I thought that the time was ripe for another post outlining a few things I’ve been particularly enjoying over the last few months as the summer leaves us and we make the inevitable move into winter; albums and tracks filled with cold sounds with occasional hints of warmth. At risk of confusing casual readers and making this sound like a food blog, I’ll quickly move on to the music itself.

One of Autumn’s unexpected surprises has been Surkit Chamber: The Melding, the new album from underrated Detroit techno producer Reel By Real, otherwise known as Martin Bonds, one which has been rather criminally slept on by the wider world of music journalism. He’s one of the largely forgotten masters of Detroit techno’s second wave, and if you have even just a passing interest in anything coming out of the Motor City from the last 30 or so years then it comes highly recommended. I wrote a full review for Juno Plus which can be read here, so I don’t need to take up too much space on the blog, but Actress and Kyle Hall have been raving about it on Twitter, and if that isn’t high praise then I don’t know what is.

Reel by Real – Fate

If I was judging the latest 12″ from xxxy on the strength of the sleeve alone then it would be release of the last few months hands down for it’s Lichtenstein referencing cover. Entitled Kerpow, it’s another winner for Irish label All City who released the brilliant FaltyDL 12″ Make It Difficult. It would be easy to dismiss xxxy as another “buzz” act; his music is almost unspeakably trendy, and you can easily argue that he’s not doing anything that his peers in the future/post garage continuum aren’t doing just as well, but if there’s a more tightly produced example of this kind of stuff that anyone else has done this year, I’d like to hear it. It’s clear that his style has matured somewhat over the last year; “Kerpow” is arguably one his most balanced productions to date; largely forgoing the day-glo garage of his ubiquitous “Ordinary Things”, he utilises warmer tones and crunchy beats to create a track with a little more subtlety, but no less punch, especially in the rhythm department. Similarly great is the B-side, “Down Wit U” which is some pretty fine 808 juke-techno in a Boddika vein.

xxxy – Kerpow

Another great single comes in the form of the recent release from Lando Kal (who released a similarly excellent EP on Hotflush earlier this year) on Rush Hour’s Direct Currents imprint. There’s almost no need to decide whether or not I want to buy RHDC records -  the quality control level is so high that the decision is pretty much made for me as soon as a new release is announced, and this new 12″ from Lando Kal may well be my favourite release in the series since Cosmin TRG’s See Other People, with both “Maneuver”, and “Run It” having the same kind of schizoid charm as that track. “Run It” sounds like ketamine soaked electro – it basically has no idea where it’s taking you; constantly wrong footing you at every turn, it’s basically impossible to remember once you’ve heard it, making each subsequent listen as thrilling as the last.

Lando Kal – Run It

Anyone who has been reading this blog for a while will know how much of a fan I am of Night Plane aka William Rauscher. Last year’s “Str8 2 Ur Heart” was one of my favourite tracks of last year, and he has just released a new EP under the CCC moniker (comprised of Rauscher and production partner Harry Bennett); entitled Acid Snow, it’s every bit as good as his solo material. The title track is an acid-driven psychedelic noise freakout that reminds me of Gavin Russom’s Crystal Ark project – high praise indeed. There’s also a Night Plane remix which is on a similarly Russom-esque tip, dragging the original further into nightmare territory. My personal highlight of the EP is undoubtedly the B-side track “Vibrations”, a hypnotic acid workout with vocal samples taken from, among other places, scientific experiments on LSD. It sounds like the kind of thing that just won’t work, but somehow, along with the oddball keys that sound like they’ve been lifted from some crazed public information film, they create one of the most weirdly satisfying and bumping house tracks I’ve heard in a long time.

CCC – Vibrations by CCC

The garage revival is undoubtedly the trendiest thing to be getting involved in this year, but the fact remains that a lot of the proper old school garage hasn’t dated all that well, and a lot of the revival stuff just seems to be taking things too far with the pitched vocals and day-glo synths. Thankfully Sully’s new album on Keysound, Carrier has come along to show people how it should be done. Sully’s been producing for a few years now, and frankly he wasn’t on my radar until I heard this last month, but this is potential end of year list stuff. He’s managed to take the tight structure of 2-step garage and add some intellectual meat to it without compromising any of what makes it real, which is not something that’s easy to manage by any means. The whole album is a winner from start to finish, but “2 Hearts” is a highlight. Comprising of essentially the same 16 bar loop which simply repeats itself with tiny degrees of progression, each movement is signalled by the same trilling telephone synth which would become annoying if each change up wasn’t so utterly thrilling.

Sully – 2 Hearts

Last month also saw the release of the absolutely essential album from Martyn, Ghost People. It may not be the most innovative album of the year, but it does as good a job as anyone at distilling the essence of bass and expertly applying it to a house and techno template, and the production on display is incredible, and more to the point, it’s just really enjoyable. It also has two bonafide track of the year contenders in “Masks” and the incredible “We Are You in the Future”. Also unmissable is the recent Floating Points 7″, Danger. Yes, it’s a 7″, but used in the right context this will have the power to ignite a dancefloor, though its title as Floating Points production of the year looks set to be taken by “Arp3″, on the forthcoming Shadows doublepack coming in a week or so on Eglo. I’ll let Benji B do the talking on this one.

Floating Points – Arp3

I’ve been quiet over the last few months, but that’s for good reason this time -  I have recently taken up a new writing position over at the excellent Juno Plus. I’m honoured to be part of it and am particularly proud of what we’ve achieved over the last few months as a team. I’ll be putting some kind of section on this site’s homepage where I will link to the stuff that I do over there – obviously there’s a formality to that stuff which you won’t get here, and it led me to think about how I can get back to blogging here and make it a bit more sustainable for myself, and of course fun to write. The last thing I wanted to do was fall into the classic “use your blog to get what you want and then let it die” trap.

Working at Juno I’m in the fortunate position of having lots of new records land on my desk every week, and being right next to a stockroom where I can pick out anything I want to listen to. This, coupled with a generous staff discount has pretty much guaranteed that I’m coming home with several great records a week, the kind of thing I never would have bought previously simply because I have more time to devote to listening to new things. So, what I’m going to do, quite simply, and partly inspired by my friends, the Secret Danger Society, is list up my purchases for the week and tell you why you should care, as well as giving you a taste of the beautiful design that goes into some 12″ releases. As this is the first it’s selected highlights from the last few months, but as it goes on posts will probably be shorter.

