As always, this is an annual review of interesting and exceptional new music during the year. It doesn’t cover Kaiser Chiefs or Gorillaz, but music you might have missed and shouldn’t have.
a) Introduction
b) Hip Hop
c) Rock
d) House & Electro
e) Dancehall & Soca
f) Garage, Grime, Dubstep & Breakbeat
g) Other Genres (Desi, Bootlegs, Reggaeton, Favela Funk, B-More & Miscellaneous)
h) Mixtapes
i) Clubs and Gigs
j) The tunes
A) INTRODUCTION
Technology technology technology. It continues to feel ever more important to music, even after the reverberations of the iPod, widespread broadband access and Peer-to-Peer file-sharing.
One thing that technology has become very good at is nurturing virtual communities, whether by blogging, file-sharing, or people sharing information on message boards. But the big one for music this year was, perhaps surprisingly, MySpace, a Community website. Let’s not beat about the bush, MySpace is effectively a glorified internet dating site by another name, but has been hijacked by bands: a classic example of technology being used in ways other than it was originally intended.
The key to MySpace is that your profile page allows you to stream music or even put it up for download. So suddenly, any new band, without the money to press up a single or the tech-savvy to create a website, can have their own web page with information about the band and a couple of their songs which anyone in the world can hear for free.
The icing on the cake is that anyone belonging to MySpace who likes the band will add them as a ‘friend’, so you suddenly have a self-created mailing list of fans. The band can then write any news and send it to all of their ‘friends’. It has phenomenally simplified the marketing process for new bands.
One UK band put out 500 copies of their debut single but, in terms of furthering their career, had found their MySpace site much more useful – they’d even received offers to play gigs in Europe off the back of it. And it is a key tool for A&R people at record labels, saving them from sackfuls of demo tapes. The trick, of course, for bands now is marketing themselves so that labels come across their MySpace site. But for bands, fans and record labels alike, MySpace is a seismic shift and will become an increasingly important resource. Rupert Murdoch certainly thought so – he bought it halfway through the year.
The bigger media story in terms of ‘internet communities’ was of course the Arctic Monkeys using the internet to build a fanbase, and while they definitely did do this very well, it’s important to remember that it just accelerated the process of their success – they are the most outstanding anthem-writing commercial Rock band we’ve seen since Oasis emerged in 1994 – they were always going to be massive.
The other most important technological development of the year was YouSendIt and its variants (Rapidshare/MegaUpload etc). It works like this: you have an mp3 track you love and want your friends to hear. You go to the website, upload it onto their enormous servers, and they give you a website link which will let anyone download it for the next seven days. You send the link to your friends and bingo, they have the track.
The two major occasions for use became either people posting a link on an online bulletin board (generally specific music community ones) so that everyone who reads it can link and download the track and on mp3 blogs. Accordingly bulletin boards and mp3 blogs both became increasingly important musical resources for keeping up with new music.
Effectively YouSendIt was another way of propagating musical piracy, though its defenders argued that it was a way of sharing a single tune with friends that they ought to hear, and so almost acted as a form of viral marketing.
Whatever your moral feelings about the exploitations of new technology, the key fact is that both My Space and YouSendIt are key new methods for easy music distribution, meaning people have the opportunity to access and listen to more music than ever before.
And the final importance of technology lay in the increasing sophistication and affordability of music producing software. Ableton Live has radically changed the possibilities of DJing, and software like Reason and Logic has made it possible to record and edit music professionally on a home PC.
In summary, at one end it’s easier for people to make tunes, at the other there’s better distribution for people to hear them. It feels like a good time to love music.
B) HIP HOP
Houston steals Atlanta’s crown, things get minimal and will Hyphy be the next big thing?
Houston
And so for the third consecutive year, the primary focus of interesting hip hop remained in the South. However while the centre of last year’s action was Atlanta and Crunk, this year the hip hop heartland was Houston. The city tends to produce a more laid-back sound than the more club-oriented Crunk sound, and so it lent itself more to albums, though as ever mix-tapes remained enormously popular. Key Houston rappers right now are Mike Jones, Paul Wall, Chamillionaire, Bun B (half of godfathers of the scene, UGK) and Slim Thugg. The first two had huge hit debut albums in the US but this failed to translate to the UK.
The other sound that defines Houston is the ‘Screwed & Chopped’ sound, a form of remix applied to hip hop tracks and whole albums in a similar way to how reggae albums in the 70s would come with an accompanying ‘dub album’. A ‘Screwed’ track is essentially slowed right down, the sonic equivalent of wading through treacle, with vocals and drums being chopped up occasionally, and certain lyrical lines being repeated for emphasis. The process was pioneered by the late, legendary DJ Screw and is now kept alive primarily by local DJ Michael Watts.
Essential Houston mixtape was Rapid Ric’s ‘Whut It Dew 2′. While many mixtapes these days eschew mixing for just playing one track after the other and shouting out their name with a lot of reverb, Rapid Ric is a seriously tight mixer and cuts and scratches his way through a ton of tracks and exclusive freestyles. It came, of course, with a Screwed version.
The most vocal supporter of the general Houston scene was Matt Sonzala, who hosts an excellent radio show in Houston called ‘Damage Control’, which showcased a ton of tunes, and interviewed all the main players. Through the joys of technology you could download a whopping great mp3 of Sonzala’s two hour show and this was the perfect guide to the music throughout the year and remains a key source to the latest tunes and talent.
Minimalism in Hip Hop
Last year the Neptunes showed how masterful minimalism can be with Snoop Dogg’s ‘Drop it Like it’s Hot’, possibly the most original hip hop track of 2004. And while it’s been a gradual thing, the most noticeable new trend in hip hop this year has been the rise of minimalism.
The anthem was of course The Ying Yang Twinz’ ‘Wait (The Whisper Song)’ a song so reduced that even the vocals were whispered. The track’s producer, Michael Croom (aka ‘Mr Collipark’) then made another stunning piece of minimalism for David Banner, which added just an oh-so-slow siren to go over the beat and a keyboard that sounded like an alien talking. Then there was Juelz Santana of the NYC-based Dipset crew, who came out with ‘There It Go (Whistle)’ which, unsurprisingly, used an acapella whistle as its only hook on top of the beat. D4L released ‘Shake Dat Laffy Taffy’ (a Laffy Taffy is a sweet with a joke on the wrapper, though obviously it’s got another meaning here). This did actually have a keyboard riff, but it was only two notes, and the sort of thing you can imagine playing on the cheapest Casio keyboard. And Atlanta rapper Maceo released ‘Nextel Chirp’, which doesn’t compare minimally to ‘Wait’ but compared to your average hip hop track is reduced to drums and another very simple keyboard riff.
It was fantastic to see how all these tracks became at the very least regional club hits, considering how weird they sound. Minimalism in hip hop still feels like a new phenomenon, so expect to see more of this in 2006.
Hyphy
At the end of 2004, Houston was the buzz Hip Hop town, although it wasn’t immediately obvious why from the recorded output at that point. But it turned out that there was so much infrastructure and artists primed with loads of great new tunes that came out throughout the year. Now, at the end of 2005, the same buzz has been building about San Francisco and Bay Area hip hop, particularly the Hyphy sound, a type of high energy hip hop that is most easily explained as the West Coast answer to crunk.
Again there isn’t a great deal of outstanding music to back it up yet, though in the last month DJ Shadow has produced the amazing ‘3 Freaks’ for Keak Da Sneak and a new track by E-40 has been produced by Lil’ Jon, showing how Hyphy is being taken more seriously. And an infrastructure, courtesy of artists such as Keak Da Sneak, the Federation, Clyde Carson, the Team and E-40, is definitely there.
So every instinct suggests that Hyphy will be the regional hip hop sound of 2006 although, like Crunk before it, don’t expect much of a commercial inroad in the UK.
Given the local buzz, there was destined to be one mixtape that was a defining Hyphy showcase and that was Ross Hogg & B Cause’s ‘Slump & Grind – Bay Area Rap’, though at the end of the year DJ Mark Marcelo put out another strong contender with his ‘Ignant Mix’.
Before there was Crunk
Hip Hop Compilation of the year was the self-explanatory ‘Before There Was Crunk’. This showed off some wonderful mid-nineties fast Atlanta club tracks that never achieved international exposure, the sort of thing that would have been played in Southern Strip Clubs but would work equally well in any good club in the world. Particular highlights included Splack Pack’s ‘Scrub Da Ground’ and Clay D ‘That Booty In There’ (clearly a compilation for high-octane dancing, not title subtleties).
Paul Wall – Sittin Sideways (Screwed & Chopped)
While Houston fans who grew up with it might disagree, the Screwed & Chopped sound is very hit-and-miss. But the Screwed version here was just perfect and this was one of the most important singles of the year in any genre. An amazingly weird and wonderful piece of music – the heavy, heavy bass just sounded so right at that slowed down, syrupy speed.
Ying Yang Twinz – Wait (Whisper Song)
The track which saw the Ying Yang Twinz escape from Lil’ Jon’s large Southern shadow. Taking minimalism in club hip hop to a whole new level, this was so out-there it became a word-of-mouth underground anthem, appreciated by anyone who just likes innovative new music. The XXX-rated lyrics provoked a debate of their own.
Three 6 Mafia – Stay Fly
A slow-burner that finally turned into an anthem from these Southern stalwarts. Taking a Kanye-esque sped-up soul sample they created something much freakier than he ever would, especially with that brilliant stutter-chorus and th.
Trillville – Some Cut
Aka ‘the squeaky bed song’, one of those tracks that everyone remembered because of that immediately identifiable sound, but everything else in the track had all the qualitites necessary for a good Summer g-crunk anthem. (G-crunk is a made-up name for the sound of Dirty South tracks which use a kind of West Coast G-funk bassline).
Keak Da Sneak – 3 Freaks
A reputed but unconfirmed DJ Shadow production, this is the track that could light the fuse on the Bay Area’s Hyphy scene in 2006. A freaky, jerky, and fast hip hop track, it doesn’t really sound like any traditional form of hip hop, and is all the more thrilling for it, helped by Keak Da Sneak’s rasping rap flow.
David Banner – Take Your/Play/Certified
Of course it was too much to expect a complete, consistent hip hop album from David Banner, but you can’t complain too much when it contains three outstanding tracks like this, and all sounding completely different. ‘Take Your’ is a charmingly lazy g-crunk track which, until the hardcore lyrics sink in, sounds like a big pop radio track. ‘Play’ is Banner’s answer to the ‘Wait’ and is almost as good. ‘Certified’ is a stripped-down Southern track with acoustic guitar that Banner of all rappers handles best.
