The Month In: Techno
The Month In by Philip Sherburne
January 16, 2008
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/artic...month-in-techno
It's time, finally, to wrap up last year in house and techno. I've been working and reworking my year-end list since early December, recalibrating as per my shifting moods and last-minute revelations. The December slowdown in new releases lent itself to spending time with yearlong favorites and neglected records alike, and a visit home gave me the opportunity to sift through boxes of CDs stored in my family's basement, reconnecting with forgotten masterpieces and, crucially, more non-techno than I probably listened to in all the 11 preceding months put together. No doubt that reset influenced my selection; in putting together my list I found myself favoring the "musical" over the tracky, the eccentric over the determinedly functionalist.
Granted, not all "dance" tracks are created equal. The most interesting songs to write about are not always those that work best on the floor. As a writer my tastes often run towards oddball, one-of-a-kind compositions that have their merry way with the rules of the form; as a DJ, I have a profound respect for those focused crowdpleasers so adept at commanding asses that they practically create new archetypes for the genre. At their best, the tracks we sometimes disparagingly call "tools" can be absolutely transcendent, as "musical" as the most convoluted chord change.
What follows is a list of the 10 house and techno tracks I considered most important this year, for their own individual brilliance and, often, for the way they encapsulated the essence of "the scene" in 2007. Dance music, like any vibrant genre, is a kind of conversation, and these were the tunes I heard speaking most eloquently.
I said "10 tracks," but I've actually bent the rules in the cases of Ricardo Villalobos and Radio Slave, for whom I present three selections each. Both are so productive, so consistent and so focused upon their singular paths that no single cut adequately represents them.
Following, I've appended an alphabetical list of runners-up, 50 songs long. It's no less arbitrary than a number less round, and tabulators accustomed to the rigidity of top-10 lists may find the number excessive. But all the tracks included blew my mind on a regular basis in 2007, and most found their way into my DJ sets with regularity, and remain there. In terms of release dates, the only fudge is Kalabrese's "Auf dem Hof (Ludron Dub)," which technically came out in December 2006; that's close enough to 2007 for me. I'm sure there are a few I've forgotten to include, but to my mind, the list sums up what I consider the best tendencies in house and techno for 2007. May 2008 be so fertile.
1. Nôze: "Remember Love" [My Best Friend]
The top slot has to go to this song, if only because no other track came anywhere near giving me this much pleasure this year. Propulsive piano chords, barroom romance, copious shuffle, organ solo, weird French accents, a riff ripped from Technotronic: what doesn't this song have? Plus, best closing-time singalong ever.
2. Dave Aju and the Invisible Art Trio: "Be Like the Sun" [Circus Company]
Hearing the Wighnomy Brothers play it early in their outdoor set at MUTEK was one of the musical highlights of my year, and seven months of playing it out have, if anything, only deepened my appreciation for this oddball house anthem from the Bay Area's Dave Aju. This, to me, is everything that dance music should be: linear and focused in the groove department; hooky without choking on its own riffs; and sonically eccentric as all get-out. Those trumpet blasts are the icing on the cake.
3. Junior Boys: "Like a Child (Carl Craig Remix)" [Domino]
It took me forever to get used to the way that Junior Boys' vocals and Carl Craig's synth additions seemed to be in entirely different keys, but now I couldn't hear the two together as anything less than inevitable. Craig at his most elegant.
4. Shackleton: "Blood On My Hands (Ricardo Villalobos Apocalypso Now Remix)" [Skull Disco]
Innersphere aka Shinedoe: "Phunk (Ricardo Villalobos Remix)" [Intacto]
Chica and the Folder: "Angelus Novus (Ricardo Villalobos Remix)" [Monika Enterprise]
Keeping up with Villalobos felt like a full-time job in 2007 (good work if you can get it!). These three remixes saw him at the height of his powers, carving out lean, elliptical rhythms and infusing them with a dark melodic sensibility, spitting color like an oil slick on fire.
5. Supermayer: "The Art of Letting Go (Ewan's Art of Getting Low Remix)" [Kompakt]
Ewan Pearson closed out a ridiculously good year-- releasing both one of the year's best mix CDs, Fabric 35, and also a double-CD compilation of his remixes-- with this out-of-nowhere mindfuck of a remix for Superpitcher and Michael Mayer's Supermayer project. Favoring Radio Slave-styled builds, he digs into a lithe, percussive groove and discards the original's wonky funk, preserving only a few unhinged shouts and a strange, major-key bridge to remind you that this ain't just another minimal track. The best thing about Pearson? Whatever he does, he does with gusto.
6. Argy: "1985 (Jerome Sydenham & Rune Remix)" [Liebe*Detail]
If this was the year that house made a triumphant return, no one did it better than Jerome Sydenham and Rune on their remix of Argy's tracky, insistent "1985", whipping his chords into weightless tufts and layering billowing vocals atop it all. It's not unlike the Field's approach to blissed-out trance-- but done with chops, groove and soul.
7. Mr. G: "U Askin'?" [Rekids]
I'm not sure that there's another song I played out more than this one this year. The chunky Latin beat, which felt like a chopped and screwed version of breakbeat hardcore, proved the perfect diversion from clean, regulated minimalism, while the vocal sample, with its peculiar downward fillip, tempered the track's rave overload with matter-of-fact melancholy.
8. DJ Koze: "Cicely" [Philpot]
Borrowing a title from the Cocteau Twins, DJ Koze gives us his most sensitive music ever, with a track the color and texture of the dust off a butterfly's wings.