First up is the new release from Dutch producer Dexter. He’s been going for a while, and has released records on pretty much all the Amsterdam labels worth their salt. I’m not overly familiar with his previous output, but it’s fair to say it’s been house music, albeit with a fluid, futuristic sheen. On Great Northern Diver, recently released on Clone’s Basement series, (which has been exploring the moodier strains of house/techno hybrids) he takes this approach and applies it to a bass music template. All the tropes are there – sludgy sub bass frequencies, rolling rhythms – hell, T.H.I.N.G. even samples Amerie – but there’s something going on that you’d never get from any of the UK producers doing the same thing. “Great Norther Diver” is a fantastically liquid piece of machine funk with fluid rhythms that recall Objekt’s fantastic productions, but the track I’m obsessed with is “Bo-Dyned”. It’s the kind of thing that Hessle’s output has been moving towards in recent years, a 123ish BPM house track where dusty organs and disembodied vocals float over a gradually pulsating bassline. But it’s the percussion that really makes it – rhythmically complex snaps, bells, cymbals, snares and kicks that move in deceptive ways. It can get crowded, but that’s what makes it work. Upcoming releases on Clone Basement from Untold and Blawan only seek to highlight the sharing of ideas between Amsterdam and London – can’t wait to see what else crops up on the imprint in the future.

Dexter – “Bo-Dyned”

On a similar tip is the new Kevin McPhee single Sleep on Bristol based label Idle Hands. McPhee is a Canadian producer, but there’s something undeniably British about his sound. It’s house music through and through, pitching itself at about 120BPM, but with an undeniably fluid quality that clunks and hisses along, while fractured samples add texture, much like Dexter’s “Bo-Dyned”. However, the EP is most similar in my ears to the compressed and jaunty rhythms of Lukid and Actress. This kind of sound is something that I’m particularly excited by at the moment – it really feels like the influences of dubstep and other bass forms on house are really starting to bear the most interesting fruit. It’s no coincidence that McPhee’s material has seen release on Idle Hands – Bristol’s rich scene seem to be leading the way with this kind of thing at the moment (with the obvious exception of the Hessle and Hotflush labels). I enjoyed this so much I went and bought McPhee’s first release on Dublin label [Naked Lunch]. It’s also really good – more soulful than Sleep, and actually reminds me of, dare I say it, early James Blake. There’s a kind of lounge quality to it, which combined with its percussive mastery makes for something that resembles R&B more than it does house.

Kevin McPhee – “Sleep”

On a loose Bristol connection, one of my absolute favourite releases of the last few months has been a split EP between relative unknowns Visionist and Lorca, on a great new label called Left Blank. I can’t recommend it highly enough – it does all the 808 revival stuff and R&B sampling in a way that makes it feel fresh again. I did a full review over at Juno Plus which you can read here. Their first release is also exceptional, the Nylon Sunset EP from Bristol based Vessel. It comes backed with a Peverelist remix which is exceptional, but a lot of reviews I’ve read have really focused on that rather than the original stuff, which is frankly unfair given how different their styles are. The opener, “Ton” sounds more like a more rhythmically complex version of Border Community’s kettled euphoria, especially Nathan Fake’s “The Sky Was Pink” or, the pastoral glitch of James Holden’s “10101″. “Blushes” meanwhile is a slowed-down house track filled with hazy atmosphere. It can be so difficult to make stuff that speed sound like it has any kind of groove, but the attention to detail on things like drum reverb is just perfect. “Nylon Sunset” meanwhile is a tense and urgent piece of lo-fi techno weirdness that has echoes of Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada. It really is excellent and with releases like this already Vessel and Left Blank deserve to have a bright future ahead of them.

Vessel – “Ton”

It seems that simple house music is having a hard time these days – all the kids are too busy rediscovering Underground Resistance to have much time for the classic strains of Chicago. But if anyone can bridge the gap between the feel-good mood of Chicago house and it’s funkier offspring, then it’s Braille. Better known as Praveen Sharma, one half of the superb Sepalcure (along with Travis Stewart aka Machinedrum), he dropped a superb single under this new moniker on Rush Hour earlier this year, and he’s followed it up with A Meaning on Hotflush Recordings. It may not hit the same ecstatic highs of “The Year 3000″ or “Leavin’ Without You” on that early record, but that’s almost a good thing – this EP is more reined in, keeping the concentration on the rolling snares and muting his palette just slightly into murkier copper tones has given us a record that feels more unified than the first that was, and closer to the dusty appeal of the tracks he samples.

Braille – “A Meaning”

Also on a garage tip from a few months ago is George FitzGerald’s recent EP on Aus Music. Aus have been cherrypicking the best producers for one-off releases for a while now, and they always seem to get exceptional tracks from them (Midland’s “Through Motion” also recently out on Aus, is undoubtedly one of his best), and FitzGerald’s Silhouette EP is no different. It’s easy to write him off as a Joy Orbison knock-off, but I think that there’s a youthful enthusiasm present in FitzGerald’s material which Orbison has largely abandoned, and it suits him well. “Silhouette” and “Reset” are particularly lush garage/house hybrids with a keen sense of forward momentum. Furthermore the EP contains a fantastic remix of “Silhouette” provided by John Roberts that takes the original’s bright synths and creates a clunking, elastic, bass-heavy house version which has to be heard to be believed. It’s nothing like the original, and nothing like Roberts’ previous work.

George FitzGerald – “Silhouette”

As for albums, the big one for me is Cosmin TRG’s debut long player, Simulat, out now on Modeselektor’s 50 Weapons label. I’ve had nothing but love for the man since I first heard “See Other People” last year, and hearing everything released since and delving into his back catalogue has been a joy. His trajectory from releasing dubstep/garage hybrids as TRG on Hessle, through housier terrain on Rush Hour has led to this, his fully fledged outing as a master of techno. There’s more weight to these tracks than anything he’s done before, whilst keeping things surprisingly delicate, especially on the fractured sublimity of “I Want You To Be” and “Lillasyster”- it’s a surprise after the relative excesses of A Universal Crush, but like FaltyDL, he’s proved that there’s room for every single one of his constantly shifting musical identities without compromising any of his artistic integrity.