5th Ward Weebie – I’m Fuckin
It’s not just Atlanta and Houston, New Orleans has its talents too (and let’s hope they come back strong after the terrible events there this year). A bouncy, catchy hit that should have been (sabotaged by no record label support and a rather rude lyric), this was overlooked, a really joyous, well-produced, x-rated pop song.
Amerie – One Thing/ Talkin About
THE all-encompassing anthem. It’s easy to forget how few tracks are so perfect they appeal to underground and pop audiences alike. Rich Harrison, we salute you. ‘Talkin About’ was the other album highlight, obviously not as anthemic as ‘One Thing’ but still damn catchy and funky.
Missy – Can’t Stop
Producer Rich Harrison really cut loose here, knowing that if one person can rap over a really full-on track, it’s Missy. He took the horn riffs and Washington DC Go-Go drums that he loves so much and sped them up to create something hyperactive, insane and brilliantly infectious.
Lil’ Kim f. Bun B & Twista – We Don’t Give A Fuck
Forgetting the circus that was a woman squeezing in a reality show about her life just before she went to prison, this is a peach of a tune. Heavy drums, a synth line which sounded like the Sugarplum Fairy reimagined for the 21st Century, two well-chosen guests and a big sing-a-long chorus.
Lil Jon & David Banner – She’s Out of Control
A weird no-info white label affair, the two greatest Dirty South producers matched together produced a really full-on but very hook-y, almost-pop song. Not essential, but a fine piece of music that shouldn’t have sunk into oblivion.
B.G. – Same Ole Shit/Where Da At/Ride With That
While so much attention was lavished on the South, it felt like he was the most underrated rapper there – even Devin gets more love. All three of these tracks from his album were outstanding and he’s got a great voice and flow. This man really needs a much wider audience.
Maceo – Nextel Chirp
Tipped to be one of the next big things from the new wave of Atlanta talent, it was great to see the weird minimalism of this track become a regional club hit, helped by the gangster subject-matter of the lyrics and some seriously thumping drums, plus those unusual synth sounds that sounded so right.
Ying Yang Twinz feat. Mike Jones – Badd
Unfairly overlooked with all the fuss of ‘Wait’, this was a bouncy, kitchen-sink of a record, with skippy drums, a high-pitched bleep line, a slow siren and string stab on the chorus and a fantastic sitar sample, with Ying Yang and Mike Jones chattering chirpily over the top. An unusual and immensely enjoyable record.
Bavu Blakes – Who Knows
A fascinating Houston prospect and unlike anything else coming from there, ‘Who Knows’ is played entirely with live instrumentation, and along with his intelligent and articulate rap, is just the sort of thing to appeal to the Roots, Common, and Mos Def audience. Definitely watch out for what he does next.
Chamillionaire – You Gotta Love Me
Houston star-in-waiting came up with this gorgeous track on a mixtape which got away with the whole Kanye-sped-up-soul-sample thing which could seem so tired now. But this was an exercise in how quality rapping and the right sample and production can overcome anything. Let’s see if he can follow compatriots Mike Jones and Paul Wall next year now they’ve opened the commercial floodgates.
K-Otix – George Bush Doesn’t Care About Black People (Kanye Golddigger)
A great track on many levels, not least through the way K-Otix so successfully used technology to get it distributed around the world via the internet. Following that post-Katrina Kanye remark. K-Otix took the ‘Gold Digger’ instrumental and composed a rap about what was really going on in New Orleans. Great lyrics, an impassioned delivery and let’s not forget one of the instrumentals of the year.
Bossman – Untouchable
Set to release an album with Virgin in 2006, this is a hugely enjoyable no-frills throwback song, propelled by little more than a wicked Biggie Smalls chorus, big drums and an old-school ‘Champ’-esque organ riff. Simple but solid fun.
Rich Boy – Get to Poppin
As with Renaissance painters, this is said to be prouced by ‘the studio of Timbaland’ and it certainly has his sound. The musical background sounds like one of those wonderful spectral Bulgarian folk singers, but in fact is a slowed-down Mexican singer. Rich Boy’s rap lets the side down a little but the instrumental was one of the most innovative and emotive of the year.
Juelz Santana – There It Go
Another stunning minimal cut that stood out for its inventive use of acapella whistling. Apart from that, the whole thing was held together by tough but understated drums and Juelz’s flow. It doesn’t really make that much sense at home, but is the sort of innovative but banging track that will excite you on the dancefloor
Da Backwudz – I Don’t Like the Look
A very weird and wonderful track which samples the Oompa Loompa song from the original Charlie & the Chocolate Factory film. A great brass stab and an almost operatic Oompa refrain of ‘I Don’t Like the Look of It’ for the chorus, this was inventive and entertaining hip hop that just played it straight enough to avoid the novelty trap.
C) ROCK
The new guitar renaissance.
We have heard over the last few years how, to paraphrase LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy, people have been selling their turntables and buying guitars. But for all the NME hype, it’s only this year that we’ve really seen a renaissance of new indie UK guitar bands.
This was helped by the solid infrastructure currently in place, courtesy of some fantastic guitar-based clubs and a bunch of home-grown indie record labels who are discovering so much new talent. The likes of Marquis Cha Cha, Moshi Moshi, Angular, Fantastic Plastic, What’s Your Rupture, Shit Sandwich and Transgressive have been focusing on small-run limited 7 inches, often packaged with loving care, and helping rock fans to become passionate about new bands again.
In London, Trash was more important a club than ever (as well as being enormous fun), and it felt like a number of bands and clubs were, at least spiritually, ‘inspired by’ the club. This is unsurprising when you consider how many of the people who go are in bands or are serious music fans, and the care with which the ‘Trash community’ has been nurtured. Erol Alkan’s policy of playing ‘dance music that rocks’ has covered so many genres over the years, but the amount of tracks by new guitar bands played this year demonstrated rock’s importance right now. And Erol is perfectly complemented by Rory Philips played future underground rock in the second room. Trash also managed to have a large number of the most exciting new bands playing live in very intimate surroundings.
The other key complement to Trash is the weekly Artrocker band nights. Week after week, Tom and Paul Artrocker put on two new bands in a tiny basement bar in Highbury. It can sometimes be hit-and-miss but it’s a key resource: you’ll be pushed to find a decent rock band of the last couple of years that didn’t start off playing one of their nights. And it’s absolutely free. The Artrockers remain intensely passionate and bullshit-free about what they do, and London is lucky to have them.
Leeds and Sheffield (the so-called New Yorkshire scene) have been the main geographical focus of rock this year, especially after the explosive rise, for once deservedly so, of the Arctic Monkeys. But while these towns are also the home of the excellent O Fracas and The Long Blondes, there are great bands coming from all over the country so, as always, don’t believe the hype.
The opposing trend was a string of bands who could be termed ‘grown-up indie’, recalling some of the more serious of the mid-80s bands like R.E.M. and Talking Heads. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah led the pack, helped by the buzz from their self-released album. It contained some strong tunes, if you like that sort of thing, and a singer that sounded like David Byrne. Hot on their heels were the Spinto Band with a wonderful radio song in ‘Brown Bag’ that recalls late-80s band They Might Be Giants and their quirky, grown-up pop music. And in New York, Blood on the Wall came out with ‘Awesomer’, a fairly Pixies-influenced album that lacked consistency but had a number of extremely good tracks. However the one ‘grown-up’ band that really stood out were Arcade Fire, with a very strong album, and an impressively intense, passionate live show which was thrilling to behold.
Continuing the ‘grown-up’ theme, 2005 saw the spread of a loose ‘New Folk’ movement, led by the increasing success of Devendra Banheart. He put out another strong album, ‘Cripple Crow’, though it didn’t quite stand up to last year’s ‘Rejoincing In The Hands’ which is starting to feel like a modern classic. The other most talked-about artists in the movement were Sufjan Stevens, whose album ‘Illinoise’ got many plaudits, Cocorosie and Joanna Newsom.
There is no great secret any more about LCD Soundsystem, so it hardly needs mentioning that they succeeded in pulling off an album that successfully bore the weight of its hype, full of loads of terrific tunes. Ditto Bloc Party.
Essential Rock Tracks And Bands
O Fracas – What Jim Hears/Zeroes & Ones
A wonderful discovery, a Franz Ferdinand-esque angular anthem from a buch of 19-year-olds in Leeds. It’s the b-side as well and the a-side is almost as good. And they have more strong tunes waiting in the wings. They’re strong live – expect big things next year.
Dan Sartain – P.C.B. 98
From his debut album, Dan Sartain vs the Serpientes, this is the best stripped-down classic rock n roll song you’ll hear this year. Effortlessly cool and catchy, it’s a timeless gem that deserves to be a hit single.
The Noisettes – Don’t Give Up
An immediate, jump-up-and-down bluesy rock anthem that is getting a proper release early in 2006. We’re talking pounding blues-rock (think of the sound of the most up-beat White Stripes songs) fronted by a stunning black female singer with an electrifying voice. They’re also outstanding live so if the album’s half as good as this single they are going to be a very serious proposition. This song induced mass-pogoing on the Trash dancefloor.
New Young Pony Club – Jerk Me, The Get-Go, Tight Fit
One of the most inspired band names of 2005, NYPC were responsible for two excellent and sought-after, limited 7-inch singles this year. The early-80s New York Punk Funk sound has become a cliché, especially when it’s been so often badly bastardised, but NYPC really manage to make something of ESG basslines, sassy ice-cool-pop Debbie Harry vocals, and synth lines. Listen to these three tracks and you’ll yearn to know what they’re going to come up with next.
The Long Blondes – At the Movies and Various
Yet another very exciting Great British Pop-Rock Band hailing, as is the current custom, from Sheffield, and in many ways recalling the arch intelligence of Pulp. They may not have a Jarvis, but singer Kate is pretty much a female equivalent, always immaculately dressed and posessing an ice-cool voice that perfectly complements their lyrics of relationships in small-town England. They have a penchant for long song names such as ‘Misappropriation By Any Other Name’ and ‘Separated By Motorways’, yet aren’t ashamed to embrace pop and catchy hooks. Expect them to reach giddy stratospheres in 2006.
Scout Niblett – Kidnapped by Neptune
Outstanding title track to her second album, stunningly produced by Steve Albini, reminiscent of early PJ Harvey. Simple, powerful, stripped-down rock, but with lots of ’shoop shoops’ for good measure.
