Subtle as powertools, but an inspired mix nonetheless. The divas of the apocalypse scream themselves to abstraction but meet their match with the tech-chomp of Alan Braxe's Vertigo.
Elephant man, The Energy God with something thats been on the tip of our tongue for at least 6 months, chanting gibberish over the ahaxia riddim,- Shizzle my nizzle, shankle my nankle, shiver my liver, showski bowski ...
Vanity 6 were actually 3 .....forget all the current fake girl bands, they're not nasty enough. They only made one album 'vanity 6' - sing along but you have to be wearing a tight princetastic eighties c0cktail dress type thing.
Slippery house. Such a satisfying combination: a skipping rhythm full of itchy exuberance and a subtle could-I-make-it-any-simpler melody, all wrapped up with greyed-out vocals. Ploughing the same warm groove that Herbert or Perlon did some years ago, similarly playful and infectious.
Quiet music. A mesmeric loop ebbs in and out of focus, faintly optimistic, it almost finds a purpose before fading away.
Lost Electronics. Another profoundly playful paradox from Mouse on Mars, macro-melodies and mutant 2-step face off somewhere between the console and the art-gallery.
Boy Robot meets dancehall a long way from jamaica..
Cosmic Curio. Part of the German New wave from fifteen years ago, this bewitching track could be perky goth or chart oriented Krautrock, chanting dada-ist spiel while the guitars glisten and flex, it's obvious to me neither genre or language are issues. [thx matt]
Tubby's love-sick RnB pleading works a charm over the Spanish Fly Riddim, hurt and desperate, winding himself up round the jaunty squeezebox. I wonder what Avenue D would make of his I'm-sensitive-sleep-with-me routine. [thx Tim]
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Booty Tech. Those trash talking Cuban girls from NYC again. Suitably raw, it flits between dirty electro and dreamboat harmonising. Guaranteed to break the ice over the party season.
A twisted nursery rhyme from the new pluramon album, Julee Cruise's vocal floats over the general feeling of weightlessness.
Hip-Hop, with a silver lining. Everyone crowds around the pouncing melody, but not even the A-list guests can out do Kanye's midas touch or Talib on the hook with a gospel chorus.
Booty RnB. Khia describes her fairy-tale guy, but he can hardly be any sweeter than the dainty electro behind this track, a whistle-till-you-die sakamoto line that skips and tweets in a deep space orbit.
James Murphy's genre fission continues, the two results: this and the other 'pretentious' version both just make me want to hear more music, any music.
Lost in the electroclash buzz of 2002 this oddity could be a misplaced 80s classic. Dark and erotic, it takes a minute to adjust to the darkness, but then the chorus has already crept up on you. [thx jim]
From the bedroom to the plastic.. Kano spits slang over a Jammer produced 2 step track made up from mechanical clattering, bass pulses and the kind of pan-pipe sound thats been all over "grime" tunes this year, one of our favourites of the year without doubt..
Broken disco, spends a good while fooling about around with funk echoes before it gets on track and builds into a 10-story tech-monster set on tearing the club down. A real showstopper
More chaotic pop from jamaica, Elephant man recycles a Michael Jackson melody whilst sound effects are thrown in his way.
Shamelessly retro cover version of the bronski beat tune, more energy, more acid..
Suburban blues, recorded on an 8-track in Hymie's Basement. A blaze of ideas, non-sequiturs and choruses that connect the abstract and intimate. Extra-ordinary.
How the future sounded in 1983, for more check robotnick.it, very good to see this music being made available online.
Teutonic Pop, a graceful reformat from Tobias Thomas and Dettinger, it could almost be music for an alternative car advert: smoothed down and crafted, it ripples and shivers like a mirage, until a teasingly slow 303 interrupts and makes a fantastic mess.
Undead Disco. It's sparse, as you'd expect a soundtrack to be, but it's the contrast I like: the hill street blues and the dystopian future, the grimness and the cheapness.
Elvis Costello cover. Wyatt's wounded performance side-lines the politics, bringing the story to life, we feel their pain, the perseverance, their cycles of hope and resignation. Untouchable.
A tune from the finest electro release of the year, bleepy ping-pong sounds from birmingham, somehow succeeds where a lot of electro just sounded retro ( in a bad way ).