Cosmin TRG – “Want You To Be”

Finally there is eagerly awaited new release from Huntleys & Palmers Audio Club. If you haven’t heard the infectious “Oh My Days” from Goa via Glasgow producer Auntie Flo then you’re in for a treat. But while that’s been caned heavily from everyone from Pearson Sound to Oliver Seaman, I find it incredible that the equally as fantastic B-side “Choosing Love” from South African kwaito producer DJ Sdunkero hasn’t had the same amount of love, despite having been floating around the internet for a while -  nice to see it get a physical release here. I’m not going to claim to be the world’s biggest authority on South African dance music, but I enjoy this as much as DJ Mujava’s “Township Funk”, and that’s saying a lot. It’s simplicity belies what is actually a deeply complex tune emotionally. Superb artwork also, provided by one Anna Kraay.

DJ Sdunkero – “Choosing Love”

Of course this isn’t everything. The last few months has seen Four Tet release a potential career best with his Locked/Pyramid 12″, a serious contender for album of the year from Machinedrum, and Mosca deliver what I think is the final word on 90s UK garage revivalism (seriously, everything on “Bax”, from the razor sharp stabs, tight beats to the inbuilt rewind absolutely shits over everyone else in that scene – people will have to up their game if they want to compete on his level), but these have been covered extensively elsewhere. Still, if you haven’t heard them, then you must, especially “Bax” – it’s a definite contender for track of the year.

Twin Portal from Konx-om-Pax on Vimeo.

Like his music, his video work creates strange digital worlds, full of neon colour, which recall a highly stylised version of early 90s computer animation; the basic digital quality of his animations combine with the rich colours to create an impressionistic version of psychedelia which feels like a digitised simulacrum of an acid trip. His name may not be as recognisable as his contemporaries, but Konx-om-Pax’s ability to create music and visuals which go beyond the simple approach of being a cultural magpie makes him arguably as interesting and as worth investigating as the rest.

The second act of the night was Laurel Halo. She is a rare female voice in what is a very male dominated corner of music; while women have successfully colonised their own corners in the realms of guitar music, in the world of dark, 80s inspired synthesised music it’s rare that you’d see more than 20% women in the crowd, let alone any on stage. Maybe it’s because the fetishisation of the synthesiser has about as much stigma attached to it as collecting comic books or playing video games; but the fact is that synthesisers are objects that, for whatever reason or another, are a primarily male domain. This obviously doesn’t phase Laurel Halo; appearing on stage alone, with her Roland synth, and myriad pieces of kit, she played an impressively tight set. It’s not easy to juggle beats with other elements without the use of a laptop, but she did it with as much skill as any of her male counterparts, and with a confident yet understated stage presence that is often difficult to manage in this kind of context. What was particularly evident is that Laurel Halo is someone for whom 80s pop music is obviously a big influence. Despite her association with Hippos in Tanks, and her place on a recent Tri-Angle mixtape, both labels whose artists seem to revel in darkness and shroud themselves in mystery, Laurel Halo is content to let her own voice come through her gothic synth tones without excessive manipulation. It’s something that really sets her apart from the majority of her peers, and positions her closer to kindred female artists like Nite Jewel.

Last on were Gatekeeper. Their style of music is nothing new – the emulation of the music of John Carpenter and 80s horror soundtracks has been a staple of electronic music for a while now, but I’ve rarely been so viscerally moved by something of this type. While Padded Cell filter their influences through classic disco, and Zombie Zombie put theirs through Italo, Gatekeeper seem to more interested in creating a weird composite of EBM and trance, which far from being a pastiche, actually sounds fairly authentic. Although they have been loosely lumped in with the nascent “witch-house” movement, they have more in common  with James Ferraro’s brand (again, sorry) of hypnagogic VHS culture, grabbing samples from video nasties and fusing them with wobbly synths to create something that’s arguably as nightmarish as their inspiration. Live, they seemed to take this concept to it’s most logical conclusion; using a smoke machine to create a ridiculous amount of fog, and a lighting rig to flash at the audience, the duo were completely hidden from view, wisely taking the attention away from any human element, and letting the audience fill in the visual blanks in their heads. Of course it did leave me to wonder whether there was actually any kind of live manipulation going on, or whether it was just an elaborate man behind the curtain scenario, but the music was so heavy and filled with atmosphere that it didn’t actually matter much to me at the time.

A week later, I had the pleasure of seeing Emeralds at the latest BleeD night at Village Underground (as part of this year’s Stag and Dagger festival). I’d been looking forward to seeing Emeralds play live for about 18 months now, since they were first brought to my attention along with Oneohtrix Point Never at the tail end of 2009. To my ears they always seemed like a much more delicate proposition than OPN, with their music being a lot more overtly “beautiful” than the thickly stacked layers of their contemporary’s rougher sound. Seeing Emeralds in a live context however totally flipped my perception of their music upside down. With three members, including John Elliot (who co-runs the Spectrum Spools imprint on Editions Mego) and Steve Hauschildt on synths and electronics, and of course their guitarist Mark McGuire, and no laptops to speak of, Emeralds are very much a “band”, and compared to the majority of live performances of this type of music, put a lot of energy into their performance. On record Emeralds come across as fairly tranquil; although there are moments in their music where the tempos are high or the synths are harsh and unfiltered, these moments rarely come across as anything other than textural or stylistic decisions that inform their compositions as a whole. Live however, they come across as more of a noise band, even encroaching on the territory of metal at times. John Elliott particularly, works his analog synthesisers like he’s playing bass for a metal band, thrashing his head and body to every imagined beat of the music; Mark McGuire also, who puts more emotion and feeling into playing his guitar than anyone I’ve seen for a long time. But it was the sheer wall of sound that particularly overwhelmed me. Playing through a large speakerstack, their sound took on a new dimension, as McGuire’s usually delicate guitar work took on an aggression previously unheard on record, particularly during “Double Helix”. Similarly, when the massive analog bass hit during the excellent “Candy Shoppe”, it was as fist pumping a moment as I ever could have expected. Of course it wasn’t all like this; I was particularly surprised to hear them play “Side A” from their little known Overlook tape which although a pleasure for a fan such as myself, probably didn’t have the required energy to sustain the majority of the audience during an hour long live performance. But it was their encore, “Does It Look Like I’m Here” that really revealed their pedigree as a noise band, with a searing climax that reminded me at times of 90s shoegaze. But unlike say, My Bloody Valentine, who would simply use that as an oppotunity to create noise for the sake of it, Emeralds manage to work together to combine nuanced textures with sheer sonic power. I know not everyone felt this way about their performance (read my friend Helium Raven’s take on the same performance for an alternative viewpoint), but I think it was my surprise at how much these guys loved playing their music really loud that won me over.