Patrick Wolf – Tristan
Patrick Wolf is like a more wonky Jeff Buckley with a predilection for fiddling about with keyboards and obscure string instruments. His whole album was impressive but this was the perfect single to choose, pack-jam full of emotion and energy.
The Panthers – Thank Me With Your Hands (MSTRKRFT remix)
Please excuse the lack of information about The Panthers, but the MSTRKRFT remix was what made this track so special, a rare moment of dance-friendly but also very listenable punk-funk gelling together perfectly.
Bobby Marie – BB Gun
A beautiful oddity but much more entertaining and accessible than these things usually are, this was a catchy but warped psychobilly tune from the duo of DJ Harvey and Thomas Bullock of Rub n Tug. There’s a great, overenthusiastic vocal, but the dub is equally special, with cow and horse sounds echoing around the music.
Hot Chip – Over & Over
Heavily hyped for success now they’re with a major label, this opening salvo is a wonderfully infectious wonky track that just manages to stay on the rails and sound like a catchy pop song. They’re now signed to DFA in the US and are working with them in a much-anticipated collaboration.
Sons & Daughters – Dance Me In
A thumping, energetic anthem which is due for release soon with an Optimo remix. It’s a bit like Arcade Fire writing a pogo-ing song for the dancefloor.
Jamie T – So Lonely Was the Ballad
Like early Badly Drawn Boy in its lo-fi shambolic charm, but Jamie T’s questionable patois (that he somehow just gets away with) tells of suburban teenage tales that is definitely aiming for the Streets market. Expect to hear a lot more from him in 2006.
Elle Milano – Swearing’s For Art Students
Beyond all the hype of ‘internet marketing’, journalists seem to forget to mention a particular reason for the Arctic Monkeys’ success is that they are wonderful songwriters with a craft for catchy, hooky tunes. Elle Milano have yet to show the same propensity for anthem-writing, but their demos do show that same craft for well-crafted, hooky pop tunes and the sort of rock energy that will appeal to teenage Monkeys’ fans. Their debut single is expected to be ‘Swearing’s for Art Students’, and along with ‘Sunshine in Happyland’, they already have two pretty perfect pop songs to hand.
Tom Vek – Nothing But Green Lights
Another soloist who received huge hype for his small-label debut release and has been subsequently snapped up by a major. This track showed what the fuss was about, a very 2005 pop song with a big unforgettable bassline and a sullen, half-spoken, half-sung vocal.
Clor – Magic Touch
Lazily labelled as ‘the UK LCD Soundsystem’ on their debut album, this was the stand-out track, again straddling the dancing/home-listening punk-funk divide perfectly with a slick vocal and solid hooks.
Duchess Says – Rabies (Baby’s got the)
A new Canadian band with no information as yet on them, but this debut release is a dirty, catchy, art-punky number that bodes well for the future.
The Rakes – Retreat
A perfect pop song for geezers, and both musically and lyrically razor-sharp. Its chorus of ‘Walk Home, Come Down, Retreat, To Sleep, Wake Up, Go Out, Again, Repeat’ felt like a pretty good summation of the year.
Panico – Transpiralo
Outstandingly tight Chilean rockers write an angular punk/funk killer for the dancefloor.
White Rose Movement – Love is a Number
Amazingly polished, this was the ghost of Joy Division (especially the bassline) making a pop song for 2005.
Rinocerose – Bitch
Imagine AC/DC writing a pop song with Discovery-era Daft Punk and you’re just about there. So catchy and unashamedly out there it felt, unfairly, like a guilty pleasure, though there was also an Optimo mix if you really needed to keep credibilty.
Also look out for Buen Chico, who had a Supergrass feel in their first few, simple poppy rock tracks. And of course a big ton of other bands that I didn’t have time to listen to.
D) ELECTRO, HOUSE & TECHNO
Switch and Justice stand out as consistently outstanding producers, while Trentemoller is the choice of the underground.
Dave Taylor, responsible for Switch and Solid Groove amongst other aliases, had a terrific year with his productions and remixes. His overlooked production from the Wall of Sound dancehall project, ‘Love Guide’ ft Ms Thing, was hammered by Diplo this year, a warped dancehall bomb. There was the outstanding Solid Groove remix of Sunship’s ‘Almighty Father’, which sounded really out there, especially in the dub version, coming off like slinky electronic dancehall 2-step. And then there was ‘A Bit Patchy’. An exquisite example of the best ideas being the simplest, it reinvented the iconic Apache break, incorporating it into one of the most warped basslines of the year to create one of the great dancefloor anthems of the year that all sorts of DJs could play. He also recorded a number of so-called ‘fidget-house’ tracks, particularly the aptly-named ‘This Is Sick’, but it was hard to get as excited about these as his more break-oriented productions.
Justice, two french guys, with Daft Punk associations (they share a manager in Pedro Winter), were the outstanding new Production finds of the year. Following on from their debut remix last year, Justice vs Simian’s ‘Never Be Alone’, they remixed their way through the year making electro-house that often felt influenced by rock as much as anything else (unsurprisingly they remixed rock bands like Franz Ferdinand and the Mystery Jets). Their mix of DFA 1979’s ‘Blood on the Dancefloor’ was their outstanding moment – it really felt like a new form of electronic/rock hybrid. Their debut single, ‘Waters of Nazareth’ was eagerly awaited and didn’t disappoint, boasting an enormous, filthy distorted synth/guitar riff, live drums and a big organ line, the sort of tune that causes eruptions on the right dancefloor. Bring on the album.
One of the strongest and most mysterious house cuts of the year was the Hothandz EP, just titled, ‘Hothandz Volume One’. It stomped along with a strong kick drum, repetitive punk-funk bassline, and a gravelly spoken word vocal. But then out of nowhere came the most insane racket of a riff this side of hell that inexplicably makes perfect sense and even worked as a groove. It was lifted from an obscure early-80s German track by Grauzone called Eisbear and the vocal comes from another track, but whatever, taken as a whole this was a roof-raiser perfect for the more alternative rock/electro dancefloors.
Probably the most enjoyable and widespread track of the year was Les Visiteur’s ‘Snoop’s Acid Drop’, which achieved that tricky feat of being played by DJs in all sorts of genres. Reworking 2004’s mighty ‘Drop It Like It’s Hot’ into a house track is a bit of a no-brainer, but it was done much better than you’d ever expect, and turned out to be the work of established German producer Boris Dluglosch. The drums and Snoops’ vocal doubled up and stuttered, and then halfway through it turned into an acidic workout. Whether you’re a house or hip hop fan or just like to sing along to that long, drawn-out ‘Snooooooooop’, there was something for everyone.
The buzz underground electro producer of the year was Trentemoller, taking over from Matthew Jonson who held that unofficial title in 2004. Helped by a muffled male vocal, his outstanding remix was Yoshimoto’s ‘Du What You Du’, which built slowly and strongly with breakdowns, was full of delightfully weird noises, and even at times used a New Order-esque bassline. A very exciting and original track.
DFA 1979 are a two-piece rock band from Toronto, but they probably had the finest selection of dance remixes provided to them this year, via Erol Alkan, Jesper Dahlback, Justice and Alan Braxe. They don’t automatically seem like a band ripe for remixing, but the results have been very impressive, and make more sense as one half of them, Jesse Keeler, with Al-P from Girls Are Short, has a separate dance project, MSTRKRFT. Under this guise, they made some pretty tasty remixes, particularly on The Panther’s ‘Thank Me With Your Hands’ and The Kills’ ‘No Wow’. A single, ‘Easy Love’, is due early in 2006 with an album to follow, and it deserves to do very well, sounding like the poppy, commercial end of Daft Punk, with a vocoder vocal.
French label Kitsuné had another strong year with two solid compilations fielding a number of outstanding singles. Benjamin Theves came out with one of the most infectious house tracks with ‘Texas’, which didn’t do anything especially radical, but just had all the right ingredients for a club anthem, though the scratching at the end was a particularly nice touch. Simian Mobile Disco’s ‘The Count’ kept things fairly minimal but funky with a number of squiggly and squelchy riffs and Digitalism’s ‘Zdarlight’ was an understated stomp-funk anthem.
Best simple hi-energy arpeggio house track of the year (if you’ve no idea what I mean, think Donna Summer ‘I Feel Love’ synth riffs) was Funky Transport’s ‘Different (Sweet Light remix)’ – again nothing new, but impeccably done.
Chaton & Hopen’s ‘Life Is Wonders’ was a track that snuck out unnoticed on Geneva’s excellent Mental Groove record empire, on their limited imprint. Trance is a bastardised term, which tends to make us think of dodgy white dreadlocked girls in parachute pants, waving glowsticks and gurning, but this was trance music in a more literal sense – it was unearthly and disorienting and just had some sort of repetitive enveloping quality. It went on for ages but there was always some strange new noise to keep things interesting, whether it was an extra acidic squiggle or percussion to collide with the general swirls of noise going on. Compared to so many electronic records where a producer may have one good idea or sound and just loops it for most of the record, there was so much more thoughtfulness about this track in changing it around to stave off boredom. It was a truly uncredited highlight of the year.
Noze’s ‘Kitchen’ was another of those amiable oddities that makes you glad people with the imagination to do this are still out there. It had a perfectly serviceable minimal electro backing to it, but it’s a smash for its stand-out absurd lyric which duels a female chorus that almost sounds like a nursery rhyme against what sounds like an obscene drunk, incoherent tramp. It’s hard to explain properly, but it’s the sort of thing that stands out and entertains on the dancefloor.
Alan Braxe, another Daft Punk associate, had another almost effortlessly impressive year with his cohort Fred Falke, casually and infrequently throwing out sensational remixes. There was also a glorious anthem, Discopolis by Lifelike/Kris Menace, on their label, Vulture. The Braxe picks this year were Annie’s Heartbeat, which he transformed into an enormously powerful feel-good ecstasy anthem, and DFA 1979’s Black History Month, which was especially novel for fusing a big metal guitar riff with another of his uplifiting 80s synth choruses that gelled perfectly with the vocal.
Stuart Price aka Les Rhythmes Digitales, continued to demonstrate his outstanding production skills, and ability to create big anthemic 80s Power Chords when remixing tracks, particularly on Royksopp’s ‘What Else Is There’. His more exciting moment was the Thin White Duke remix of Juliet’s ‘Ride the Pain’ which had some of the best, almost military, drums of the year and made up for some of the other less exciting remixes he did.