Symphonic Disco. This classical prodigy, recently expelled from Juilliard, does the string arrangements for Metro Area. Slick and exquisite are unusual compliments, it's almost too classy for gabba, but this has me charmed.
Sci-Fi Euro over a dirty 'emerge riddim'. Both fascinating and sickening, but there's something about it's micro-majesty that gets me, her cloying e-slurred vocals and that chemical distortion. Don't bother if you have a a low-syrup-tolerance.
Dr Zeus chopping up sitars to great effect..
German ragga genius from early in the year, The Cure recast in jamaica, no one seems quite perfected a vocal version of this yet, so heres the instrumental.
Bright new star - M.I.A.'s already turned up here and there, but that cool delivery really makes it's mark on this wonky Fat Truckers production, their broken dancehall fizzes and bleeps like it warped on the journey from Jamaica, perfect for her feisty snarl. Watch this one. [thx rich]
Off-beat Hip-Hop. Like this track, the Ultramagnetics burnt all too briefly. Huge wheeling samples, those digi-sharp chops and Keith blazing; this brings it all back.
As its New Years Eve, heres the latest from telefon tel aviv.
A good start to '04 from Wiley, from the forthcoming album..
Parisian heroes I:Cube and Dj Gilb'r return with a stream of mobius-strip melodies and glancing gamelan that recalls the great 'Beau Mot Plage'. Purposeless but beautiful, like spending a few minutes playing with a dot of mercury.
Classic 90s Ardcore. So vivid and alive, a sweet and sour of dark rave and pop focused breaks, instantly recognisable as the one with the sample that sounds like Nicholas Parsons. How can something still be delicate when everything's turned up to 11?
Heard this in a mix and wondered if anyone can recognise the track - deadly simple join-the-dots house, featuring an Ibiza emcee's duet with a taunting vocoder. Very irritating, Very catchy.
Chirpy Grime. Roll Deep's J2K steps up and presents himself. He's c0cky, he's honest, but it's the squeaky shadow and bounce that make it worth the rewind.
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stream only!
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All the way from 88, deep twerking acid with speak-n-spell and falsettos from the unsung hero of Frankie Goes To Hollywood (the butch moustachioed one).
Complete revision of the original version, Kelis' lusty sing-song underscored by flexi-steel percussion and harpsichord, while Clipse's contribution's just another reason to find their new album.
Widescreen Electro from Holland, it's been around since the early part of the year but only found a full release in december. Slowly opening on an alien vista - imagine the establishing shots of a sci-fi epic - measured and restrained, our patience is rewarded when it soars into space.
Low attention span remix of timtim's acoustic electronics, particulary recomended for the stupid hardcore breakdown at 4:00, from the excelent bpitch control records.
Minimal digital soul from the late arthur russell, inspired and of course way ahead of its time, from a forthcoming compilation on rough trade.
Lounge Soul. Brian Ferry croons sleepily over session-slick backing, and that's the appeal, Ferry. You can almost hear the quality of his suit... and that love-drunk distraction in his voice, the way it smoothes out the lyrics; half-heard they sound vaguely profound and unquestionably moving.
Mawkish House. Jacques Le Con revives the woozy 80s synths and acid twang. Shallow and effective, with it's heart-beat predictability you anticipate everything, there's not a moment that you can't feel before it arrives. [gareth should take some credit]
I don't really have to say anything about this track, do I?
Sub-lo, coming on like miami bass's cheap n' sleazy uk cousin, not much to this, just a simple sine-wave bass line that sounds like it was made in 5 minutes, but its the lyric that gets me..
This suburban folk hybrid, part hip-hop, part chamber pop, marks the return of the anticon all-stars.
Burbling anaglogue stream, pure retro sci-fi, the sound of young electronics, recalling electro-acoustic epics of the 70s: Manuel Gottsching's E2 E4 or Tubular Bells, without the unwelcome Ibiza/Exorcist associations.
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stream only!
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Shadowy House. Philip mentioned this last year and it's been on repeat ever since. Dark and indistinct, like a underexposed snapshot, this could have been the soundtrack for Zabriskie Point
New york 1: Polite house, a distilled new york disco sound, complete with lasers.