Below is a brilliant video interview with Emeralds which gives a fantastic insight into their gear and processes, as well as some great live footage, which is well worth 15 minutes of your time.

If you want to catch Laurel Halo soon, then she’ll be playing at a forthcoming BleeD night at the Shacklewell Arms on Tuesday June 14th, with Ford & Lopatin appearing there on 2nd June.

Tying in quite nicely with the idea that the idea that we need some kind of gatekeepers for this kind of music, the last month has seen the formation of a new offshoot from Editions Mego (responsible for last year’s releases by Emeralds and OPN), Spectrum Spools, which looks to be dedicated to synthesiser music. The first two releases are out, A Sort of Radiance by Fabric, and Bee Mask’s Canzoni dal Laboratorio del Silenzio Cosmico. I’m really torn between loving A Sort of Radiance and just thinking it sounds too much like Oneohtrix Point Never to my ears to really have it’s own identity. I think that ultimately it’s a nice listen, especially if you’re a fan of OPN and Emeralds, but is probably unlikely to set the world on fire. I am intrigued to hear more from Fabric though, because there is the potential for him to create some great stuff.

Much more interesting to my ears is the Bee Mask material. I was recently treated to a “performance” of Xenakis’ electroacoustic tape piece La légende d’Eer as part of the London Sinfonietta’s recent Xenakis season at Southbank Centre. It was a 50 minute piece of constantly evolving textures which pushed several audience members past their comfort zones, but was an invigorating listening experience for me, not least because it was particularly illuminating to see the parallels between his work and a lot of current synth music. Canzoni dal Laboratorio del Silenzio Cosmico is much in the same vein as this kind of electroacoustic experimentation, combining radiophonic tones with what are, I presume field recordings or found sounds. Split into two sides, the first side is the more overtly experimental of the two pieces, concentrating mainly on textures, while Side B is more mood based, combining the roughness of Side A with melodies and synths that recall Italian horror movie soundtracks, 50’s sci-fi B-movie themes, and even Italo disco towards its conclusion. It feels like a musical curiosity that has been liberated from someone’s attic, and is highly recommended.

On the less extreme edges of the synthesiser fringes, RVNG have just released a remastered version of Harald Grosskopf’s 1980 album Synthesist. The liner notes for this are a fascinating read, recounting Grosskopf’s difficulty in just getting his synthesiser to stay in tune due to the temperature fluctuations; in the end the only solution was to put a hot bulb directly over the top of it to ensure that it stayed at a constant temperature. It’s an album that particularly deserves another look at this moment in time, especially given the current fetishisation of the analog synthesiser and the arpeggio by artists such as Emeralds and Gavin Russom. It comes with a great CD of reworks by artists who are essentially making the modern equivalent of Harald Grosskopf’s music; Blondes, ARP, CFCF and many others. All the reworkings are great in their own unique ways, but the most surprising is Stellar OM Source’s rework of “1847 – Earth”, which flies against all expectations by turning the thing into a sort of proto house track. Far from being the kind of floaty kosmische she’s known for it’s actually something you could play in a DJ set. Most unexpected.

Stellar OM Source – “1847 – Earth”

Another contributor to the Re-Synthesist disc is Snoretex, aka Sam Willis of Allez-Allez and Walls. He’s a really good choice to rework Grosskopf, as there are some undeniable similarities in their material. Snoretex’s first single “Strange Aeons” seems influenced by that kind of gentle beat driven kraut of Grosskopf and Harmonia, whilst also sharing the same kind of hazy, seasick quality of his contemporary James Holden (especially the recent “Triangle Folds”). It’s just been released on Buzzin’ Fly, but it’s worth having a look at Snoretex’s Soundcloud page, as there are many more delights there, and you can genuinely see how his sound has developed over the last few months. Much like his work as Walls, it inhabits that interesting zone between kosmische and all out dance music, is obviously very conscientiously produced, and is well worth checking out if you want something a bit different from the latest post-dubstep buzz-producer.

In much the same vein as Grosskopf’s Synthesist is the new album from Hatchback on Lo Recordings. It seems hard to believe that Hatchback’s White Diamond was released way back in September of 2007. As well as prefiguring the balearic revival of 2008, Hatchback, and his other project Windsurf, I think it’s fair to say, pretty much also foreshadowed a lot of the chillwave stuff that’s blown up over the last few years. And I think it’s also fair to say that Hatchback was doing the “new new age” thing (that genre description came from this review of Emeralds’ recent live show in New York) long before it was cool. The album, Zeus & Apollo, requires a lot more patience than his debut, which although downtempo, was a lot more obviously beat driven than the follow up, which often verges into the territories of pure ambient (It consists of only 6 tracks, 4 of which are over 12 minutes long). But it’s still got those moments of melancholy juxtaposed with the optimistic electric guitar chimes and bright piano keys that make Hatchback’s material so great.

The Violet Sequence by Hatchback

The most obvious is Lone, who wears those aesthetic influences quite clearly on his sleeve, whether it’s the Boards of Canada style melodies, or his utilisation of 808 State style textures and chord progressions (even his name sounds like it was lifted from Two Lone Swordsmen). His next EP is being released on R&S, who released some of Aphex Twin’s earliest material, giving an interesting sense of things coming full circle for the label (and indeed dance music as a whole). One of the tracks on this EP, (entitled Echolocations) is the sublime “Explorers”, which sounds like the sun coming up on an outdoor rave circa 1991.