It’s always good to be surprised, and Dominik Eulberg definitely did this with his 12-minute remix of DJ Hell’s ‘Follow You’. A track of that length is always in danger of serious self-indulgence, but Eulberg put so many different freaky sounds and effects in, and kept on switching the track up, that you were never bored. It had an element of glitchiness, but was tough and percussive enough to hold its own on a broader-minded dancefloor. It’s the sort of epic track you can imagine an experienced electro DJ like Damian Lazarus playing towards the end of the night and everyone going buck wild to.
Two wonderful tracks that went hand in hand this year were ‘W.O.T.S’ by W.O.T.S. and an Unknown track by Sun. They both took iconic pop tunes and, taking the smallest sample chop out of them, then looped it ad infinitum over slamming drums. The whole effect was to smile at the recognition you were dancing to Abba or Michael Jackson respectively, though they were only just recognisable, and realise how despite there being a ton of awful house remixes and bootlegs, it is still possible to be creative and create something subtle but still lethal on the dancefloor.
Soul Jazz released a compilation of Acid Tracks and while it was beautifully done, it didn’t really mean much unless you’d been there – most of them just haven’t dated that well. However Nathan Fake came along to show that Acid house is still relevant with his outstanding B-side ‘Undoing the Laces’, making use of modern technology to create possibly the funkiest acid track ever recorded.
Basement Jaxx started up a new label, Stop! Records, which had the usual ramshackle assortment of oddities and the odd gem. Although it was spoilt by an unfortunate vocal, ‘It’s Up to You’ by Eric Miller was interesting by being a sped-up to house tempo cut-up of The Lady of Rage’s G-Funk anthem ‘Afro Puffs’. The extra tempo turned it into a perfect Grime instrumental.
Maverick house producer Maurice Fulton, responsible with his wife for some great tracks as Mu, released a couple of oddball singles as Syklops, the pick of which was ‘The Fly’, which combined clattering live drums with weird bleeps and some heavy analogue bass farts.
There were a number of other omnipresent anthems this year, listed in brief below– anyone who’s spent an evening in a quality electro-house music club this year will have heard most of them.
Tomas Andersson – Washing Up (Tiga Remix)
Huge electro anthem with that enormous, incessant, buzzing riff, and the clever occasional drumbreak pinched from Snoop’s ‘Drop It Like It’s Hot’.
Run Jeremy – Windowlicker re-edit
An astonishingly well-executed reworking of the Aphex classic that subtly tweaks it to turn it into a familiar dancefloor bomb. Much loved by many DJs and deservedly so.
Soulwax – E-Talking (Nite version) & Krack (Nite version)
The two stand-out tracks from the Nite Versions album, ‘E-Talking’ had a lethal, dirty guitar riff, and one of the best breakdowns of the year courtesy of LCD Soundsystem’s Nancy Whang, while ‘Krack’ was more subtle, its rather sinister keyboard riff gradually building until, after another enormous breakdown, it was suddenly unstoppable.
Roman Flugel – Geht’s Noch
Created by one half of Alter Ego, this wasn’t exactly the next ‘Rocker’, but with a nagging siren-esque sound bubbling through the track and lots of other weird, chunky electro sounds, it was familiar enough by the end of the year to create hands-in-the-air club moments.
Franz Ferdinand – Do U Wanna (Erol Alkan remix)
Cunning stripdown of the catchy but cheesy original, just taking a couple of really brutal guitar riffs and looping them until they worm their way into your brain and down into your dancing shoes.
Sweet Light – Abusator
A bit of a monster instrumental, subtle as a jack hammer and not dissimilar to Vitalic’s classic ‘LA Rocks’. But when it’s this effective on the dancefloor you can’t really grumble about appropriation.
MANDY vs Booka Shade – ‘Body Language’
One of those mellow 80s Metro Area tracks that are so popular but still seem rather humdrum, the sort of thing gastroclubbers (i.e. ageing ravers) like. It’s not a bad tune, the melody’s attractive and it worked well with an acapella, but on its own it’s rather yawnsome. Either way it was one of the biggest tunes of its kind of the year.
Lindstrom – I Feel Space
Lindstrom and Prins Thomas were the other two hype underground electro producers of the year, but unfortunately everything said above about ‘Body Language’ applies here too. Just don’t get me started on Theo Parrish.
E) DANCEHALL & SOCA
The return of Roots as a force to balance Bashment, and a great year for Soca
At the beginning of the year there was talk that 2005 would see a return to rootsier reggae, switching from the harder bashment sound, and although a flood didn’t materialise, there was a definite trickle of outstanding Roots tunes that will probably increase in 2006, especially following the success of ‘Jamrock’. Meanwhile back in bashment land, there were some outstanding rhythms as always, but no big trends and it felt like a relatively muted year, perhaps because of the Roots shift. It also felt like Soca had one of its strongest years for a long time in 2005. It may not be the subtlest of musical genres, but its energy is exactly what makes dance music so exciting. The best tunes had loads of charm and some killer drum patterns to keep you moving.
Roots
‘Jamrock’ was of course the undeniable ubiquitous anthem, but there were other equally strong tracks that ought to have had more success. The next biggest track was probably I Wayne’s ‘Can’t Satisfy Her’, which was more of an upbeat party track with a neat vocal. Less well-known was his more conscious cut, ‘Living In Love’ which has a gorgeous melody and vocal. The other outstanding cut on this level was Richie Spice’s ‘Youths Are So Cold’, a big sing-a-long conscious cut with a big bassline.
One outstanding track which stood out for its quality but also for not sounding like anything else was Turbulence’s ‘Notorious’.This is getting a proper single release in 2006 to lead off a new Reggae compilation from XL which promises to be a great album, spreading this music to a new audience.
As a further indication of changing times, hot producer Donovan Bennett aka Don Corleone made more Roots productions this year, his biggest being the Season rhythm, itself a reworking of his earlier Drop Leaf rhythm. Probably the biggest cut was the pretty yet mournful ‘Never Gonna Be the Same’ by Sean Paul.
The other biggest track of the year was Gyptian’s ‘Serious Times’, but despite constant trying to this writer’s ears it still sounds rather drippy and dull, lacking the charm of the tracks above.
Bashment
Dancehall remains the only musical genre somehow gets away with the most utterly ridiculous experimentation, possibly because it is always sincere. This year saw the usual Elephant Man adoption of 80s pop song melodies for his chorus (notably ‘I Will Survive’ on ‘Willie Bounce’). And Bounty Killer’s great track of the year was ‘Stand Firm Pt.2′ on one the most preposterous but still enjoyable rhythms of the year – basically a barn-dance guitar riff with rough and tough Ragga drums. Equally absurd was the Oh My Swing rhythm which was basically an uplifting black gospel instrumental, not the first thing you expect to hear hardcore Jamaican deejays like Assassin chatting over on his standout cut, ‘Some Gal’.
The Bomb A Drop rhythm flipped the script yet again and sounded like a Jamaican version of a cheesy Ibiza house tune, being a house-tempo track with straight four-four drums. It was an acquired taste, but Lady Saw gave it her all on ‘Mi Nah Sleep’. The other house-tempo rhythm was Applause, although this ran on the three beat drum pattern. Sizzla’s ‘Run Out Pon Dem’ was the track to check.
Some straighter and successful experimentation produced the Military Rhythm, which relied on thunderous military tattoo drums to underpin it. Vybz with ‘4 Star’ and Sean Paul with ‘Got Them Weak’ were the highlights. The Assault Rifle rhythm was a reworking of the astonishing Neptunes instrumental for Busta’s ‘Light Your Ass on Fire’ but with more ruffneck dancehall drums. Vybz pipped the post here with ‘Crime Minister, one of the most exciting tracks of the year for those who could handle its brutal minimalism.
One of the best reworked rhythms was the Giggy rhythm (formerly known as Bogle Resurrection) and Leftside & Esko’s hit ‘Yuh Belly Nuh Bang’. Premier-league producer Dave Kelly came up with the big, minimal Bad Gal rhythm, with many highlights but Cobra’s ‘A Who’ just taking pole position. 316 was not one of the big rhythms but it was solid and catchy and Beenie Man’s lyric made his cut ‘Fi Wah’ on it a great tune.
There was much talk outside dancehall circles about the new rhythm from the Florida-based South Rakkas crew, who have gained a reputation for building what you could call Ragga-Rave instrumentals. This was a fair description of the Bionic Ras rhythm which was reminiscent of Basement Jaxx’s ‘Fly Life’. Sizzla’s ‘Spring Break’ was the track to hear. It was exciting and forward-thinking but it didn’t really catch on as the beat just wasn’t very dance-friendly.
After all this time the great Energy God, Elephant Man, still manages to pull out a couple of crackers every year. In 2005 he shone on ‘Dancing Forever’ on the Move rhythm, one of the simplest but most poundingly effective rhythms of the year, and the gloriously silly ‘Willie Bounce’, one of the hits of the Notting Hill Carnival. It’s hard to imagine anyone else borrowing the choral melody to Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive for the main melody and pulling it off, and while it’s a bit of a shock the first time, the drums and general mayhem of the track meant you couldn’t help but dance.
At the end of the year, the Concubine rhythm, with its Eastern minimalism, showed one possible way forward for bashment in 2006. Dancehall is adept at absorbing influences and so it wouldn’t be too surprising if it follows hip hop’s lead and strips things down next year.
Soca
The biggest track of Notting Hill Carnival 2005 was deservedly Sherwayne Winchester with ‘Dead or Alive’, the biggest energy track of the year. It had knock-out percussion and was just one of those perfect, go-bananas tracks to spice up a sun-kissed day. Almost as good was Iwer George’s ‘Ease the Tension’, another high energy number with fantastic drums and an easily memorable lyric. Iwer George came good again with ‘Water’, which wasn’t particularly big or clever, but had a great feel-good chorus, and brings back wonderful memories of Notting Hill Carnival 2005 with people on the floats throwing water into the crowd.
Machel Montano’s ‘Madder than Dat’ more than lived up to its title, being everything you want from a totally bonkers and grin-inducing Soca track, not just lyrically but with excitingly skittery drums. Maximus Dan gave a typically commanding lyrical delivery on ‘Never’, the highlight of the Stinging Neckle rhythm, a mid-tempo stomper.
Alison Hinds’ ‘Roll It’ was an interesting slow Soca track, sonically borrowing Lil’ Jon’s trademark synth sound but sounding unmistakably Caribbean. With a great vocal performance and some emotive chords it was an unexpected winner. Bunji Garlin had two excellent tracks, the Trinidad Carnival anthem ‘Right Now’ and ‘Whatever’ on the Lava Slide rhythm, which sped along and managed to effectively make use of the sound of an accordian on top of the usual bouncy drums and keyboards.
