Qobuz Warp Partnership: What the Catalog Spotlight Actually Includes

By Dani Reyes, November 6, 2026

What was announced

Qobuz, the French streaming and download platform, announced an international partnership with Warp Records on November 3, 2026. The announcement describes it as a "global collaboration" that "aims to highlight the history and exceptional musical legacy of the independent label founded in 1989."

Read closely, this is a spotlight program. The announcement says Warp's catalog "will be spotlighted across the Qobuz app, magazine, download store, and marketing channels" over the coming months. It does not describe exclusive releases, new licensing, or any change to the files themselves, and it does not give an end date.

The four parts of the program

According to the announcement, the campaign runs on four tracks:

• Playlists: "regular playlist releases curated by both Qobuz experts and Warp's artists and team, including a dedicated playlist section."
• Magazine: "articles about the label and its roster of artists," starting with The Warp Story.
• Download store: "promotional offers with reduced prices on a selection of albums," with Music Has The Right To Children and Selected Ambient Works Volume II named as examples.
• Artist videos: tributes to the label "rolled out progressively, starting with a favorite pick from Nightmares On Wax on Instagram."

The announcement does not publish the size of the discounts or the full list of albums included, so check the store for current prices rather than assuming a figure.

Which artists it names

The announcement singles out "major figures in the electronic and alternative scenes, such as Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, Autechre, LFO, Squarepusher, Oneohtrix Point Never, Mount Kimbie, and many other artists who have contributed to the label's" spirit. The two albums named for the download offers point straight at the core of that list: Selected Ambient Works Volume II is an Aphex Twin record, and Music Has The Right To Children is the Boards of Canada album, as coverage of the deal pointed out.

Nightmares On Wax opening the video series is a neat choice, and the history explains why. Qobuz's own The Warp Story, the magazine feature the campaign leads with, traces the label to FON, a Sheffield record shop run by Steve Beckett and Rob Mitchell. George Evelyn and Kevin Harper, already working as Nightmares On Wax, were among the regulars, and their track "Dextrous" was one of the label's first releases in the autumn of 1989, a few weeks after Forgemasters' "Track with No Name."

The credits nerd corner

The Warp Story is worth reading for the paper trail alone. It credits the label's early purple sleeves to the design studio The Designers Republic, names Sweet Exorcist, the duo of Richard H. Kirk and DJ Parrot, as the act behind "Testone," and identifies Frequencies by Mark Bell and Gez Varley, working as LFO, as the label's first full length album. It also carries Beckett's account of how the LFO deal was closed: "When it came to closing the deal, we didn't quite know what to do, but they said to us: 'Oh, you have to sign the cassette.' We looked at each other and said, 'Right, we'll sign the cassette!' And that was our first deal."

That is the kind of context the partnership is built to surface. In the announcement, Qobuz describes its approach as "unique editorial content, playlists curated by its team, and liner notes." For a catalog where who made what, where and with whom is half the story, that is a better fit than an algorithmic feed.

What the two sides said

Marc Zisman, Chief Music Officer at Qobuz, framed it around shared values in the announcement: "Since 1989, Warp has been one of the most respected independent labels in the UK. By supporting some of the most uncompromising artists in electronic music, such as Aphex Twin, LFO, Boards Of Canada, Autechre, and Squarepusher, it has, above all, championed strong artistic and creative values that remain fully intact in 2026."

He added: "These values are shared by Qobuz, both in its editorial choices and in its support for groundbreaking creative work. It makes complete sense for this to culminate in a partnership between the label and our platform!"

From the label side, Steven Hill, Head of North America at Warp Records, said in the announcement that "uncompromising, visionary music is at the heart of what we do at Warp, making Qobuz a natural home for our artists' music." He continued: "This partnership showcases our shared commitment to supporting independent artists and bringing their work to dedicated music lovers globally."

Why it matters for how you reach Warp records

This campaign changes the route to Warp's records on one platform in three ways. Curated playlists, including selections from Warp's own artists and team, put a human hand on the order you hear things in. The magazine side gives the records their history and personnel, from the Sheffield shop to the first signings. And the download offers give anyone who would rather own files than rent access a reason to start with the canon.

Qobuz has run label partnerships like this before, and the announcement places Warp in that line. For Warp, whose own site remains the home of its catalog and roster, it means a second front door on a service built around editorial and ownership, with the people behind the records named rather than hidden.