A recent track on the more experimental end of early 90s sounds is the brilliant Rocketnumbernine remix of Luke Abbott’s “Trans Forest Alignment”. Treading a more obviously ‘ambient’ path, it starts out with a billowing soundscape that could have been created by The Orb twenty years ago (their recent single on Text Records, “Matthew and Toby” had similarly ambient leanings); but it’s Rocketnumbernine’s live percussion in combination with the synthetic drum machine beats that gives it a rhythmic complexity that most producers would struggle to match alone. But when the track really gets going it sounds like the most intense Aphex Twin (for instance this track), furious, and melodically off kilter.

Luke Abbott – Trans Forest Alignment (RocketNumberNine Remix)

Just released on Rush Hour’s Direct Current imprint (responsible for some of last year’s most exciting music from Cosmin TRG and FaltyDL) is the debut album from UK producer BNJMN. Entitled Plastic World, it is a 10 track odyssey of sonic exploration and experimentation. His sound is difficult to pin down; the opening track “Blocks” will have you thinking that he is interested from the same kind of all enveloping cloudy early 90s sound as Lone, but, the rest of the album is a lot darker, pulling as much from the sounds of Detroit as Sheffield. It sits easily alongside the deeper sounds of Cosmin TRG and Aardvarck on the same imprint, but with a deeply experimental bent that give his cavernous productions an early 90s feel. Each of the tracks on the album are all uniquely interesting whilst exploring different sounds in a cohesive way, and that’s not always the easiest thing to manage. It’s the kind of thing Actress managed on Splazsh, and whilst I’m not saying this is as good as Splazsh, it does seem to be cut from much the same cloth. Highly recommended.

Blocks by BNJMN

Of course it still remains to be seen whether this kind of aesthetic will genuinely take root, but I’m considering it an interesting addendum to the current post-everything musical landscape that will hopefully be looked upon more favourably than the “nu-rave” fad of 5 years ago – of course that was less concerned with a fuzzy nostalgia and exploration of old sounds, and more with a kind of neon artifice that had little engagement with the source material. For the time being, it’s worth keeping an eye on: there’s currently such a buzz around the post-dubstep/future garage axis that it will be interesting to see whether this crystallises into something more cohesive. And although the examples I have given are the most obviously of that sound, echoes can be heard in the productions of those more commonly connected to the post-dubstep scene, whether it’s James Blake’s more experimental leanings, or the seasick rhythms and reverb heavy soundscapes of Becoming Real. Finally, as an interesting postscript, KiNK’s recent mix for FACT is full of the kind of early 90s stuff that I’m talking about, and is well worth a listen.

Actress – Get Ohn (Fairlight Mix)

Splazsh is an album of sketches. Tracks quite often finish with a lack of any real resolution; they flit from style to style as abruptly as the dial being turned on a radio, but it is never anything than totally cohesive. Ostensibly Splazsh is bass music, with influences from house, techno, dubstep, jungle, and R&B, but there’s much more to this album than bass. It’s an album of quite complex textures, rendered through a haze of quite digital compression, and although the undercurrent of Actress’s music is dark, black even, his music always shines with a phosphorescence which constantly negates the more shadowy tones. The reason that a lot of bass and dubstep has never really spoken to me is not just due to a lack of melody, but a lack of colour. Somehow Splazsh manages to be the perfect negotiation between these two opposing forces in dance music.

I recently saw Actress DJing at Nail the Cross, and to be honest my memory of the night is hazy to say the least, but I do remember that his selection of tunes was not what I expected. The main music I remember him playing was some old school Jungle, and Kraftwerk’s “The Model”, which I think are very insightful as to where a lot of the inspiration for his music comes from. There’s a very dark, brutal core to his sound, with rolling but quite severe beats, but there’s also a very gentle and melodic, yet machine-like quality to everything he does. And its the machine that seems the best point of reference when considering the structure of his work. The beats don’t just have a clockwork quality; in the clattering shuffle of “Get Ohn (Fairlight Mix)” you can almost hear the noise of industrial machinery. In “The Kettle Men” they have a severity that sound like some kind of machine press. The synths in “Let’s Fly” seem to breathe, but in a highly regulated way, quite like an artificial breathing apparatus.

Actress – The Kettle Men

This album is so alien, it’s almost impossible to believe that there was ever a human being behind it. It’s only the very tiny moments of space between the compositions that snatches of human vocal occasionally struggle to emerge from the confusion. Much has been said about how Burial’s Untrue is the most accurate meditation on the loneliness and isolation of London city life, and this still rings true, but for me Splazsh is analogous to Untrue; while Untrue displays the human side to isolation, Splazsh has become to me an expression of the isolation and confusion of technology. If Untrue was perfect night bus music, then Splazsh is the music of sitting on the bus and watching a dozen people all blindly connecting with the internet via their phones, struggling to express emotion in a world now totally connected.

But aside from being very good, Splazsh marks quite a significant personal moment for me; it was the moment that I first “got” bass music. It offered me a window into a type of music which had found fairly impenetrable until then, and when an artist has the power to totally change your perception of a type of music, then that is an artist to be treasured.

Oneohtrix Point Never – Returnal [Editions Mego]
This time last year, I’d never heard of Oneohtrix Point Never. Now, he’s practically the posterboy for an entire movement. My introduction to his music was through last year’s Rifts compilation, which although great, was rather too unwieldy to serve as any kind of succinct snapshot of his musicianship. But this feels like his first great artistic statement. Although it goes through his expected range of hypnotic arpeggios and hazy pads, it’s the tracks that bookend the album, “Nil Admari” and “Preyouandi”, with their tortured screams, searing white noise and trickling rhythms that display the most stylistic flair, and the most significant step forward in his sound. But most importantly there feels like a theme at the heart of these eight tracks; it’s complex to unravel given that the range of emotions conveyed by such alien sounds is so great, but the centrepiece track, “Returnal” offers us the most powerful, a palpable sense of loss.

Oneohtrix Point Never – Preyouandi

Caribou – Swim [Merge]
If there was ever going to be a “People’s Choice” award for album of the year then surely this would be it. With songs that recall Arthur Russell by way of a number of strands of club music, it melds gentle melodies with an almost amphetamine brutality; whether it’s the rushing synths of “Kaili” or the devastatingly compressed cymbals of “Found Out” the album always has something to keep you from being lulled into a saccharine coma. I could talk about this album for paragraphs, but ultimately, the simple fact is, if you don’t like this album, then you’re dead inside.

