jamie Lidell and, erm, Maximo Park and indeed much of the most interesting music of the last 20 years, is - oh, given the game away already, but it's 20 years old anyway. "Happy birthday, Warp" chorus a blank-eyed, metallic choir of devil children very slowly and distortedly.
To celebrate, Aphex Twin has hand-crochéted 20 limited edition CD pouches, and is giving them away to fans at a big love-in while the Venetian Snares give out homemade cookies. Not really. But for a label that forged its reputation by releasing the glitchy brainwrongs of the young Richard James, and pioneered user-friendliness by putting out Autechre albums without a single piece of artwork or writing on them at all, their strategy is quite chummy. At a special website, you can vote for your favourite Warp track - I immediately plumped for Roygbiv by Boards of Canada, then thought I really meant to choose the second track from that browny gold Autechre album only I've no idea what it's called. Once the votes are in, they'll compile a top ten, combine it with a Warp staff top ten, and release a Warp 20 compilation in the summer.
What defines Warp releases used to be a certain aloof, urban relish for electronic harshness leavened with a sardonic humour (exemplified by the fact that the label put out Chris Morris's anbient nightmare comedy Blue Jam - "shit your leg off", etc - on CD). With the expansion into the more obvious party music of !!!, the transformation of one-time electronic twiddler Jamie Lidell into blue-eyed soul singer, or the literate indie of Maximo Park - not to mention the incredible success of the Warp Films division - you see that what really marks out the label is single-minded commitment to quality. I don't think there's any British label more worthy celebration.

