My first taste of electronic music was at university. Up until then I'd been a full on Indie Kid. I had taken a module outside of my forensic science degree in music technology. We were given the task of representing a track of our choice graphically.

For this we were put into pairs and my other half suggested 'My Sound' by Squarepusher from the amazing album 'Music Has Rotted One Note'. I had decided to represent it as a timeline from cubase (as that's what we had been taught to use in our classes). So every drum hit, every bass note, every chord was mapped onto what turned out to be 30 sides of A2 paper. Needless to say it took us ages despite it being one of his more simplistic tracks.

Obviously with Squarepusher comes Aphex Twin. I got the 'Selected Ambient Works', then picked up a copy of the 'Richard D James Album'. '4' being my favourite track off that one. I especially like the gaps where someone shouts 'Richard!'.

After University I moved up to London and lived in the sunny suburbs of Kilburn. It was here that a friend played me a track to which I immediately said "I need that on CD now!" He had just played me the opening track from Red Snapper's 'Our Aim Is To Satisfy' and for want of a cheesy pun it did. Satisfy me that is. The track was called 'Keeping Pigs Together' and the album just got better and better. I have to say that 'Alaska Street' has always been my favourite with its epic string arrangement and building drums.

The same friend also told me about Autechre's influence on Radiohead's 'Kid A'.  Apparantly they'd referenced 'Incunabula'; Autechre's 1994 classic. In fact, one track shares a bit too much similarity with 'Doctrine'. Have a listen and try to guess which song it is!

By this time I had finished my first album and was writing songs for the second. One Warp album really changed the way I approached and created electronic music. And that album was Jackson And His Computer Band's 2005 'Smash'. A perfect album in my opinion from the opening 'Utopia' to the closing 'Radio CaCa'. The latter being my favourite track off 'Smash'. Mainly because of the synth that pushes the beat.

I cannot even begin to imagine the time it must have taken to create the album. As it's made of so many different micro samples. In most tracks Jackson rarely uses the same snare sound within four bars. opting for a more labour intensive programming as opposed to dance music's traditional copy, duplicate and paste style. I know - I program, you can hear the hours of work in it. As mentioned before it's a perfect album but if I had to choose a track other than 'Radio Caca' it would be 'TV Dogs (Cathodica's Letter)' featuring Mike Ladd on vocals. What really takes the front seat in this tune is the bass line (well the combination of the kick drum and bass line) EQ'd to fit together as snugly as a well fitted jock strap!

Clark soon followed Jackson with 'Body Riddle'. An amazingly compressed album. Almost makes it a bit too hard to listen to. But the stand out tracks are 'Herzog' leading into 'Ted'. Awesome!

Now if people haven't heard the Bibio remix of 'Ted' I seriously suggest you check it out. Beautifully old sounding guitars layered on top of a simple synth part. You realize the wonderful harmonic presence in the original.

I think Jimmy Edgar's album came out just before Clark's but had another great effect on me. 'A futuristic take on the works of Paul Hardcastle' is the best way to describe this album. Retro but with some nice modern touches. It taught me that reverb on drums can sound good!

It's not all electronic though. What about that second Maximo Park album 'Our Earthly Pleasures'. Pure genius. So many well written songs, there has to be something inhuman going on.

So there you have it. One bite from the Warp dog and you'll be salivating their praises all over the place.

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