Caribou – Found Out

Luke Abbott – Holkham Drones [Border Community]
I purposefully avoided reading any other end of year lists before having any of my choices down on paper first, but I cursory glance at the “big four” now that that’s done has revealed that this brilliant album has been criminally overlooked by all of them. The name suggests a kind of country-village psychedelia in the vein of Ghost Box’s brand of alternate reality pop, and in a way that’s what you get, but coming from Border Community, it is of course filtered through a kaleidescope of Radiophonic Workshop style textures and early 90s IDM. There’s a textural uniformity to the whole thing that is easily the most concise artistic statement to come out of the Border Community stable, outdoing James Holden and Nathan Fake’s albums by quite a considerable degree.

Luke Abbott – Holkham Drones

Emeralds – Does It Look Like I’m Here? [Editions Mego]
Giving Oneohtrix Point Never some serious competition this year for the kosmische crown, Emeralds released their richest album to date. With the majority of the tracks coming in at just under 5 minutes in length, this is the most condensed Emeralds music has been, but what they lack in length they make up for with mathematical precision; this album unfolds around you like some Tron-esque grid world, with all the saturated digital quality of an early morning geometric hallucination. But it’s the interplay between the thick synth drones and Mark McGuire’s spindling guitar melodies that remind us of the analogue humanity at the core of this ostensibly digital album.

Emeralds – “Candy Shoppe”

Hype Williams – Untitled [Carnivals]
I’m still unsure as to whether Hype Williams are smart, or whether they just think they’re a lot smarter than they actually are. The title of this album, Untitled, and the subsequent naming of the all the tracks as “Untitled” also just seems a bit knowingly juvenile. Furthermore, the crying sample at the beginning of the first track on this album suggests a joke being played at our expense somehow, however, musically the track is a very solid piece of hypnagogic kosmische that begs to be swum into. Stylistically Hype Williams are almost impossible to pin down, though it’s use of sample collage, syrupy textures and sludgy pace seems to take mainly from the chopped and screwed style that has been so mercilessly pillaged by many of this year’s buzz acts. But unlike those acts you never feel aware of those influences, which in the case of an act like Salem are clumsily worn on their sleeve. Where Salem will have rapping over the top of their stuff that just feels clunky, and ends up making you laugh for all the wrong reasons, there’s a trickster element at play behind everything that Hype Williams do that actually has genuine wit, for that reason and they’ve been responsible for some of the most genuinely humorous moments I’ve heard in music this year.

Hype Williams – Untitled

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Before Today [4AD]
Whether you would define this album as “chillwave”, “hypnagogic pop”, or any of the mutitude of tags that have by now ceased to mean anything is unimportant, what sets this album apart from the rest of Ariel Pink’s lo-fi peers is the fact that this is quite simply an album of really great songs. Admittedly they are songs filtered through a filter of late 70s MOR but somehow with a much seedier quality, almost recalling exploitation movie soundtracks (especially present in “Reminiscences”). There’s also an odd sort of desperation present throughout, but when the songs are as triumphant as “Round and Round” it’s hard not to be completely entranced by their alternate reality nostalgia.

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Fright Night (Nevermore)

Four Tet – There Is Love In You [Domino]
I have to admit to being fairly disappointed with this album when I first heard it. Kieran Hebden’s previous album as Four Tet, Everything Ecstatic, and the Ringer EP that immediately preceded it suggested that what followed would be a lot weightier than what we got. In fact, I even felt like it was a step backwards. But when it actually sunk in it revealed itself to be a unification of the broken beat of Rounds, the metallic tinged jazz of Everything Ecstatic, and the 4/4 uniformity of Ringer. I see this in much the same way as Radiohead’s In Rainbows; initially unspectacular, but actually the most effortlessly brilliant album Hebden has made, with a simplicity and character that may not hit you to begin with, but will get you in the end.

Four Tet – Plastic People

John Roberts – Glass Eights [Dial]
There’s a palpable hesitance present in John Roberts’ music. Rather than rattling forward, his sampled chords hang langerously; textures seem to reverse in on themselves. The sparing melodic elements exist within minimalist cells; even the beats which drive things forward have a torpid quality to them. But Roberts has an uncanny ability to add increasing numbers of elements to his productions without things ever becoming crowded, and because of this Glass Eights never seems to be lacking in any momentum. It’s the kind of album that really makes you question what house music is, and understand what it can be in the right hands.

Jacques Greene – (Baby I Don’t Know) What You Want [Night Slugs]

This track manages to condense pretty much everything that I like in dance music down into 6 short minutes. It uses a lot of the current trends that have made their way into contemporary house/dubstep hybrid music: a pitched-up cut-up vocal, a rhythm that is just ever so slightly on the right side of 2-step but with enough traction to keep it in house territory, and rich synths and dark atmosphere that go right for the emotional jugular. This track has been compared to Joy Orbison’s “Hyph Mngo”, but to my ears it’s about ten times better. Every element just feels a lot more measured; from the barely audible trilling on the synth lead to the subtle manipulation of the 303 line, every element is designed to hit your brain’s pleasure centres to just the right degree, with subtle build-ups and drops that are devastatingly succinct. Though it cribs from many genres it never feels heavily weighted towards one or the other – even the acid house element which should stick out like a sore thumb in the context of something that is possibly more garage than anything else just feels perfectly natural.

If you’d told me a year ago that my top track of 2010 would be a R&B influenced house track put out by a label mainly responsible for releasing music that mainly comes under the heading of “bass” I wouldn’t have believed you. But I suppose that just goes to show how much dance music has changed in the last few years. And of course it remains to be seen whether Jacques Greene will continue to produce tracks of this quality, but that almost doesn’t matter; although this track is punctuated with moments of brooding drama, Greene knows that drama doesn’t have to mean dull, and never loses sight of the fact that house music (or whatever this is) should be fun rather than some monotonous chug from A to B. I can think of no better example of where house music should be headed in the second decade of the 21st century than this phenomenal tune. All other producers should take note.

