***INTERMISSION***

Normal service will resume with Weeks Seven & Eight essential purchases rolled up into a bumper posting next week.

In the meantime here's a classic from Spandau Ballet.

As you were.

Week Six: The Essential Purchase

Here we are at week six of the year (already!!?!!?) and I've sold more records than I've actually bought. Wow. In fact I've probably spent so far in 6 weeks on records what I used to spend in a week. Wow.

Anyways there appears to be a veritable treasure trove of good music out this week so without further ado let's have a little rummage around.

First things first there is of course the new single from They Came From The Stars I Saw Them out on black plastic this week. The new Moon Song 12" features not only the album version but also a remix from Serge Santiago (he used to be in Radio Slave, has remixed Goldfrapp and Hercules & Love Affair, and also runs the rather excellent Arcobaleno Records) called "Serge Santiago's Totally Different Mix". There is also a remix from Norway's finest disco export Mungolian Jetset called entertainingly "The Gospel According To Mung 2012 Live At The Hacienda Version" which means that either in 3 years time the block of flats on the Hacienda site will have been knocked down and the ghost of Tony Wilson will have resurrected a nightclub that plays music of the past and the future. Or Pal from Mungolian Jetset plans on moving into a Hacienda flat in a few years time once he's saved up. Anyway there should be some sort of launch party in a flat in the Hacienda. I even had a little look to see if it was possible.

http://www.0161lettings.co.uk/manchester-flats/the-hacienda.php

See. You probably didn't believe me. Anyways they wouldn't let me rent it out for just one month. We could have had Mungolian Jetset vs. They Came From The Stars I Saw Them MOON SONG parties 30 days in a row!! Imagine that.

Anyways you can buy it from your local record shop. Whether that be one of the few remaining ones on the ghost town that is the high street (like Rough Trade) or via one of those new fangled online retailers. Like Juno.

http://www.juno.co.uk/ppps/products/336403-01.htm

Owing to the fact that I already have a copy of the Moon Song 12" I instead will be buying a copy of this little beauty from BIG NED on Optimo Music. The Optimo.Singles.ClubAnd.Related.Recordings or OSCARR appears to have ended and replaced with Optimo Music and this is the first release. It doesn't take much to sell this to me. Optimo have the best taste in music in the world BAR NONE and thus you know you need this single. There's only 500 of them IN THE WORLD and it sounds like David Lynch jamming with Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds in the dirty basement of the black lodge. Proper raw this is. Grab a whisky and sit back.

Available at Rough Trade:

http://www.roughtrade.com/site/shop_detail.lasso?search_type=sku&sku=309411

Previews at Myspace:

http://www.myspace.com/bignedwantsyou

Also out this week and worth having a listen to is the new 12" from Mike Simmonetti's cooler than cool Italians Do It Better label. It's a new artist by the name of BOTTIN and is called No Static. There are 750 of these 12s pressed and if you want a piece of black plastic for gliding round your warehouse apartment to in a slo-mo-italo-groovy-disco fashion then this will probably float your boat more than the SCARY Big Ned.

Available here:

http://www.roughtrade.com/site/shop_detail.lasso?search_type=sku&sku=310360

Preview it here:

http://www.myspace.com/bottinski

In other news Detachments are playing the Proud Galleries this Thursday evening which should be a rather glorious evening of live music. We have a special £4 concessions list for this event so if you want to come along and catch the band just let use know via email / facebook / myspace. Detachments are onstage around 9pm.

Over and out.

AA47

Oh and my tip for record you should not even consider buying? This thing called AA247. I watched the video on youtube and was astounded at how bad this is to say how much hype it has had.

Seriously this will be 50p on ebay in about 3 months. A novelty piece of crap. Save you money folks and buy something deserving of your hard earned.

Don't believe the hype!

Week Five: The Essential Purchase

This week I am so busy I'm not sure I have time to figure out what to buy. This is what is on my consideration list this weekend:

No image!

Sideshow - If Alone (Chateau Flight Remixes / Appleblim & Kozmonazmuk Remix) (Aus) 12"

The Appleblim & Kozmonazmuk Remix has been getting some major support - and backed up with two Chateau Flight Remixes this looks like good value for money!

No image!

Cage & Aviary - Television Train (DFA) 12"

For those that didn't get Television Train when it came out on Dissident a while back then snap this up without fail. One of the best things to come out on Dissident and now comes with new track Suburban. I may well buy Suburban on an mp3 though seeing as I've already got Television Train though.

Speaking of Dissident the new 12" from The Niallist is also on my list. Previews over at the myspace page.

www.myspace.com/theniallist

I think that's it. I might also buy The Village Orchestra 12" with the 2562 remix but need to properly check that out. Or maybe I'll just listen to some Ministry all weekend.

I'll be checking all these out this weekend. I'll write some more interesting things soon - honest.

*****INTERMISSION********

Week Four: The Essential Purchase

So we reach week four and what have we got? Not much from sifting through the new release pages on the usual suspects.