Somewhat depressingly and predictably the official ‘big tune’ was Jamesy P’s ‘Nookie’, a plodding year-old tune whose main recommendation was that it was slow, simple to dance to, and salacious in subject-matter, all the right ingredients for that Benidorm crossover market.
F) GARAGE, GRIME, DUBSTEP & BREAKBEAT
After all the hype of last year, the Grime scene failed to explode and it was unfortunately ironic that the only Grime MCs to make any commercal dent in the charts did so by making, well, pretty much anything except Grime records. This is not meant to criticise the artists, but highlight how critics don’t always don’t get it right and in this case tripped over their own hyperbole. It’s true that the scene was held back by the impossibilty of putting on Grime events (Vice editor Andy Capper made an excellent point that when white kids mosh at a concert it’s a positive sign of enthusiasm, when black kids do it, it’s a riot), but overall it felt like there weren’t enough strong tunes – Grime is still unhealthily over-balanced in focus on the MCs.
So there was no musical revolution, but there was still some excellent music to be found, and of course the raw, uncontainable energy of the pirate stations. Leading DJ Logan Sama was poached by Kiss from seminal pirate station Rinse FM halfway through the year and one of the most exciting experiences of the year was hearing his last show on Rinse. Loads of the Roll Deep MCs turned up and caused chaos with their hyper energy levels and constant Rewinds. It was also a chance to hear how good Jamaican deejays sound on Grime instrumentals as Logan Sama played exclusive dubplates from Vybz Kartel and all the year’s big tracks.
All the big records seemed to come early in the year, perhaps because the rest of the year was spent promoting and working on existing projects and new ones for 2006. It certainly feels that top producers such as Danny Weed, Target and Terror Danjah have been quiet of late.
The best tunes were the ones where producers thought outside the box and made music that didn’t sound like you expected Grime to, but showed a willingness to experiment. And so we had Danny Weed’s ‘Shank Rhythm’ aka ‘When I’m Ere’ which was made of Middle-Eastern sounding pipe-organ sounds, and Imp Batch’s Gype rhythm, which used flute noises that you’d expect to hear on the sort of Easy Listening record your gran might like, chopped up and fitted over skippy drums that fitted a Grime tempo. Both these records were originals, outstanding tracks of the year in any genre. They also benefitted from excellent remixes, the Shank rhythm remixed by Wiley into a more electrifying, modern and alien tune that was pumped up enough for the dancefloor, while the Gype rhythm was edited in a more stuttery, cut-up way that also sounded great as an alternative once you’d become familiar with the ridiculous original.
There wasn’t really much change in the MCs, the same names are still around, and they just continue to hone their craft. The most exciting at present are Trim, who has by far the most thrilling voice, JME, who is the most lyrically eloquent, Bruza, who has the most marketable personality with his ‘cheeky cockney’ image, and Riko, but until they release more tracks its hard to tell what they’re really capable of.
The other biggest tune was Wiley’s ‘Colder’ which used the sort of big atmospheric orchestral strings that make for a seriously scary movie and added on his trademark bleeps and beats. This always incited some serious lyrics from MCs on the pirates. In the Autumn a new Wiley cut emerged called ‘Tunnel Vision 2′ which showed he can still put out the most brilliantly insane instrumentals with mental rave noises and unexpected time switches. Hopefully now the Roll Deep album is done and dusted we’ll get some more of these next year. Newcomer Mizz Beats emerged as the hot producer to watch next year with her very spooky and understated cut, ‘Saw It Coming’, on the second Run the Road compilation.
Dizzee Rascal, the man who broke Grime onto the commercial scene, quietly slipped out one single to follow his disappointing second album. The new single ‘Off 2 Work’ was absolutely thrilling, tearing along at a furious pace. It was very sparse, consisting of tiny snippets of live instruments, including a wicked James Brown-style horn stab. Dizzee has struck out on his own and abandoned the Grime scene, yet he’s still a little too marginal to be featured in the more general press, so it felt this didn’t really get much coverage, but if anyone else had made it, it would have been easily considered one of the most exciting Grime instrumentals of the year.
The most entertaining general events on the Grime scene in 2005 included the Young Guns Crew coming out with the Countdown Riddim which, yes really, sampled the musical theme to the legendary Channel 4 gameshow. Key Grime journalist Chantelle Fiddy was about to send it to Richard Whitely when he died, an act that now lies somewhere between poignancy and preposterousness. Ruff Squad re-edited Billy Joel’s ‘Uptown Girl’ and MCed over it to show that nothing is sacred. It recalled the old Spinal Tap quote of there being a fine line between clever and stupid. And producer turned MC Jammer made a ludicrous video of his single ‘Merkle Man’ inventing himself as a bizarre purple dreadlocked super-hero. He remains an outstanding producer but a questionable MC with an overenthusiasm for rewinds.
Dubstep spent the first half of the year still stuck in the doldrums, a scene full of technically impressive producers but lacking excitement in their instrumental productions. Then things picked up as newer producers like Skream, Digital Mystikz and Loefah really started to focus on the dubbier side of things (previously dubstep was a bit of a misnomer), taking out snares so that while the tracks were still at about 140bpm they felt more slow and skanking as if they were half-speed. These type of tunes are coming to be known as half-step.
Dubstep is fairly contextual music in that because of the extraordinary sub-basses in many tracks, unless you really crank up a decent home hi-fi, you just won’t hear how it’s meant to sound. It is proper Soundsystem music. The current place to really appreciate it is at DMZ, a monthly night at Mass in Brixton, feeling the bass reverberate through your body. Forward at Plastic People, the original home of Dubstep, is also still worth checking. The year’s anthem was Skream’s ‘Request Line’ but he had stronger tracks, showcased on an outstanding mix of his productions that was put out on the internet.
If Dubstep occasionally borders on prog rock, then Bassline House is punk rock. A niche scene centred vaguely round Sheffield, it kept the flame alive for the four-four beats of Speed Garage, the new tunes being divided into either ‘Organ Tunes’ (happy female-friendly tunes) or ‘Warpers’ (evil Van Helden-esque basslines). The productions aren’t particularly sophisticated, often even resorting to the sped-up helium female vocal, but it’s good-fun energy club music – the sort of thing that reminds you the whole point of punk rock: i.e. naïve enthusiasm and energy are often far preferable to overwrought proficiency.
The one Bassline House track which stood out was Cheeky ft Caz’s ‘Some Kind of Fool’. It came out on the Sunship Productions lable, and so came with a good pedigree, Ceri Evans of Sunship having always been one of the outstanding 4/4 and 2-step producers. On the face of it there was nothing that unusual about it, it’s a female vocal 4/4 garage cut, but it just had great production with a stomping bass and crisp skippy drums, a strong vocal and the bottom line: a no-brainer, smile-inducing tune.
On the more traditional Garage tip, the outstanding remix was veteran producer Sticky’s bootleg of Amerie’s ‘1 Thing’. He wisely knew that to handle a classic like that, it was best to keep it simple, so he just pitched and chopped it up a little, tweaked the drums and added a big old sub-bass. Beautiful stuff.
The Pirate radio stations have always been one of the best indicators of the way music is moving, keeping up with the cutting-edge. So it was interesting that the general trend this year was to revert to Speed Garage and 2-Step classics from 2000-2. It is less surprising than it might first seem, Grime has remained a largely cliquey and self-contained East London scene with few tunes emerging, but most importantly, it is such an aggressive scene, musically and culturally, that there is a marginally small female audience. Coupled with the desire for music with a groove, 4/4 seems like it will remain the more popular underground sound for now. The bigger question is whether 2006 will see a rejuvenation for the original Garage producers, like Sunship, Wookie and MJ Cole. Certainly Agent X are around, producing an entertaining energy recently in ‘Scream and Shout’ which recalls Basement Jaxx’s classic ‘Jump and Shout’.
At the end of the year, the key producers looked set to be Scandalous Unlimited with the release of their new mixtape ‘Eye of the Tiger Vol.1′ which featured a number of new instrumentals from them and vocals from most of the key Grime MCs. Scandalous have always been interesting producers, having released a brilliant and bonkers 2-step bootleg of Kelis’s ‘Milkshake’ in 2004 and 4×4 tracks like ‘Watford Weather’ so it will be interesting to see if they can connect the disparate elements of the Garage scene together.
On the breakbeat side of things, the Stanton Warriors re-emerged on another new label and put out a couple of singles to preview their album due out in early 2006. It’s been so long since they were the hottest production property since Basement Jaxx, so while they’ll always have a core Breaks audience, especially in Australia where they go so wild, it’ll be interesting to see how they do. Their sound doesn’t feel as new as it once did, but they remain outstanding producers and have some big collaborations ready to go. The most enjoyable was single ‘Pop Ya Cork’ which had an enjoyable ‘booty lyric’ from Twista. The track doesn’t really do much, but with it’s female chorus, bell rings and other little features it’s a real grower.
G) OTHER GENRES
Bhangra
Maybe they just slipped past unnoticed, but it felt like there was a disappointing lack of good Bhangra tracks this year – even the so-called big tunes, like ‘Tharti Hilde’ by Angraz Ali, were uninspiring.
Unsurprisingly it was left to Tigerstyle to come good as always with some great bootlegs and remixes, but apart from them, the only exciting new talent was another Glaswegian duo who could be classified as Tigerstyle protogés . Let’s hope that some new talent emerges next year.
Tigerstyle’s big track this year was ‘The Girl From Pakistan’, their reworking of the Steps dancehall rhythm, which came out in 2004, but was best-known for being used by Sean Paul for his comeback single, ‘We Be Burning’, this year. They added Bhupi Gill and Elephant Man vocals, beefed up the track with big bhangra percussion and instrumentation, and turned it into a monster of a track. Their remix of ‘Mi Nuh Dun’ was large too, but its drum stomp ironed out the groove of the original, so while it would cause chaos on a dancefloor., the original remained the best.
In an exciting and unexpected cross-fertilisation, Reggaeton label Machete Records got Tigerstyle to remix two tracks, Baby Rank’s ‘Tiburon’ and Wisin Y Yandel’s ‘Rakata’. The former was a big uncompromising stomper of a track, not the most outstanding track of the year but still impressive. ‘Rakata’ was more subtle but there was something slightly disorienting listening to it – the Latin and Indian elements are both so strong and the cultural combination doesn’t quite work.
