does what it says on the tin… (not convinced necessarily of the order of these – it’s too hard to sort – but between them they’re my favourites from the last 12 months, all of which are still on repeat.)
1. actress, splazsh, honest jon’s
this man fucked with rules on his debut album, and not only the orthographical rules… across the course of its 14 tracks he doodles with sound so freely, genre names simply do not apply. amongst a sea of such rigidly structured music elsewhere, be it house, techno or even dubstep, his loose and languid forms draw you into a dark, subdued and alluringly depraved underworld quicker than would a toot on the ol’ glass pipe. from the ketty and twisted to the dusty and degraded via the purple and prince-like, these sounds don’t make any gratuitous grab for your attention, but loiter long enough in their company and you’ll get dragged along for the ride, whether you like it or not.
2. john roberts, glass eigths, dial
we knew roberts was good off the back of some strong singles for dial, but this good? his debut album is imbued with such an inward sense of melancholia that I can’t listen to it without imaging someone stooped over a writing desk in the corner of a dark attic room, writing to a distant love one by the light of a flickering candle. robert’s brand of house is rich with a vinyl crackle; sings with sadness and, with a heavy heart plods, through rubbery, woody sounds on a leafy autumnal eve. when it does drive faster, warm, fulsome beats throb, pregnant with woe. glass eigths sounds aged but contemporary, and operates in a such a palpably real world that, shit, it moooves you.
3. efdemin, chicago, dial
this, phillip sollmann’s second full length, is so devilishly – and subtly – intricate that it requires many listens to reveal itself. woozy percussion, found sounds and layered rhythms of the sort you’ve never heard before all require patience (and attention), but also result in an album you can play over and over and never tire of. each re-visit unveils a new niche; another sonic pocket, all hidden amongst chunky, woody house grooves at times drenched in soul, at times suppressing a techno drive or at times shattered into micro clicks and kicks. these are detailed, nuanced records heading in a million and one directions rather than all pulling the same way, but getting lost in the hustle is a lot of fun.
this 45 minute oeuvre is concise, complex and more challenging than steven ellison’s last (which was his second, not first, album, as many think) but is ultimately more rewarding. peer between the mature, complex squiggles of sound, screeching cellos, plucked, slide-y guitar and frenzied breakbeats and you’ll see little hints that fly lo is a product of the computer game generation. for example the noises first edition space raider games made as you spray bullets up the screen, or the ‘game over’ type, clipped and crystalline melody which features eelsewhere. then there’s stunningly sunny, swinging house; heart wrenching moments of introspection and jazz recollections all in there, too… heady shit.
5. four tet, there is love in you, domino
the most dancefloor of his albums to date, there is love in you is made up of tracks hebden is said to have road tested at london’s plastic people, with one of the best even named after the club. doused in a saccharine, twinkling angel dust, there’s everything from intense melancholia to ricocheting 2-step via optimistic house and groovy night music all put together with hebden’s trademark mosaic-style construction. in continuing to operate wholly from his own unique sonic palette, he has made one of the most beautiful albums of the year.
6. trentemoller, into the great wide yonder, in my room
trentemoller’s second studio album was like the organic yin to the last resort’s yang. as the title suggests, the shackles were off and into the great wide yonder saw the dane stride onwards towards new, more compositional territory. from plump, slow bouncing dub to high tension and pounding guitar riffs, delicate string melodies and licks of things as diverse as the fall, the prodigy and jeff buckley – it’s all hidden in there somewhere. that it was written at his home in the dark, cold, frosty territories of denmark will come as no surprise as you listen to this album, but the man’s leaning away from club friendly dance stuff toward more involved and complex instrumental fare, might.
7. mount kimbie, crooks & lovers, hot flush
another short but incredibly sweet album, this, and one which dealt in guitar licked, static infused, crackling and bubbling live-sounding dubstep like no other. lurching from frenzied bleeps to muffled crowd noises via future steppers, it was said to be approximating the effects of a semi asleep, semi-awake state called, hypnogogia. whatever the thinking behind it, the rawness and… aliveness of the organic sounds never fail to infect your brain. crooks & lovers was another hit for hot flush, and one which, if you listen hard enough, bares all the veiled hallmarks of everything great about the label to date.