There is though Detachments digital download single MESSAGES which is now available to buy from the usual digital stores. Produced by Trevor Jackson. xfm have played it repeatedly the past few weeks. Worth your 79p on itunes!

Apart from that Phonica said it was back to busy times with loads of good stuff this week. I've had a look at what they've been talking about but the main two things are the House Of House 12" and the Food Of The Gods 12". I bought the Food Of The Gods back in November though so it's not exactly new. There's a shedload of edit 12"s out this week. All I say to that is FOR F8CKS sake is that what new releases have been reduced to? A bunch of tracks repressed with a new intro added (well done CTRL Z CTRL Z CTRL Z extended intro). You're not a record label! It's just bootlegging!

Anyway I purchased the House of House 12" to catch up as I missed that the other week. A classic in the making (at over £10 I feel kinda ripped off though).

The lesson this week? Make your own music.

Week Three: The Essential Purchase

So, here we are. Week three and so far I've bought two pieces of music so far this year which is quite impressive. Unfortunately I recommended the Factory Communications 1978-1992 CD compilation last week and typically it's been delayed. So Rhino are still awaiting finished stock. Bah. I should have bought the House Of House 12". Anyways - what have we got this week...?

Salem - Water EP (Merok) 7"

One of the most interesting bands to appear over the past 12 months is Salem who I have obviously written about before singing their praises. This week the Water EP was brought to attention by my friends over at 20jazzfunkgreats so made my decision of whether to get the House Of House 12" or the Salem 7" is the quandry I am now in. THIS IS TRICKY. I'm in week 3 and already I want to buy two releases.

There are a few other things of interest too out this week: Runaway's Alberg 30 on Chinatown is a 12" maybe worth considering....

There is also this. A compilation of music from Dario Argento's films including tracks from Goblin, Ennio Morricone, Claudio Simonetti, Keith Emerson and Signor Wolf.

http://www.juno.co.uk/ppps/products/340349-01.htm

A rather marvellous compilation no less but the limited nature of Salem and House Of House vinyl releases they are the ones that will no doubt form the basis of a decision. Hmmmmmm.

***5 minutes of thinking***

I've bought the Salem 7".

http://merok.bigcartel.com/product/salem-water-ep-pre-order

I've just realised that the Salem release is a pre-order. DAMMIT. This means yet again I've ordered something that hasn't come out yet.

Anyways in other Salem news Heather from Salem has contributed vocals to the Detachments album Thisisnotanexit is putting out later this year. It sounds beautifully dark and doomed and beautiful. You'll have to wait until the Autumn to hear it though.

Anyway, hopefully there'll be some House Of House 12"s left next week. The Telepathe album DANCE MOTHER is also supposed to be out soon too. Hopefully not on vinyl next week.

This isn't as easy as I thought it would be.

WEEK TWO: THE ESSENTIAL PURCHASE

So. The burning question is what did I buy last week? I ended up buying the Nite Jewel LP in the end as I reckon that's the release I'll still be listening to in 5 years time.

I've also heard some of the Fever Ray album from a preview a friend gave me and by god it's good. I cannot wait for that to come out. If you're a fan of the knife then you're not going to be disappointed. Anyways roll on that coming out on vinyl.

This weeks music choice is VERY difficult.

First up is the debut release from HOUSE OF HOUSE on Whatever We Want from New York. This is the new project from Oliver Spencer and Saheer Umar and is rapidly gaining plays after a sneaky video preview appeared of Harvey playing it - you can check it out here:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/HOUSE-OF-HOUSE/34267683965?ref=nf

Liv is part of Still Going who are signed to DFA and released the mighty piano epic STILL GOING THEME a while back (you know the one - pianos, a hint of melancholy, sounds amazing at 3am in a dark club with your friends around you...) so you know this is big. We had talked to House Of House about a remix for Thisisnotanexit but it wasn't to be.

Anyways you can get a copy of this massive vocalled disco track on 12" from No Ordinary Monkey in the US.

http://www.noordinarymonkey.com/stuff.html



The other choice is the new Factory Records boxset that was supposed to come out on the 12th but has now gone back to the 19th. Anyways - 10,000 copies produced, the first 100 get a roll of Factory tape (yes I am Factory obsessed enough to want this), 4 x cds featuring everything from Joy Division through to New Order to Happy Mondays....for £29.99. Bargain. Start your musical education here people.

http://www.rhino.co.uk/rhino-store/products,factory-records-communications-19781992-4cd_2576.htm

Anyways I ordered this over the House Of House 12"as I mentioned above that the first 100 get a roll of Factory tape (FAC 136). I'll get the House Of House 12" next week I reckon.

And for those of a digital persuasion check out the new track from SPECTRAL EMPIRE called LIFE AFTER FUTURE coming soon on Thisisnotanexit. A Sheffield bleep classic in the making? The b-side will be the stunning Chateau Flight Remix of Innerfearence. Wow.

http://www.myspace.com/spectralempire

Keep believing.

