1. SCB – Loss
2. Lana Del Rey – Videogames (Joy Orbison Remix)
3. Midland – Through Motion
4. Arkist – Rendezvous
5. George Fitzgerald – Reset
6. Synkro – Viewpoint
7. SBTRKT – Hold On
8. Little Dragon – Twice
9. Beach Boys – Surf’s Up (Instrumental Overdub)
10. Emerson, Lake & Palmer – From The Beginning
11. Bon Ivor – Lisbon, OH
12. Metronomy – We Broke Free
13. Oak – Bedroom Community
14. Floating Points – Sais
15. SBTRKT – Pharoahs
16. Barry Manilow – Could It Be Magic
17. The Greg Foat Group – Dark Is The Sun Part 3 (Reprise)
As another year passes, once more I compile my ten musical highlights of the year…For previous lists, see 2009 and 2010‘s respective selections…
10. SCB – Loss – Aus (2011)
House music is always something I’ve dipped in & out of – certainly in the last couple of years I’ve been back into it as a couple of mates are also really into it. However, it’s a massively over-crowded genre, and finding anything that you can really call fresh is rare…
It often takes an outsider to come in and flip the script, and dubstep’s very own Scuba (under the pseudonym SCB) executes this with precision in his track Loss for the Aus label, who seem to have done the unthinkable, and released dubstep, house & techno all on the same label without alienating anyone – quite a feat in today’s highly segregated electronic music scene.
I think what appeals to me the most about this record, is that it sounds like the kind of thing that would have influenced early drum & bass….The melodies, pads & vocal patterns are straight out of something you would have heard on Good Looking Records in the 90s….
It’s always a great joy to randomly stumble across a piece of music which has the potential to become an all-time-favourite record – for me, Loss ticks all the right boxes; This is without the doubt the best house/techno track I’ve uncovered this year bar none.
Audio: “Loss” by SCB, from the single “Loss/FutureUnknown”
9. The Greg Foat Group – Dark Is The Sun – Jazzman (2011)
Unlike most people I know, I like a bit of jazz, now & again. I especially like a good pianist, and Greg Foat is a good pianist, which, I think, is why I find this album so appealing. It’s a very retro-sounding album – at times it’s like classic Serge Gainsbourg or Air during their Moon Safari hey-day.
I especially like the four-part title-track, which sees essentially the same song being interpreted across a variety of tempos, with a variety of instruments, my favourite take being part three, which uses an accordian and a bit of whisting to great effect. Part four goes for some serious harpsichord, which I don’t think I’ve heard played with such gusto since UFO’s classic collaboration with Dee Dee Bridgewater, “Friends”.
Audio: “Black Is The Sun Part 3 (reprise)” by The Greg Foat Group, from the album “Dark Is The Sun”
8. London Elektricity – Yikes! – Hospital Records (2011)
It’s been a patchy year for drum & bass, and I have to say that there’s been very little that I have really connected with…. However, I’m glad I gave the LE album a chance, because it totally exceeded my expectations….
Historically, drum & bass albums have always left me a little cold, because they rarely seem to hang together well as an actual album. Often, they’ll stray into some other genre like deep house or some sort of downtempo thing halfway through – I always find this really grating in a drum & bass album – people who buy these albums want drum & bass - if they wanted deep house they’d buy an album written by someone who writes deep house. If it’s not the genre hopping, then it’s just that the album sounds a collection of singles – not an album.
Thankfully, LE seems to know something about writing an album, and he executes the task with an unprecedented level of skill & precision – working closely with vocalist Elsa Esmerelda, who featured on the excellent Just One Second – they seem to have managed to craft actual songs, something which you rarely hear in drum & bass.
Audio: “Meteorites” by London Elektricity, from the album “Yikes”
2011 saw the welcome return of drum & bass legend Photek aka Rupert Parkes, after a 5 year hiatus. It’s been ten years since his breath-taking techno album Solaris was released, and news that he was going to return with new material this year was both exciting and terrifying. Could he ever live up to his previous material, which is pretty much universally loved by the electronic music community?
Benji B was the man to put us out of our misery when he revealed 101, Photek’s first foray into electronic music in some time, and thankfully it didn’t dissapoint.
The quality of the new material was confirmed a week later, when This City, an experimental reverse-vocal led deep house track confirmed everything we had hoped – that Photek was alive & well, and still making the most cutting edge electronic music imaginable.
As someone who historically has listened to a lot of electronic music, anything as musically rich as Bon Iver is always going to be a mind blowing revelation.These ten tracks, all seemingly named after places such as Perth, Minnesota, and Lisbon, are rich in melody and texture.The additional horns & sax are a subtle part of the music, without turning into cheesy Baker Street style solos.