After all these bootlegs and remixes, Tigerstyle showed they can also write tracks with their production on singer Bikram Singh’s ‘Mein Jana Punjab’. This was a laidback track, showing they can do more than just dancefloor bombs, and had an appealingly slinky Indian groove to it.
But Bhangra track of the year goes to Northern Lights for ‘Wrong Number’, with vocals by Fauji Rajpuri. This had a hell of a slinky yet powerful groove that challenged you not to move your hips to it. And it succeeded in fusing a modern production sensibility with more traditional Bhangra instrumentation in a way we rarely see. While so many Desi producers persist in bad garage and hip-hop rip-offs, ‘Wrong Number’ was a classic example of looking back in order to move forward.
Bootlegs
The bootleg scene remains fairly settled, the people who were just in for the short-haul have moved on, leaving a hardcore long-termers and the odd new entrant. There is still a ton of dross, but there are still a few gems and even some creativity shown.
Agent Lovelette showed that Diplo’s Rhythm, Kraftwerk and Lil Kim marry together well, Kim’s energetic and sassy vocal complementing the combined instrumentals stunningly. This was the sort of outstanding bootleg that sounded like it ought to be an original and there’s no higher compliment than that.
Following last year’s essential Alicia Keys Reggae bootleg, someone had the idea to do the same to Destiny’s Child’s ‘Lose Your Breath’, completely reinventing it as a sultry Summer Lover’s Reggae track. And like Agent Lovelette, if we weren’t so overfamiliar with Destiny’s Child, you’d swear this was the original.
The best party bootleg was PTA with ‘One For The Devil’ which paired Amerie’s ‘1 Thing’ with an instrumental of the Rolling Stones’ ‘Sympathy For the Devil’. It’s a pretty basic A+B pairing, but it works perfectly in key and sounds fantastic.
This was closely followed by another Agent Lovelette creation, 1-2 beat, which fused WhoMadeWho’s much-better-than-it-ought-to-be cover of ‘Flat Beat’ with Ciara’s vocal for ‘1-2 Step’, a nice clash of genres but sonically perfectly suited.
Simplest but one of the cleverest was Dopplebanger with ‘Can I Kick It Like That’ which paired Pharrell’s vocal from ‘Can I Have It Like That’ with the classic Tribe Called Quest tune. The Pharrell track was a weird one – it’s a great instrumental but the vocal didn’t seem to work with it, and Gwen Stefani’s choral refrain was really irritating. But his vocal sounds much better over the Tribe Called Quest instrumental and then the pay-off of course comes in the chorus when the answer to his question ‘Can I Have It Like That’ is of course ‘Yes You Can’.
New York-based club The Rub put out a second album of bootlegs subtly called, ‘It’s the Motherfuckin’ Remix Vol.2′. It’s a little bit like a hip hop Soulwax radio show, pack-jammed with so many mash-ups it’s hard to keep track of them all, and some more successful than others. As with Soulwax, hearing this as an album at home isn’t really the right environment, but heard in a club it makes perfect sense.
Finally, Woodside Natives dropped the acapella of Twista’s ‘Overnight Celebrity over DJ Zinc’s classic breakbeeat garage ‘138 Trek’. It’s always great to be reminded of how good that track is, but it always sounded better with a rap on top of it, and this was probably the best to date.
It wasn’t technically a bootleg, more a series of re-edits, but Optimo’s JD Twitch put out an album and an EP as the charmingly-named Betty Botox. Twitch is a very clever man, but some of the tracks weren’t the easiest of listening if you weren’t familiar with the originals. However a couple of tracks on the Kraut EP, in particular the self-explanatory ‘Can Can’ were fun and funky dance groovers. And Rub n Tug produced an amazing re-edit of Chicago’s cover of Traffic’s ‘I’m a Man’, with a gloriously-extended drum-break in the middle to really rouse people on the dancefloor.
Reggaeton
For anyone who doesn’t get Reggaeton, which is still a lot of music fans, numbed by the apparent constancy of the one plodding drum beat, you should watch ‘The Chosen Ones – El Documental’, an excellent DVD documentary of Reggaeton’s origins in Puerto Rico, full of fantastic footage of the parties and interviews with all the main artists.
2005 was the year Daddy Yankee hit big with his international pop smash ‘Gasolina’, not really the best advertisement for the genre, though admittedly fairly representative. Generally it felt like a year of consolidation for the genre, with last year’s big tunes from stars like Don Omar, Tego Calderon and Daddy Yankee cementing themselves on the audience’s consciousness. These included Don Omar’s rather good ‘Dale Don Dale’, and tracks like ‘Dile’, ‘Miralos’, ‘Quimica’, Ivy Queen’s ‘Papi Te Quiero’, Tego’s ‘Al Natural’ and Baby Ranks enjoyable speed-switching ‘Mayor Que Yo’. ‘Reggaeton Latino’ was a big anthem, and of the myriad bootleg remixes of hip hop tracks, Ashanti’s ‘Only You’ stood out from the pack.
As written last year, Tego Calderon remains the most exciting and broad-minded artist, his forthcoming album ‘The Underdog’ is supposed to move away from Reggaeton in places, adopting more of a straight hip hop feel. But he came out with one of the outstanding Reggaeton tracks this year with ‘Se Van’, which showed so much more creativity in drum patterns and general song structure than most Reggaeton tracks.
Towards the end of the year, it was hard not to be pulverised into submission by Daddy Yankee’s ‘Rompe’, which used the classic pop technique of repetition to worm its way into your consciousness. To be fair its also a pretty well-produced track, but this is set to be an unavoidable guilty pleasure.
The important thing to remember is that, however you feel about Reggaeton, you shouldn’t underestimate its future global impact. This is going to increasingly be the sound of young urban Hispanics, (particularly as that repetitive drum pattern is irresistible for girls to dance to), who are now the biggest racial minority in the US, even before you consider South America. Reggaeton is going to get bigger and bigger. And hopefully, better and better.
B-More House
Baltimore House, a form of hip hop-influenced breakbeat house, is still a very marginal genre, but it’s been showing signs of wanting to break-out over the past couple of years. This was seen more than ever in 2005, helped by the efforts of Hollertronix DJ duo Diplo and Low Budget, who have long been playing tracks out, new Big Dada signing Spankrock, and club promoter Roxy Cottontail, who dragged the sound and DJs out of its heartland and introduced it to New York. There’s also a new mixtape out from Aaron LaCrate and Scotty B, who are connected to a whole heap of New York music, fashion and clubbing events, being part of the very hot aNYthing clothes label.
Diplo put out the first major label b-more remix with his excellent take on Gwen Stefani’s ‘Hollaback Girl’, but the main music-makers remain the same – DJ Technics and Rod Lee. They put out far too many tracks to know where to begin, and its not a musical genre known for subtlety, but Rod Lee’s remix of Lil’ Jon’s ‘What U Gonna Do’ stood out. Meanwhile DJ Technics kept up his CD mix series which demonstrates his extraordinary mixing skills, steaming through a ton of tunes at high speed.
Ultimately it’s still hard to know how far B-more really can go – it’s not radio music, and it’s only just club music: the repetition of the records make them effectively Club Tools only for the more experienced DJ. However when those breakbeats slam in, this is still one of the most exciting and under-appreciated styles of music around.
Baile (Favela) Funk
It still feels like a struggle to have real enthusiasm for this music – for all the press and blog hype, this remains primarily a cultural phenomenon. Unless you’ve experienced the music in attending one of the extraordinary Funk balls in the heart of the Rio favelas, there’s not much to get excited about it as a stand-alone sound. And even if you haven’t experienced it, reading about the culture is extraordinary in itself, from the way the parties run to accounts of the underground ‘proibidao’ tracks where artists are paid for writing songs which glorify local gangsters.
A few compilations came out, the best of which was DJ Sujinho’s ‘I Love Baile Funk’ – it came closest to making the music sound good,. Diplo put out a second mixtape which was most noticeable for featuring MC Saquinho’s ‘Montagem the Smith’ which samples the guitar riff of ‘Bigmouth Strikes Again’ by The Smiths (yes, the 80s indie band) in a genius juxtaposition of styles.
If there’s one thing that you can say about the genre is the Funk producers’ imaginative attitude to sampling. They often create wicked-sounding loops of music from popular tunes that you can’t imagine North American and European producers considering (or legally being able to use), for example the Smiths track, ‘Oh Jessie’ by Madonna, the Verve’s ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ (both on Diplo mixtapes) and most audaciously, a track from Riverdance (the sample’s cut up and it sounds much better than you’d ever expect).
But overall, out of context shouty-Brazilian rappers just don’t seem that thrilling in the UK. Do the right thing, make that trip over and see it first-hand. (And for the best visual taster, Diplo’s ‘Percao’ video, a cut-up of his own video footage from Rio, is seriously essential viewing.).
Miscellaneous
Jamie Lidell put out a wonderful album, ‘Multiply’, that was only a few tracks short of being a classic. An unexpected shift from the techno producer, it took a more traditional songwriting approach and made full use of his stunning soul-man voice. Many tracks were homages to certain soul legends, including Sly Stone, George Clinton, Marvin Gaye and general Motown sounds. But it was the first single, ‘When I Come Back Around’ that was on constant rotation throughout the year, sounding like, to paraphrase Derrick May, George Clinton and the Aphex Twin stuck in an elevator. It was a big P-funk jam of a song, with a cutting-edge electronic production sensibility, and of course a great tune.
Sebastian Tellier finally released ‘La Ritournelle’ after a long legal wrangle over which record label had the rights to it. And for their money the winning label got a four minute intro of sweeping, melancholy strings and piano (and surprisingly funky drums) that melted the most hardened hearts, after which Tellier’s sweet if slightly comedy-European-sounding vocal and a groovy little bassline came in. Without wishing to denigrate it, it’s one of those tracks that will be a mainstay of Chill-out compilations and BBC soundtracks for years to come. Meaning that it’s a bit of a future classic, and you can see why it was fought over.
Maverick producer Daedelus, who operates in the broader, more experimental regions of instrumental independent hip hop, unleashed his greatest work to date in the ‘Exquisite Corpse’ album. It worked in the tradition of great producer-led albums with a variety of vocal contributions from rappers like MF Doom and TTC, but also beautiful female singing from Laura Darling. Each track had three times more ideas in it than most producers and often moved in ways you weren’t expecting, but it was always hugely listenable and never felt wilfully experimental, not an easy thing to pull off. In a fair world this would be one of those ubiquitous Royksopp-esque coffee-table albums.