Caribou – Sun [Merge]
Is there any other track that will come to define 2010 for so many? I think not. Mushy, psychedelic, euphoria distilled into 5 minutes. The lyrics, as there are, mean nothing and everything all at once; listening to this song feels practically like an act of pagan worship.

Pantha Du Prince – Satellite Snyper [Rough Trade]
So solid an album is Pantha du Prince’s “Black Noise”, it’s difficult to pick any track as standing out. But what struck me initially about this track was that structurally it feels like a set of Russian nesting dolls, not unfolding gradually, but bringing the new melodic elements into play quite suddenly. When you do reach the melodic centre, the sense of wonder is palpable.

Brassica – Made Up My Mind [Lo Recordings]
Hidden away on Lo Recordings’ Milky Disco 3 compilation, this track will have been overlooked by many, which is criminal, as it is one of the best avant-pop tracks of the year. Managing to sound like Caribou and Junior Boys via Bronski Beat, this is a track that expertly blends metallic and harsh textures with shining melody and a sublime falsetto vocal. If you enjoyed Caribou’s album then this is essential.

Four Tet – Sing (Floating Points Remix) [Domino]
I think this was probably the moment that Floating Points went from being a serious contender to genius for me. This remix is more kosmische than dance music, taking a good 5 minutes to get into the body of the track. Even when it gets there, the curious lack of any real kick drum gives the whole thing a weightless quality that transcends any of the multitude of genres he’s already flirted with. Good luck making it mix fluidly into any kind of DJ set, but as a listening experience, it’s completely immersive.

Luke Abbott – Trans Forest Alignment [Border Community]
Coming from Luke Abbott’s excellent album on Border Community, this track is a masterful blend of musical aesthetic and effect. r the whole thing is in the inverse of most dance music, beginning with a shimmering climax, and ending with a rough analog build-up which climbs into nowhere, it manages to sound as vintage as the Radiophonic Workshop, but uncompromisingly modern at the same time.

Gold Panda – You [Ghostly]
I didn’t quite fall in love with Gold Panda’s album Lucky Shiner in the way that some people did, but this track was a definite highlight for me. I think it’s the fairly languid pace that really works; the sample repetition that characterises his style has a bit of room to breathe, and more importantly is an intrinsic part of the melody rather than just feeling like a throwaway texture. More importantly, the song has time to grow, and, despite the three and a half minute running time, it never feels rushed.

Floating Points – Peoples Potential [Eglo]
“Peoples Potential” marked the latest installment of Floating Points’ continuing development as a producer. The progression from “J&W Beat” through “Vacuum Boogie” to this has been one that has seen him slow his music down gradually, but not that you’d necessarily notice. The beat may be fairly straight, but the acid bass melody and jazzy chords go into Theo Parrish territory and create as relentless a groove as anything he’s done previously.

Four Tet – Nothing To See [Soul Jazz]
For me it wasn’t any of the tracks on the album that defined Four Tet’s original material this year, but this brilliant track on the Soul Jazz Future Bass compilation. It was the track where all of the things that had so clearly influenced a lot of the more upbeat stuff on There Is Love In You (mainly UK Funky and 2-Step it has to be said) collided with his love of Steve Reich-esque minimalism, creating something utterly unique.

Allez-Allez – Weird Science [RVNG]
This track (and indeed his work as Walls) is solid proof that Allez-Allez’s Sam Willis is not just a capable producer, but one that deserves to take his place alongside his other British contemporaries such as James Holden and Nathan Fake. Released on RVNG, the EP that this track comes from could easily be mistaken for a Border Community release, so thick are its textures. The gentle pace is complemented by the luminous melody, which is melodically uplifting without ever being cheap.

Bob Holroyd – African Drug (Four Tet Remix) [Phonica]
I don’t think anyone would disagree that it was Four Tet’s remixes that defined 2010 for him. The album was a little disappointing for me; it just never seemed to go quite far enough away from his usual formula to be genuinely exciting. But in his remixes he really let himself go, jettisoning much of the prettiness, and embracing the harder sounds of bass, UK Funky and techno. To be honest every one of his remixes could have fit in this list – the sublime remix of The xx, his absolutely monstrous reworking of Rocketnumbernine or his glitchy 2-step re-creation of Jon Hopkins’ “Vessel”; but it’s this one that really does something very special. Combining the melodic percussives that Hebden is known for with a thundering bassline, and filtered drums which create a dark, psychedelic effect, this is easily one of the most viscerally satisfying productions Hebden has done since Everything Ecstatic’s “A Joy”.

Oni Ayhun – OAR 004-A [OAR]
Despite it’s rather cold and alien sound this is actually to my ears one of the most organic sounding tracks this year. Punctuated by stabs of screaming white noise and the occasional rhythms of a clattering poltergeist in the background, it’s the audio equivalent of a terror trip into an arctic wasteland. It won’t be to everybody’s taste, but if you travel through and let yourself be bombarded by the pneumatic frequencies of the searing climax you’ll be rewarded.

Walls – Burnt Sienna [Kompakt]
In the heartbeat kick drum and atmospheric drones that begin this track, you can hear the influence of the German school of kosmische, but thanks to the innate sense of melody that Walls possess, this track has a sound that is actually owes more to the British electronic music tradition than anything German. The track may be slow to get going, and isn’t strictly dance music, but the atmosphere that comes across at the 3 minute mark is total 5am euphoria.

John Roberts – Glass Eights [Dial]
John Roberts’ Glass Eights is easily one of the best house albums this year, and it’s this title track that succinctly demonstrates why. His sound is deeply organic, using the sounds of real instruments (or at least some very complex softsynths) over a sparing amount of synthetic sounds. It’s something that could fail so easily, but in Roberts’ hands it seems effortless. This track is built around a piano chord progression that never quite resolves; as such you are kept in a constant state of anticipation, with even the woodwind solo at the halfway point offering little in the way of conclusion, but the track finishes all the better for it.