This is the kind of album that makes you question why you write music, which I think is always a sign of a very high quality product.
I don’t think if you told me two years ago, that a dubstep album would be appearing in my 2011 best of list, I would have believed you….However, here we are, and here it is.
The debut album by Sbtrkt moves dubstep into another level; He’s made the smart move, in employing some truly talented vocalists; this elevates the album’s appeal far beyond your average dubstep album, without sounding tacky or compromised….Hold On is probably my favourite track of the year, with it’s excellent XX-esque xylophone melody and soulful vocals courtesy of Sampha.
This album is yet another example of how artists who are making really interesting music are very unfortunately being labelled as dubstep, alongside all those wobble-fest Ministry Of Sound sawtooth bassline dubstep compilations that essentially no-one likes….this is so much better than that – it’s soulful, it’s poppy in places, and most importantly, it hangs together well as an album, undoubtedly helped by the inclusion of some excellent vocal contributions from the aforementioned Sampha, Jessie Ware, and the rapidly growing Swedish group Little Dragon.
The track Pharoahs is pretty much a pop hit that never was, with all the elements of a classic late-90s 2-step garage track, and excellent vocals from guest vocalist Roses Gabor.
4. Foster The People – Torches – Sony Music (2011)
It’s fair to say that, musically speaking, it’s not often that I back a winning horse, so it’s been delightful to hear a song that I genuinely liked, Pumped Up Kicks, get a serious amount of airplay on both television & radio.
Torches is a pretty safe, feel good indie-pop album with some great singles. It’s also not often that I listen to music that isn’t dreadfully dreary and miserable, so Torches really has been a revelation for me, as it’s totally the opposite to what I would normally listen to. It’s really very cheerful AND I don’t hate it – an interesting combination.
3. Metronomy – The English Riviera – Because Music (2011)
The English Riviera is the third album from this Devon-based band. Sometimes in a band, you don’t really notice the bass player particularly, but with this band, you do, because he (Gbenga Adelekan) appears to be immensely talented, and his basslines really stand out in the tracks, particularly in the very funky single The Bay.
The album is broad and covers a range of styles; I also like the fact that vocal duties on the track Everything Goes My Way are shared between Joseph Mount & a guest vocalist Roxanne Clifford.
I can imagine that the album’s mix of pretty wacky 80s synths and funky basslines has probably divided critics, but I welcome this kind of album because it stands out in a sea of ultra-bland guitar bands that churn out dull landfill year-after-year.
When I first listened to this album in full, on a train, coming back from London, I remember thinking that the audio file was corrupt, and that, as a result, it was unlistenable.
After a repeat playing, it dawned on me that the stuttering vocals, performed by the band’s newest member, James Buttery, were in fact processed to sound that way.
Once you’ve adjusted to this technique, it’s the broad range of styles on display here that make this album so fascinating, from the electro-pop of the first single Aidy’s Girl’s a Computer, to the more sombre Cure-esque Deadness, right through to the title track North, which has a hint of Portishead’s excellent Machine Gun track.
A couple of years ago, I was indecisive about buying the third Bibio album Vignetting The Compost, a collection of acoustic guitar instrumentals which sound like they’ve been recorded from a cassette that’s been found buried under the compost in someone’s back garden (I did eventually track down this album and it’s brilliant).
Since this time, he’s made three more albums, and this is the latest – and his third for Warp Records – It’s clear that his sound has vastly developed since I last checked him out.
Mind Bokeh has an incredible dream-like quality about it, it’s colourful, dusty, dirty and magical in the way that it sounds. The opening track, Excuses has a sombre, vocoded vocal over a bossa nova rhythm, and the most sombre guitar melodies ever committed to a sound recording. It’s an absolutely dazzling opener to what emerges to be a mind-bogglingly incredible album.
Light Seep falls somewhere between the funkiest prince track you’ve never heard, and Badly Drawn Boy‘s finest wah-wah guitar playing.
Take Off Your Shirt totally flips the script, turning into some kind of 80s rock anthem, with a cowbell rhythm that is reminicent of classic Free material.
K is For Kelson sounds like a piece written specifically for an animated Sesame Street sequence (and I mean this as a compliment) – it’s incredibly upbeat, and has an excellent Stevie Wonder-esque Synth workout.
Even skipping through the tracks now has reminded me just how many times this year I’ve put this on and listened to it from start to finish. It’s a very entertaining and musically-rich album that I think I will be revisiting for many years to come
Last month saw the release of the first single of 2011 from Blu Mar Ten, which featured the tracks Five Summers, and Still The One, a collaboration with Inside Info.