Beatfanatic, one of the key artists on Sweden’s G.A.M.M. label, beloved by Gilles Peterson, put out one really killer single, but perhaps because of licensing problems (it was a re-edit), it sadly never got past white label status. The track was ‘Amanhanga’ and it’s a seriously large slice of uptempo Brazilian dancefloor action.
Brazil’s DJ Nuts came out of nowhere with his wonderful ‘Cultura Copia’ mixtape. It’s most easily explained as a Latin ‘Brainfreeze’, weaving about 40 essential Brazilian tracks into one 80 minute whole.
DJ Tron and Johann from Stacs of Stamina, who host and DJ the excellent Radio Clit internet mixes, coined the term Eurocrunk this year to describe artists like them who have a love for Crunk but are using that influence with others to create a new, mutant form of crunchy, electronic hip hop beats. In further genre cross-fertilisation they Screwed & Chopped the Roll Deep album, to varying effect, though ‘Bus Stop’ was a really outstanding track.
Perhaps the forefathers of the nascent Eurocrunk movement would be Modeselektor, who released a strong debut album this year, with stand-out tracks such as ‘Dancing Box’, which produced amazing jerky sounds by intricately chopping up rappers TTC’s vocals in the chorus. Stacs of Stamina came out with a terrific single, ‘Roll’, with some great rapping and a dark and dirty minimal bass beat. The other stand-out Eurocrunk producer, Para One, released his second EP on Institubes, which continued from his first in having one side of crunchy hip hop beats, and another of Daft Punk-style raw electro house music. He remains one to watch.
On the broken beat side of things, it was a disappointment that the Bugz in Da Attic ‘Hecho en Casa’ album project remained unfinished following the two tantalising singles from 2004. But Seiji made up for it with two magnificent remixes. The first was UK dancehall singer Tubby T’s ‘Ready She Ready’ and as you might expect it was turned into a big bass-wobbler of a track, supporting Tubby T’s gorgeous vocal. Basement Jaxx’s ‘Do Your Thing’ has become such an anthem that it takes a brave person to remix it, but Seiji took the bull by the horns and completely reinvented it. Until you hear it, it’s hard to imagine it as an acid breakbeat track, but that’s what he turned it into and it sounds very fine for it.
One unexpected broken beat treat came on the mysterious ‘Rebtuz Presents Vol. 3′. Nadav Ravid turned in a stunning remix of the old Yazoo tune, ‘Don’t Go’. Alison Moyet’s vocal is so strong that it would be dangerous to do too much with it, so he just added a badass bassline and clattering broken drums to create another scintillating single.
Tayo, the stalwart breakbeat DJ, stepped up his production this year, showcasing some excellent electronic dub tracks that move away from his previous clubbier output and look like they ought to form part of a very solid album in the future.
DJ Zinc came up with one of the most extraordinary musical achievements of the year with his Minimix for Annie Mac’s Radio show. (Every week she asks a DJ to produce a 5 minute mix for her, with free range to do whatever they want.) Zinc really did throw in everything except the kitchen sink, creating a history of the past 9 or so years of Jungle, throwing snippets of about 85 tracks in his allotted time. It’s not something you really need to hear more than once, but it was an astonishing feat and a good reminder of many drum & bass highlights that you might have forgotten about.
One niche scene which picked up one or two column inches but was largely ignored was 8-bit music. These are tunes made to sound like they’ve come from the soundtrack of an old 8-bit computer game (think the Commodore 64 era). Admittedly a lot of it is pretty unlistenable but seek and you found the joys that were Saskrotch and an amazing remix of Beck’s ‘Girl’. Saskrotch was a one-man wonder, putting out an album of ‘Nintendo Breakz’ where he took old Nintendo soundtracks and laid on thunderously fast breakcore drums on top. There was also a fantastic and insane mix of him doing this live. It wasn’t the easiest of listening and got pretty extreme at times, but it just had an appealing raw dumbness to it. The best of the Nintendo tracks was ‘Kage’ which was surprisingly funky. Meanwhile, a remix of ‘Girl’ (retitled ‘Bit Rate Variation in B Flat) from Beck’s last album showed that, combined with a good melody and vocal, 8-bit is perfectly capable of making sweet, sweet music. This was a properly overlooked little gem.
The Vector Warrior put out another of his intriguingly mysterious tunes via the internet, which pitted a haunting string section against a staccato Autechre-style beat workout. Give this person a proper studio and you wonder what he’d be capable of.
This isn’t really the place to discuss M.I.A. anymore – there are quite enough other people who do that now, especially on the internet, but suffice it to say that she came out with a very strong debut album that felt a little crushed under the weight of the expectation, but was packed full of outstanding productions.
H) MIXTAPES
Reinventing the Wheels of Steel.
DJing has entered a new age with the advent of the Ableton Live software, which allows an astonishing amount of creativity in changing tunes, from stretching to sampling and looping. It means that there’s an enormous potential for mixtape DJing to become an art, an extension of the classic cut-and-paste methodology, with a mix album being carefully crafted out of different bits of records to create a tapestry that is as much dependent on the DJ’s creativity as the original artists. The key problem on the larger stage is that the more tracks that are used, the more complicated sample clearance becomes, though with more and more people putting out mixes free on the internet it’s still possible.
Of course there are the pioneers: think Coldcut’s 70 Minutes of Madness, DJ Q-Bert’s still-astonishing Demolition Pumpkin Squeeze Musik, and the Avalanches’ Gi Mix. But as the technology has become more widely available, we ought to see a take-up in experimentation. 2 Many DJs aka Soulwax more recently redefined the mix album with their mash-ups and unsurprisingly Optimo have pushed the boat out with the various mixes they make for their website, as well as their commercially-released mixes this year. But the undiscovered person who is really making waves, and leading the way in what is and ought to be achievable with DJing, is Dylan Richards aka ‘Zilla.
He first came to light doing a guest mix on Coldcut’s massively influential Solid Steel radio show. His hour mix contained about a hundred tracks, many of them being just small snippets overlaid together and looped-up. He has a penchant for crunchy Warp-style instrumentals and hip hop and delights in combining the two.
2005 saw the arrival of his epic ‘Grinted Teeth and Brawlsville’ mix, pitting two really aggressive musical genres, hardcore electronica and crunk acapellas, against each other. They are not obvious bedfellows yet he made the combination sound totally thrilling and correct. It’s brutal music in places, but works as a showcase for a ton of electronic tunes that you wouldn’t normally get to hear woven together, as well as showing how vocals can work in unexpected ways. One of the most adventurous albums of the year.
‘Zilla also put out a ‘Radio version’ of the WarpVision mix he did with Buddy Peace last year, which has a ton of less aggressive electronic music and more commercial hip hop vocals. It’s an outstanding piece of work and also incredibly listenable, and is a good warm-up for ‘Grinted’.
And an intriguing snippet arrived at the end of the year, again sounding like nothing else around, hip hop beats permeated with a ton of classic early Drum & Bass samples and riffs. This man is one of the great unrecognised talents of the moment.
DJ Shadow put out another limited and (relatively) low-key mixtape, ‘Funky Skunk’. It was a funny one – there were some great tracks on it, ranging from Dirty South tracks to obscure 60s funk, often with acapellas over the former over instrumentals of the latter, and obviously fantastic mixing and blending, but somehow it just wasn’t a classic listen, something that you’d go back to again and again. Perhaps we expect too much from him nowadays. However it’s something you definitely need to hear at least once, if just for one of the opening funk guitar riffs with Lil’ Jon shouting over it, and his blend of Common’s ‘The Corner’ with Crime Mob’s ‘Knuck if you Buck’ acapella.
If you’re not using technology or insane DJ skills to craft a mixtape, then the next best thing is to release a mixtape of music that hardly anyone has or listens to. This is what Diplo has tried to do on his mixtapes, undeniably succeeding with his Favela Strikes Back cd. And with club partner Low Budget he released the T5 Soul Sessions mix which cleverly fused a load of little-known alternative early 80s club tracks, i.e. not the ones that have become played-out in the last few years. Diplo also recorded a mix for Fabric which, with the usual commercial limitations, was a curate’s egg of a mix, and some great mixes for UK Radio stations which showcased the extraordinary musical diversity he possesses, covering hip hop, dancehall, alternative rock, quirky electro house music, putting together genres you’ll rarely hear back-to-back. It’s scrappy stuff, but if you’re behind on what’s been going on in the year, his two-hour BBC Radio 6 mix is a very solid primer. Diplo remains a magnet who attracts the best and broadest beats around and is still a key figure to watch (and hear).
Soulwax kicked off 2005 with a dazzling two-hour mix for BBC’s Essential Selection, which succeeded in showcasing many of the year’s biggest tunes month’s before they were officially released. There was lots of electro-house from the usual suspects, but also all sorts of the quirkier tunes that the Dewaele brothers are so adept at squirrelling out, and towards the end a cut-up hip hop section, bootlegging a number of beats and acapellas against each other. Another perfect 2005 primer for the short-of-time.
Erol Alkan released a mix for Bugged Out, with one cd showing the sound of his sets there and another of offbeat chilled-out music for home listening. Erol’s sets for Bugged Out and other clubs continued to define most of what was good about electro, house and techno this year, and while a cd can’t recreate the extraordinary atmosphere you get in the second room of The End when he plays, it was a great snapshot of what he does and a reminder of good times.
Optimo released a mix on the excellent How to Kill the DJ series which showed why their Glasgow club night continues to be so highly regarded, as it effortlessly zig-zagged through a multitude of musical styles (it also had a second chilled-out cd like Erol’s), and then later a mix for Eskimo called Psyche Out which was a bit more trance-y (in the literal sense).
Disco D is a New York-based producer who started out on the niche Ghetto-tech scene but has since expanded to produce a track for 50 Cent and create the excellent Gunshot dancehall rhythm which gets a full release next year. He’s also an impressive DJ and came out this year with ‘Funk Flava 2005′, a mix of various different 130-150bpm breakbeat genres, taking in B-more house, baile funk, ghetto-tech and booty bass. This was a smart move – by spreading it out, he could just take the cream of the crop from each genre and keep the quality up. He also employed various hip hop DJ tricks to keep things interesting.
I) CLUBS & GIGS
This section is obviously very incomplete as there are far too many clubs and gigs going on for one person to cover them all, even just in a single city. The below were chosen to go as being some of the most exceptional events but of course there were many others.