James Blake – CMYK [R&S]
Although James Blake has been lumped by many into the category of dubstep, his “sound” (if you can call it that) has more in common with Aphex Twin’s brand of experimentalism, and in that respect “CMYK” would be his “Windowlicker”, a pastiche of commercial 90s R&B that actually displays quite a degree of affection for the source material. To say the production is a little rough around the edges would be fairly kind; the stretching of the vocal samples has caused audible digital artifacts, but in a way that sort of adds to the charm, causing a quavering on the vocals that constantly reminds us of its reconstituted nature. I didn’t really quite “get” this track until I heard it on a proper soundsystem, but when I did I realised that as well as using samples in a clever way, it’s devastating frequencies actually pack a mean punch, both viscerally and emotionally.

Ramadanman & Midland – Your Words Matter [Aus Music]
Of all of Ramadanman’s productions this year, by far my favourite was this collaboration with Midland; employing the current cut up vocal technique (that is in real danger of becoming old very quickly) to briliant effect, this is one of the most brilliant love letters to house music released all year. Combining Ramadanman’s dark bass sound with an incredibly light piano melody and some garage tinged rhythms, this track is just one of many reasons why Aus are one of the labels of the year as far as I’m concerned.

Cosmin TRG – See Other People [Rush Hour]
Whatever the current sound of house music is right now, I’m fairly sure that Romania’s Cosmin TRG has managed to encapsulate all of the disparate strands into one uniform sound. This track, my favourite of his productions this year (narrowly beating his remix of Falty DL’s “St Marks” can be quite a difficult track to listen to; so many disparate elements vie for your attention that it can be difficult to pick out any one thing to focus your attention on. After a few listens however it becomes apparent that these elements have more of a rhythmic function than anything else; the vocals are even more dissassociated from their original function than those in “CMYK”, and serve as sweeteners for an already schizoid drum pattern. But it never loses cohesion, thanks mainly to the bass notes sitting just below the surface of everything, anchoring the momentum.

Mount Kimbie – Blind Night Errand [Hotflush Recordings]
I wasn’t as keen on Mount Kimbie’s album Crooks and Lovers as I think the majority of the world were (it just left me wanting for a little bit more of something) but this track demonstrated a harder side to their sound that I think should be explored further. Utilising only a very simple bassline that is somewhere between acid house and a very minimal version of bassline garage, the sparse handclaps and occasional vocal sigh which punctuate it lend the production a succinct yet cavernous sound. Only at the very end does the track move into the soulful territory that they are better known for; when it arrives it comes as an emotional relief from the bleak frequencies and goes to prove that when juxtaposed with darker textures, small doses of their melodic elements go a much longer way.

L-Vis 1990 – Forever You [Night Slugs]
Girl Unit’s “Wut” will probably be more people’s favourite Night Slugs track of 2010, but as far as I’m concerned it was “Forever You” by label co-runner L-Vis 1990 that really opened my eyes to their label’s fresh and unique curation of UK Funky, house and grime. The drums have that relentless forward momentum and slightly off-kilter rhythm of UK Funky, but fuses them with a Detroit bassline and a stupendously soulful vocal, which, not being cut up and sampled from something else, bucks the trend of most other music of its type released this year.

Lone – Once in a While [Werk Discs]
Despite the increasing influence of 90s UK garage sounds into house music over the last year, the most nostalgic record of all was one that looked back even further back into that decade. Combining the euphoria of early 90s rave music with the hazy radiophonic psychedelia of Boards of Canada, this was the track that actually made steel drums seem like an acceptable texture to use in dance music. It verges on almost complete melodic overload for the duration of the track, but at just under 5 minutes it never overstays its welcome.

Space Dimension Controller – Journey to the Core of the Unknown Sphere [Clone Royal Oak]
I have extolling the virtues of Space Dimension Controller to anyone who will listen for the last year or so, and in 2010 he has not disappointed with a double 12″ for R&S and a single for Clone. Probably the hardest choice in this list was actually deciding which of his tracks to include. Taking the tropes of cosmic disco, and fusing them space funk melodies and deep, buzzing bass, and a mature Detroit sound to create something completely unique. In terms of sound, SDC is undoubtedly one of the most instantly recognisable producers on this list, and this track demonstates why. Structurally complex, this track has a distinct narrative; just when you think you have the mood of the track sussed, it turns another corner, leading you eventually into complete zero gravity.

Actress – Lost [Honest Jon's]
To be perfectly honest, any of Actress’s tracks from Splazsh could have featured on this list, but it’s Lost that I found myself immediately drawn to on my first listen, and am in love with it still. Sounding like a bleak, dystopian sci-fi take on house music, the bass is murky yet simultaneously shimmers with a neon sheen. Every rhythmic element, from the lone woodblock snare at the beginning, to the compressed hi-hats and brief handclaps towards the end is carefully considered to bring in a completely different level of energy at every point, and the way that the track fades out rather then bringing the energy level down seems very apt, given that it feels as if it could stretch out into infinity.

Joy Orbison – So Derobe [Aus Music]
It was always going to be hard for Joy Orbison to go in to 2010 and follow “Hyph Mngo”, and while not everyone would necessarily think that he has managed to top it, his output this year has still left most other producers behind, his music steadily growing in maturity, whether that’s in his own material or his incredible remixes (the remix of Four Tet’s “Love Cry” being a case in point). Nowhere else is this maturity more evident than on this B-side to his EP for Aus Music. Rather than going all out as he usually does to hit the pleasure centres of you brain from the beginning with a synth wash, he builds it up, teasing the listener before taking it away and moving into deeper territory. Of course, the payoff comes eventually, but not in the sort of “hands in the air” way you would neccesarily expect from Joy Orbison, but rather in the form of a melodic bassline that is more house than dubstep.

Kyle Hall – Kaychunk [Hyperdub]
Kyle Hall may be lacking in life experience (he is the only person on this list who is not legally allowed to go to nightclubs in his home country) but that certainly doesn’t make any difference to his music. Like Joy Orbison his music displays a maturity far beyond his years, but his stylistic strength lies in his highly improvisational style, moving often into the realms of jazz. Usually his music is more house than anything else, but this track on his 12″ for Hyperdub has a tempo of 140bpm; simultaneously brutal and placid in it’s execution, it employs a pattern of white noise hi-hats and schizoid kick drums (that seem impossible to dance to) alongside some classic Detroit pads and a meandering arpeggio. With a track this good under his belt at the age of 19, one can only wonder where he’ll go next, especially when he is already displaying the same kind of rampant experimentalism as Flying Lotus.