These tracks are taken from their forthcoming album, Love Is The Devil, the follow up to 2009′s excellent Natural History.
The next single is going to be Problem Child /Sweet Little Supernova, which features the vocals of Rochelle Parker, who also featured on the massive Nobody Here.
Alex Reece was arguably one of the first stars of drum & bass to break through during the 1990s….starting his career under the name Fallen Angels, he later released seminal singles for Goldie’s Metalheadz imprint (including the ground-breaking Pulp Fiction), before signing to Island Records and releasing a series of well received singles (Feel The Sunshine, and Candles), followed by his debut album, So Far, back in 1996.
At around the same time, he started his own Al’s Records imprint, featuring the excellent singles Touch Me, Street Player and New York, followed by a compilation in 1997.
This era saw Alex win some high profile remix work, highlights including Neneh Cherry, Kenny Larkin, and Underworld.
Rumours of a second album for Island were rumoured around 1998, but never materialised, apart from a highly-elusive single, Vicious Circles.
1999 saw the release of the much-overlooked Fallen Angels album, followed by a number of singles on the Fallen Angels 21 imprint, however, from 2002, the trail went cold….
That is, until a few days ago, when a number of keen fans stumbled across a new, seemingly official website, http://www.alexreecemusic.com/, containing new music.
As you would expect, Alex appears to have a complete disregard for what’s going on in drum & bass at the moment, and is clearly making the same quirkly, off-the-wall jazzy style that he’s known & loved for.
There is no official word as to if/when new music will be released, but it’s reassuring to know that Alex is still making drum & bass, and that it still sounds fresh….
First & foremost, I have to dedicate this month’s podcast to the many people I’ve worked with, who have widened my musical tastes over the years. Special thanks this month goes to Doug, who so kindly sold me his entire record collection for a paltry sum. There’s some real gems in there.
Secondly I must thank this month’s special guest Geoff, who first featured back in March 2010, and returns this month with an excellent selection which I think perfectly complements the kind of music I select.
…and without further ado, on to the music itself….
Track Listing:
1. Stanley Clarke – It’s What She Didn’t Say (Interlude)
2. Consequence – Snakes & Skulls
3. The Cure – Holy Hour
4. Darkstar – Deadness
5. Susumu Yokota – Gekkoh
6. Brian Eno & David Byrne – Moonlight In Glory
7. Ulrich Schnauss – Einfield
Geoff’s Selection
8. Near The Parenthesis – Mare Nostrum
9. Tim Koch – Seven Ate Nine
10. Hecq – Iam You
11. Bibio – Excuses
12. Darkstar – North
13. The XX – Fantasy
14. The Cure – A Walk
15. Bat For Lashes – Trophy
…as with all the other podcasts, there are a number of ways you can obtain this one. Firstly, via itunes. Alternatively, you can download the mix directly via this link.
If you cast your mind way back to February 2009, Instra:Mental & D-Bridge revealed the second layer of their long running and highly influential Autonomic Podcast…
This included the beautifully subtle Bedroom Community, by russian producer Oak, who has gone on to feature on releases for KOS MOS, and the now legendary Commix Fabric Live mix. I would go as far as to say that this was the best track that was ever included on the podcast, and since first hearing it, I have been campaigning for it to be released.
It certainly came as a shock and a great surprise to find, today, that Bedroom Community is finally to be released, on vinyl, through a new label known as Space Cadets, along with the trackKiteon the flipside.
For those of you who perhaps don’t remember the track, I refer you to a video I uploaded myself, onto YouTube, over two years ago….
The single will be released 18th July 2011, on the Space Cadets label, catalogue no. NASA001.
A couple of weeks ago, my mate Musser & I laid down a particularly tight 2-hour mix of the finest deep/funky house grooves. Here it is, in all it’s splendor…enjoy!