9. UNKLE: "Burn My Shadow (Radio Slave Remix)" [white label/Surrender All]
Radio Slave: "Bell Clap Dance" [Rekids]
Radio Slave: "No Sleep (Part Three)" [Rekids]
Like several other of our finalists, Radio Slave, aka Matt Edwards, turned out more than his fair share of standout material this year, and if at times it felt like his approach to remixing verged on the formulaic, who could complain, given his talent for crunching numbers. (He even made Armand Van Helden sound good, fer chrissakes.) Add to the above list fine remixes for Deetron feat. DJ Bone ("Life Soundtrack") and Trentemøller ("Moan") and his own "Screaming Hands", and you've got one hell of a track record for 12 months' time. "No Sleep (Part Three)" is essentially a percussive edit of Herbie Hancock's "Nobu", but it's nonetheless one of the year's most out-there bangers. "Bell Clap Dance" and his remix for UNKLE's "Burn My Shadow"-- featuring, improbably, the Cult's Ian Astbury-- proved that no one can touch Edwards when it comes to epic grandeur.
10. My My: "Fast Freeze" [Cocoon]
At a time when so much dance music pledges unwavering allegiance to a particular methodology-- resolutely digital minimalism, staunchly analog deep techno-- and the riffage that passes for a hook is so interchangeable, it might as well come from a sample pack, My My forge a unique path, declining even to make two songs that sound terribly alike, but without falling into messy eclecticism. "Fast Freeze" combines sampled drums, highly controlled synth work and a bank of sampled sounds (voices, strings, vamps) into a garden of forking paths begging to be followed. It doesn't hurt that the group's grasp of melody, harmony and tone color is all but unparalleled in contemporary electronic music.
1. Âme: "Fiori" [Ostgut Tön]
2. Roland Appel: "Dark Soldier" [Sonar Kollektiv]
3. Animal Collective: "Peacebone (Pantha du Prince Remix)" [Domino]
4. Black Strobe: "I'm a Man (Audion's Donation Mix)" [Playlouder]
5. The Cheapers: "Fog" [Upon You]
6. Cobblestone Jazz: "Put Da Lime in Da Coconut" [Wagon Repair]
7. Dapayk & Padberg: "Black Beauty" [Mo's Ferry]
8. Cio D'or: "Psst!" [Motoguzzi]
9. dOP: "Allo Boom Boom" [Circus Company]
10. Jan Driver: "Trains" [Grand Petrol]
11. Dusty Kid: "Kore" [Boxer]
12. Each: "Sunrise (Minilogue Remix)" [Out of Orbit]
13. Efdemin: "Acid Bells" [Curle]
14. Len Faki: "Mekong Delta" [Ostgut Tonträger]
15. Len Faki: "My Black Sheep" [Podium]
16. Ernesto Ferreyra: "The Last Shooter" [Cynosure]
17. Hauke Freer: "My Beat" [Real Soon]
18. Mr. G: "The Subbie" [unreleased]
19. Stefan Goldmann: "Lunatic Fringe" [Macro]
20. Pär Grindvik: "World of Mine" [Truesoul]
21. Ink & Needle: "Tattoo Five" [Tattoo]
22. Petre Inspirescu: "Racakadoom" [Cadenza]
23. Petre Inspirescu: "Sakadat" [Vinyl Club Family]
24. Etienne Jaume: "Repeat Again After Me" [Versatile]
25. Kabale und Liebe & Daniel Sanchez: "Mumbling Yeah" [Area Remote]
26. Kalabrese: "Auf Dem Hof (Ludron Dub)" [Stattmusik]
27. Larsson: "Off Voices" [Bpitch Control]
28. Legowelt: "Disco Rout (Deetron Remix)" [Cocoon]
29. Jamie Lloyd: "What We Have (…Is A Zwicker Remix)" [Future Classic]
30. Lontano: "Black Flower" [Factor City]
31. Luciano: "Drunken Ballet" [Ostgut Tonträger]
32. Luciano: "Fourges et Sabres" [Perlon]
33. The Martinez Brothers: "My Rendition" [Objektivity]
34. Minilogue: "Orglar A" [Minilogue]
35. James Mowbray & Leiam Sullivan: "Tropical Heights (Ink & Needle Cut Edit)" [Four:Twenty]
36. nsi.: "Dual" [Non Standard Productions]
37. Onur Özer: "Red Cabaret" [Vakant]
38. Osborne: "Outta Sight" [Spectral]
39. Phage: "Six of a Kind" [Upon You]
40. Phage & Daniel Dreier: "Elevator" [BAR25]
41. Pheek: "Orange Solaire (Tim Xavier Remix)" [Archipel]
42. Bruno Pronsato: "At Home I'm a Tourist" [Hello?Repeat]
43. Mikael Stavöstrand: "Q Fresa" [Sushitech]
44. Superpitcher: "Lick the Pipe" [Kompakt Extra]
45. Tadeo: "Reflection Nebula 056n" [Apnea]
46. Tiger Stripes: "Hooked" [Liebe*Detail]
47. Cortney Tidwell: "Don't Let Stars Keep Us Tangled Up (Ewan Pearson's Objects in Space Mix)" [!K7]
48. Ulysse: "Sometimes" [Liebe*Detail]
49. Ricardo Villalobos: "Primer Encuentro Latino Americano" [Sei Es Drum/Fabric]
50. Eve White: "The Trail" [Contentismissing]
Philip Sherburne: http://phs.abstractdynamics.org/
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