8. caribou, swim, city slang
i hadn’t heard of dan snaith aka caribou before this, despite it being his fifth album. apparently close to james holden, it’s a relationship which shows in the headiness of snaith’s synth-y, pop-y, techno-y sounds. the watery, aqueous finish which he aimed for with the album has been fully achieved courtesy of the liquid synths which ripple like thin strips of tin foil, blowing in a stormy wind. it makes for an almost abrasive – certainly tumultuous – listen, but one with some fine songcraft, beautifully colliding melodies and plenty of emotional curveballs to keep you as intrigued as it does entertained.
9. matthew dear, black city, ghostly
if you ask me, dear’s last album, asa breed, still sounds avant-guarde, 3 years after release. black city is similarly of-the-future in its depiction of a dark, dystopian metropolis, but is a much slower one. his own brooding vocals feature heavily (musing on love, life, losses and… monkeys) and rumble in the bowels of pained beats, yearning synths, prickly instruments and other such debauched night sounds. a reflection of the dark wave, 80s emo stuff he was listening to at the time, black city’s bristling atmospheres, bright neon lights and underlying tension make for a troubled but tasty listen.
10. scuba, triangulations, hot flush
hot flush had another great year in 2010, with the boss leading from the front. a whole range of flavours and textures were on offer on his compelling second album, from soundsystem inspired calypso beats, to weightless ambient via straight up house jams. throughout, light was balanced with dark; weight with weightlessness and it made for one of the most complete dubstep – or thereabouts – listens of the year. more recently came the ‘interpreted’ version of the album, with plenty of killer tracks from the likes of deadbeat, falty dl, will saul and more into the bargain: it sounded just as good.
11. the black dog, music for real airports, soma
a conceptual masterpiece in response to eno’s 1978 work, music for airports, the black dog’s music for real airports is the most submersive listen of the year. the ambient techno swells laced with real world snippets of pa systems, doors closing and feet shuffling (and bits from another couple of hundred hours of recordings) which make it up, make for at times paranoid, at times imposing, at times hopeful listening, but whatever the mood, it’s always thoroughly engaging.
12. shed, the traveller, ostgut ton
whilst shedding the past certainly wasn’t techno as most people know it, this album was cast even further away from any contemporary analogies and instead peers back to a 90s breakbeat heyday before surging on though dubstep and occasional acid influences. it’s techno, but not as we know it.
13. asc, nothing is certain, non plus
instra:mental’s nonplus+ records continued to re-define d&b this year, stripping it back to ever darker cores of pulsing, bleeping basslines and deep space melodies. asc, with this beautifully wide-reaching album in particular, was at the heart of the revolution.
14. gil scott heron, i’m new here, xl recordings
he’s a poet, a writer, a musician, recently got nominated as best newcomer at the brits (despite having a career spanning back 30 odd years) and on his 16th studio album fuses blues, jazz, soul and spoken word into a raw and gloomy world, swollen with a life’s worth of experiences.
15. altered natives, tenement yard, eye 4 eye
16. pantha du prince, black noise, rough trade
the glassy and tinkling melodies of hendrik weber’s colourful, bubbling minimal made for some of the most heartfelt music of the year. black noise is a wintry scene looked up from a warm and cosy retreat, alive with the sounds of diy percussive flecks which float around your brain and have you lost in their wonder.
17. seuil, chamaeleonidae, welcome to masomenos
a debut from one of paris’s new guard of exciting producers, this subtly shifting affair dealt in feathered percussion, lush bass undercurrents and intricate layers of soft techno and house. mind melting.
18. jules chaz, toppings, wagon repair
the first in a reported busy schedule of album releases for wagon repair, this sample heavy, instrumental hip-hop affair from the little known chaz dealt in brilliantly diy and expertly crafted samples with beguiling results.
19. dop, greatest hits, circus company
every bit as fun as one of their live shows, their album titles or their press shots, dop’s debut took house into inebriated and salubrious back street parisian haunts of the sort i’ve never heard before.
20. pulshar, inside, desolat
deep, dulcet, organic and just about everything you want in a vocal infused dub album, this serene, late night smoking experience is exactly the sort of record everyone needs in their collection for those hazy sunday afternoons.
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