Our Disco
Or to give it it’s full title, ‘And Did We Mention Our Disco?’. Den, Glyn, Nadia and Rory have been putting on this club for almost three years now, and it still feels impressively fresh. This is helped by the excellent venue they have in Plastic People, an intimate, modern club with one of the best sound systems in London. More importantly though, their musical policy is enormously eclectic, educated and most of all, great fun. Rory has a frighteningly accurate foresight into the more leftfield guitar bands months before anyone else, Nadia is an electro-house fiend, while Den and Glyn seem to have an ‘anything-goes’ attitude, helped by their use of laptops and Ableton that allows them to drop in samples, loop tracks and add in acapellas at will. The end result is moments where even the most seasoned clubber goes ‘What the hell is that’ as they bounce around the dancefloor.
They draw in a mixed, clued-up party crowd, who look cool but don’t act it. And musically there’s something for everyone – the casual punter will find lots of tracks that are great to dance to, the knowledgeable music bore will hear brand new tracks and appreciate the mixing tricks.
The organisers knew each other originally from Trash (where Rory also DJs) and the two clubs feel like kindred spirits to an extent: they both have really passionate people playing the best music to people who appreciate it. It’s a shame there aren’t more places like this, their other closest affiliates are Optimo in Glasgow and the DFA mob in NYC. Our Disco aren’t as well-known as these two organisations, but this deserves to change.
The general theme of quality clubs this year seemed to be a DIY enthusiasm – clubs run by music fans rather than in-it-for-the-money professional promoters, and, running on from that, excitingly eclectic musical policies. Our Disco and Trash have this, but even more so did the New Cross-based Fear of Music night and Adventures Close to Home in Camden.
Fear Of Music
Fear of Music was always going to be special because of its venue, The Montague Arms, one of London’s greatest pubs. Formerly owned by a taxidermist, it’s one of those treasure-trove places where the walls are crammed full of strange objects, ranging from animal heads to rowing boats and pirate flags. To add to the unique atmosphere the staff are all 70 if they’re a day. Ian, Wil, Leaf, Laurie and Saam ran the monthly night with a refreshingly down-to-earth passion, putting on live bands on the tiny Montague stage and DJing a mixture of electro, indie rock and rave classics which incited a busy, sweaty dancefloor. Over the past two years, they’ve had acts such as Clor, Lady Sovereign, Ladyfuzz and DFA 1979 playing live, and the likes of Rory Phillips, Soul Jazz and the Gucci Soundsystem as guest DJs. The crowd were a great mixture of people, presumably a number of nearby Goldsmiths’ students, everyone looking great, and behaving like an unpretentious crowd having a drunken party in a pub, which is what it was. Ian and Wil are off travelling so the night finishes at the end of the year, but Leaf and Laurie will be starting up a new, similar night next year. Let’s hope they can continue that mixture of cool people, underground party music and being served beer by your grandmother standing next to a stuffed animal head.
Adventures Close to Home
Another monthly night, spiritually similar to Fear of Music, but held in the Camden Barfly, which has a separate upstairs room for the two live bands they had every month, while DJs play downstairs. ACTH founders Choaf and Ill Will showed spot-on A&R skills throughout the year in booking bands, always seeming to book the people that a few months later were the buzz bands of the moment. Just recently they’ve had Larrikin Love, Panico, Plan B and Jamie Lidell, while they’ve got The Rakes playing their Christmas party. The DJing policy is similarly open-minded and veered from the latest guitar bands, electro and small doses of pretty much else you can think of. With such outstanding line-ups, the live bands felt the main focus, but once they’d finished the clued-up Camden crowd would drift downstairs and dance the rest of the night away. A great place to see the best new bands in an intimate setting.
Inside Out
Basement Jaxx, or rather Felix Buxton (Simon Ratcliffe rarely made an appearance) and Graeme Sinden put on a new club, Inside Out, at the Jamm pub in Brixton. It was unsurprisingly great fun, although didn’t feel quite as special as their previous clubs, partly because some of the house music played felt a bit pedestrian, and at 2.30 it turned into a slightly dull Jungle rinse-out. Graeme Sinden was a great find though, playing the sort of warm-up sets you’d expect to hear from Diplo. You’d hear the latest hip hop, dancehall, reggaeton, grime and anything else he felt like, while he occasionally dropped unreleased sonic bombs from his friend, Dave Taylor, better known as Switch and Solid Groove.
Trash
See the Rock section.
Live Gigs
One of the perennial problems of electronic music played live is the lack of showmanship. And the fact that it’s much more fun watching someone play an instrument that they can walk around with. Jamie Lidell solved both these problems with his outstandingly exciting live shows this year by being a showman, and making himself the instrument.
Usually wearing a wonderfully eccentric outfit, he built up the soundtrack with his own voice and liberal use of a sampler (and keyboards to sometimes bulk things up). He’d begin by beat boxing into the mic and looping that up to create a drum track, then hum a melody or two, sample and loop, add effects as necessary and then sing lyrics with his spine-tingling voice over the top. It meant that every show was slightly different and it was impossible not to be dazzled by the creativity of it.
He was also fortunate to be able to call on so much strong material from his album, ‘Multiply’, this year, although the songs played live often bore only the most skeletal of resemblances to the recorded versions. And the whole thing was set off by some great video visuals projected by his long-term collaborator, Pablo Fiasco. There is truly nobody else around like Lidell, and this is one of the great shows on earth right now.
Lil’ Jon came over from Atlanta for his first ever UK gig in January and while crunk just doesn’t have any of the same resonance as in the US where it’s best-selling chart music, he showed what a good hip hop show ought to be like. The concert went on for ages, with the great man passing bottles of tequila around the crowd, bringing his impressive protégé, Pitbull, along with him and generally hyping the crowd for hours with his preposterous but wonderful trademark yelps and growls.
Arcade Fire at the Astoria was quite sensational, a display of a really powerful, theatrical live performance, the perfect complement to their wonderful music. Panico came over from Paris for the first time, and were one of the tightest outfits around, only loosened by their lead-singer who prances around like a court jester and sings like a loon. They’re one of those bands at the moment who sound so good live but mostly can’t quite recreate it on record. And O Fracas and The Long Blondes played short sets confirming that a) they’re good live bets and b) they’re going to be massive.
The world of camp Norwegian metallers Turbonegro is a weird and wonderful one and you don’t have to be familiar with their music to enjoy the extraordinary performance that is their live show. You have to love any band that inspires such devotion it has a worldwide fanclub (the Turbojugend) who sport denim jackets with their regional chapter on the back. Turbonegro all look amazing, have a bunch of ridiculously catchy songs with absurd choruses to sing along to, and a lead singer who is a born showman with terrific inter-song banter. Ultimately, musically and lyrically, it’s tongue-in-cheek metal, but this band are everything that The Darkness ought to be, and pure rock n roll entertainment.
Gigs that were regrettably missed but are particularly worthy of note, are the Noisettes, Coachwhips and Les Georges Leningrad at Trash which were described as ‘literally riotous’, Soulwax Nite Versions and of course any Arctic Monkeys shows.
J) THE TUNES
As with last year, The ‘Nick Hornby High Fidelity heaven’ that the i-Pod has created means it feels ever more appropriate to finish with a gratuitously large list of tunes of the year. So with what feels like admirable restraint here are fifteen big tunes that deservedly made big waves, thirty that didn’t but should have, and two lists of albums.
The Anthems
Amerie – 1 Thing
Damian Marley – Welcome to Jamrock
LCD – Daft Punk is Playing in my House
Switch – A Bit Patchy
Ying Yang Twinz – Wait (Whisper Song)
Les Visiteurs – Snoop’s Acid Drop
Sebastian Tellier – La Ritournelle
Elephant Man – Willie Bounce
Three Six Mafia – Stay Fly
Sherwayne Winchester – Dead or Alive
Danny Weed – Shank Riddim (Wiley Remix)
Tomas Andersson – Washing Machine (Tiga Remix)
Arctic Monkeys – Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor
Skream – Request Line
Annie – Heartbeat (Alan Braxe remix)
Thirty Tracks You Need to Hear
O Fracas – What Jim Hears
Scout Niblett – Kidnapped by Neptune
The Noisettes – Don’t Give Up
NYPC – Jerk Me/The Get Go
The Long Blondes – At the Movies
Dan Sartain – PCB ‘98
Patrick Wolf – Tristan
Jamie Lidell – When I Come Back Around
DFA 1979 – Black History Month (Braxe/Falke remix)
Benjamin Theves – Texas
Justice – Waters of Nazareth
Nathan Fake – Undoing the Laces
Chaton & Hopen – Life Is Wonders
Hothandz – Hothandz Volume 1
Sunship – Almighty Father (Switch remix)
Missy Elliott – Can’t Stop
Paul Wall – Sittin Sideways (S&C)
GA Girls – Georgia Girls
5th Ward Weebie – I’m Fuckin
Trillville – Some Cut
Imp Batch – Gype Riddim
Northern Lights – Wrong Number
Vybz Kartel – Crime Minister
Macka Diamond – Mi Nuh Dun
Richie Spice – Youths Are So Cold
I Wayne – Living in Love
Iwer George – Ease the Tension
Beat Fanatic – Amanhanga
Dizzee Rascal – Off 2 Work
Yoshimoto – Du What U Du (Trentemoller Remix)
Ten Essential Albums
Zilla – Reasonable Radio/Grinted Teeth & Brawlsville Mixes
Scout Niblett – Kidnapped by Neptune
Coachwhips – Peanut Butter & Jelly Live from the Ginger Minge
Daedelus – Exquisite Corpse
Last Logan Sama Rinse FM set
Optimo – How to Kill the DJ Vol.2 (+ Psyche Out and website mixes)
DJ Nuts – Cultura Copia
Damage Control Radio – Various
LCD Soundsystem – LCD Soundsystem
Arcade Fire – Funeral
Ten Quality Albums to hear
Diplo – Favela Strikes Back/XFM/6 Mix/Fabric/T5 Soul Sessions etc
Radio Soulwax – Essential Mix 2.1.05
DJ Shadow – Funky Skunk
Patrick Wolf – Wind Beneath the Wires
Jamie Lidell – Multiply
Skream – August 2005 Mix
Disco D – Funk Flava 2005 (Mix booty/baile/ghetto/b-more album)
DJ Sujinho – I Love Baile Funk
Various Artists – Before there was Crunk
Dan Sartain – Dan Sartain vs The Serpientes
N.B. As stated at the start of this piece, there is far too much music out there to be able to catch everything. Please forgive any obvious omissions.
Posted by grlla 
Posted by grlla 
Posted by grlla 