Title: The Wonders Of Wax Duration: 02:04:41 Encoding: MP3 192 kbps File Size: 171.6 MB
Track Listing: 01 – LAWRENCE – JUST LIKE HEAVEN (SMALLVILLE)
02 – FABIO BACCHIO – ‘ROMAN DISCO EP’ (TRANSPORT)
03 – COBBLESTONE JAZZ – 5TH ELEMENT – (ITISWHATITIS RECORDINGS)
04 – MR G – ‘DAILY PRAYER’ (PHOENIX G)
05 – KERRI CHANDLER – ‘MOMMY WHAT’S A RECORD?’ – (DOWNTOWN 181)
06 – MILES SAGNIA – ‘TWILIGHT’ (ORNATE)
07 – COMPUPHONIC – JAGUAR RUNNING (FREERANGE)
08 – NOCTURNAL – ‘SKY’S THE LIMIT’ (PROMO)
09 – I:CUBE – OBLIVION (DIXON’S EDIT) (VERSATILE)
10 – COPPOLA/GUIDO NEMOLA – ‘A WORLD’ (REVOX)
11 – DETROIT EXPERIMENT – ‘THINK TWICE’ (HENRIK SCHWARTZ REMIX) (JUNO)
12 – CHEZ DAMIER – ‘HELP MYSELF’ (KMS/DRIVE ON)
13 – MAYA JANE COLES – ‘WHAT THEY SAY’ (REAL TONE RECORDS)
14 – KRIS WADSWORTH – ‘LIME AND PINK’ (BURNSKI REMIX) (ONE)
15 – STAX – ‘LOSE MY MIND’ (FINALE FR)
16 – MILES SAGNIA – ‘CAN WE HEAL THEM’ (ATMOSPHERIC EXISTENCE)
17 – TAZ – ‘UNDERGROUND 07′ (WHITE)
18 – SHUR-I-KAN/MILTON JACKSON – ‘SPECIAL POWERS’ (FREERANGE)
19 – PHOTEK – ‘THIS CITY’ (PHOTEK PRODUCTIONS)
20 – ART BLEEK – ‘SUPPLIED ARTWORK’ (LOUNGIN’)
21 – FOUR TET – ‘PINNACLES’ (TEXT)
22 – JOY O – ‘WADE IN’ (HOTFLUSH)
23 – VINCE WATSON – ‘MYSTICAL RHYTHM’ (URBAN TORQUE)
24 – MATTHIAS HELLBRONN – ‘BROOKLYN SUB’ (NRK)
25 – ARIL BRIKA – ‘CONTACT’ (PEACEFROG)
26 – D/R/U/G/S – ‘VELODROME ONE’ (MOSHI MOSHI)
27 – JIMPSTER – ‘CLOUD WALKING’ (FREERANGE)
Track Listing: 1. Goldfrapp – Clowns – Mute
2. Grouper – heavy water / I’d Rather Be Sleeping – Type Records
3. United Future Organization – Friends (we’ll be) – Talkin’ Loud
4. United Future Organization – Tres Amigos – Talkin’ Loud
5. Dan habarnam – The Flower – Santorin Germany
6. Spherique – Snowflakes Catcher – Med School
7. Subwave – Rain Dance – Metalheadz
8. Alicia keys – Unthinkable (lenzman remix) – White
9. Photek – 101 – Photek Productions
10. Floating points – Sais Dub – Eglo records
11. Koreless – 4d – Pictures
12. Stareaway – Learn How To Love Me (Yoruba Soul Suite) – Couldn’t Care More
13. Lawrence – Just Like Heaven – Smallville Records
14. Jimpster – Cloudwalking – freerange records
15. Pezzner feat. Larissa Kapp – Find Me – Freerange Records
16. Nicolas Jaar – Time For Us – Wolf & Lamb
…as with all the other podcasts, there are a number of ways you can obtain this one. Firstly, via itunes. Alternatively, you can download the mix directly via this link.
Kyle Hall & Floating Points returned to the Rinse FM studio once again, for the first session of 2011, delivering another classic 2 hour session of quality house & techno.
In time, I will try & compile a track listing. In the mean time, click the link below to download, or simply stream off this page, if you prefer, via the MP3 Player.
In stark contrast to last month’s house music-themed podcast, this month I have pretty much crammed every style of music imaginable into a modest 58 minutes.
Track Listing: 1. Christian Prommer – Groove La Chord
2. Gorillaz feat Little Dragon – Empire Ants (Miami Horror Remix)
3. Bassfort – Last Night
4. Jamie Woon – Night Air
– An interesting stat about New York’s rat population…..
5. Commix – City Section / City Sound FX
6. The XX – Night Time
7. James Blake – Wilhelm Scream
8. Commix – Japanese Electronics (Instra:Mental Moog Remix)
9. Bop – Nothing Makes Any Sense (Blu Mar Ten Remix)
10. Jon Brion – Bookstore
11. Badly Drawn Boy – Silent Sigh
12. Vanessa Carlton – A Thousand Miles
13. Aqualung – Sundowning
14. En – Mother Of Thousands / Brian Eno & David Byrne – Mea Culpa (edit) / Rabbits
–Rain (interlude)
15. Photek – The Rain (Remix)
…as with all the other podcasts, there are a number of ways you can obtain this one. Firstly, via itunes. Alternatively, you can download the mix directly via this link.
