Monday, January 11, 2010

33 trax in 2009



Hello! Here we go again (it's unbelievable how fast time flies!) with 33 dance music tracks that were the most important for me last year. Some of them - like Leave It All Behind, Voices, No Fear, Freaki Mutha F*cker, the Theo Parish's remix of 45:33, Elden St (Sebo K's remix as well as the original) - personally for me were true anthems , whereas the others - just top notch tracks that I enjoyed and deserve to be mentioned.

Before to start listing of the tracks, I would like to point out some producers whom I discovered or just suddenly realized how great tracks they make. So, besides my usual suspects like Brendon Moeller, Lee Jones, Guillaume Dumonts, Villalobos, Bruno Pronsato, Seth Troxler, Move D, DJ Koze, some new names appeared or reappeared on my radar. First of all, the year kicked off by falling in love with Photonz - Portuguese guys who make rather bizarre stuff on the verge of house, disco and Detroit for Dissident label. Then, Levon Vincent was responsible for quite many raw deep bangers with straight-forward analogue drums and monstrous use of reverbs that - at least in some cases - made my day. This kind of analogue Detroit/New York sound (also producers like Omar S, Jus' Ed, Donato Dozzy) was a welcome relief after all that minimal sound got too cliché and basically reproducing itself. It doesn't mean that there were no good and enjoyable minimalism, but anyway the mentioned raw sound and back-to-basic attitude were just right for the change. Speaking about this direction in the music production, I would like to particularly mention Nina Kraviz, who scored with her "Voices" single on Underground Quality and the more recent tracks "Pain In The Ass" and "I'm Gonna Get You" on Rekids - I really like all of them.

Another very interesting playground for experiments with beats and grooves was all that British bass music scene - from more classic dubstep to its various derivations like wobble, UK funky and the new forms of drum'n'bass. Some incredible stuff was delivered by Instra:mental whose music went behind any stylistic frames, in fact. Very diverse, futuristic and interesting. A fresh breeze for me was also Silkie's creations which were more following the drum'n'bass tradition rendering it into dubstep production techniques. Of course, other producers, who had caught my attention even earlier, kept making thrilling and challenging stuff - like Martyn, 2562, Peverelist, Appleblim, Shackleton, Bass Clef...

Returning back to the dubtechno/deep house, I would like to specially point out Sven Weisemann, who did some amazing work last year! No-matter was it house, dub, ambient or neo-classic piano pieces, everything from him sounded sincere, deep and moving. Last but not least, a guy whom we knew already before, but whose music last year very well coincided with my personal tastes - I'm talking about Donnacha Costello. OK, it's enough of theorizing, music is for listening.

Peace, brothers and sisters!



> Instra:mental - Leave It All Behind [Apple Pips]

> Michel Cleis - La Mezcla (Paul Kalkbrenner remix) [Strictly Rhythm]

> Martyn - Elden St (Sebo K Watergate Edit) [Watergate]

> DJ Jus-Ed pres. Nina Kraviz - Voices [Underground Quality]

> DJ Koze - Mrs Bojangels [Circus Company]

> Brendon Moeller - Juice [Mule]

> Guillaume & The Coutu Dumonts - Pussy Shepherd [Musique Risquée]

> Gus Gus - Add This Song [Kompakt]

> Photonz - No Fear [Dissident]

> Oni Ayhun - OAR 003 B1 [Oni Ayhun Records]

> The Mole - For the Lost [Internasjonal]

> Walter Jones - I'll Keep On Loving You [DFA Records]

> Moodymann - Freeki Mutha F*cker [KDJ]

> Precious System - The Voice from Planet Love [Running Back]

> Pan-Pot - Confronted [Mobilee]

> Tapes - Gold Love Riddim [Jahtari]

> Stefan Goldmann - Art Of Sorrow [Victoriaville]

> Matias Aguayo - Rollerskate [Kompakt]

> Soulphiction pres. Missing Linkx - A Short History Of... [Philpot]

> Darkstar - Aidy's Girl Is a Computer (Kyle Hall remix) [Hyperdub]

> Jamie Jones feat. Ost & Kjex – Summertime [Crosstown Rebels]

> Donnacha Costello - Ten Thousand Hours [Look Long]

> LCD Soundsystem - 45:33 (Theo Parish's Space Cadet remix)

> Instra:mental - Watching You [Nonplus]

> Levon Vincent - Late Night Jam [Ostgut Ton]

> STL - Checkmate [Echospace]

> Omar S - Flying Gorgars [FXHE]

> Reggie Dokes - Flowers Forever [We Play House]

> Taho - Energy Fields (Quince's Dubbed Out Reconstruction) [Delsin]

> Helixir - Peace Dub [7EVEN]

> Bassline & Kavsrave - Lucky Charms

> Silkie - Poltigiest [Deep Medi]

> Nina Kraviz - I'm Gonna Get You [Rekids]

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