Fever Ray - If I Had A Heart

WEEK ONE: THE ESSENTIAL PURCHASE

Week One.

So here we are - I have a crisp £10 ready to spend on a record, cd or mp3. Just one mind. Every week from here on in its just one purchase a week in a bid to not only save my wallet but appreciate music a bit more as well as hopefully highlighting some new and interesting acts, producers and labels. So here we go...this is what most took my eye in one of the quietest weeks for music releases of the year....

Spatial - Infra001 EP (Infrasonics) 12"

Here's the blurb from the Piccadilly Records website: With a debut EP boasting two journeys into rumbling, echoing, haunted dancehall minimalism, each known by a five-figure code number rather than a name, low frequency newcomer Spatial is one of a growing band of post-Burial producers whose attention to evocative detail in their music is as great as their reluctance to self-promote. In some hands this anti-stance could be massaged into an attention-diverting image in itself, but Spatial makes a compelling case for the virtues of less versus more and may well have produced one of 2009's most essential dubstep releases, right at the start of the year. Joe Muggs' review in The Wire tells it like this: '[2008's] clearest trend in dubstep is 'future garage', a technologically-enhanced re-imagining of the sound's 2-step origins by Martyn, 2562, Ramadanman & co. On his debut productions, Londoner Spatial could have risked simply reworking this new formula: the microhouse clicks, Basic Channel washes and clean subs are certainly present and correct. However his understanding of original UK garage's clipped shuffle, snappy woodblock hits and compressed emotion goes way beyond pastiche, and the incorporation of older rave elements like "80723"'s Detroit strings and riffs and "80207"'s contrast between cushioning alto vocal samples and sharp stabs creates a distinctive sound world. Most of all, though, it's the expert manipulation of space to give a sense of buoyancy, of loosened gravity, that make stepping inside these four tracks so inviting."

A limited edition 12" of 500 copies? Mentions of fusing dubstep with Detroit? I'm certainly interested. And it's got a cool sleeve.

You can listen to streams of the tracks here:

http://thefuturist.se/2008/12/31/the-futurist%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%98best-of-2008%e2%80%b2-part-2/

Let's see what else there is...

Fever Ray - If I Had A Heart (Rabid) Digital only

The first solo release from Karin Dreijer Andersson who sings with THE KNIFE sounds like the opening credits to a new David Lynch production. In fact if this was on the Inland Empire soundtrack it wouldn't surprise me (it's not stupid).

The debut album is out on March 23rd. Hopefully it'll be on vinyl.

http://www.myspace.com/feverray

If this was on a 7" or 12" it would be an instant purchase. Unfortunately there is something very depressing about just buying an mp3.

There is also the new Animal Collective album out this week which has been receiving lots of hype and chatter as it sounds alot more focused and like the Panda Bear album which came out. From the soundclips it just sounds too a bit too summery for the current arctic conditions here in London.

My other option would be to pick up the Nite Jewel album I've been meaning to buy for the past few weeks. I bought her cd directly from her a while ago and she has released a 12" on Italians Do It Better but this is the LP on Gloriette. 10 tracks of downtempo female vocalled (one l or two?) electronics taking in Kate Bush amongst other influences.

http://www.myspace.com/nitejewel

Hmmmmm. Not sure what to do. A bit of futuristic detroit inspired dubstep, the nite jewel LP or an mp3 from the singer from one of my favourite bands of the past few years....I'll have a nap and see what I feel like later on I think. Maybe something else will just pop and solve this quandry for me.

A happy new year to you all! Now the festivity and fun of the Christmas party season is over it's a rather despondent time as the realities of what 2009 really holds in store are considered. For the first time in my life it feels as though friends and peers are looking at what they spend and thinking about whether they actually need it or if it is just a piece of plastic - re-reading The Society Of The Spectacle it certainly strikes a chord. We are but spectators within a consumerist nightmare. I sit and look at my record collection and wonder "Do I really need this?" (Generally the answer is YES but I do wonder about some of the things I've purchased over the years! The majority of those are now listed on Discogs though).

It is therefore that I have decided that in 2009 gone are the days of walking into a record shop and blindly spending £50 on the latest hot tracks. Anything I now buy needs to be of substance, hold my attention for longer than 7 days, be more than just a record that I'm bored of VERY quickly. Disposability is at the bottom of my list. As Malcolm McLaren recently said "We are moving from a culture of desire to a culture of necessity". I am therefore going to buy just 1 piece of music a week - whether that be new or old, an mp3 or a 12", a 10" or a deluxe gatefold boxset. This will hopefully allow me to appreciate what I buy more, and hopefully be more considered with my purchasing. I remember saving up for my Michael Jackson Thriller cassette for WEEKS before excitedly buying it (and then wearing it out over 6 months with repeated listens). It will also allow me to spend more on a well put together more expensive purchase (Isomorph or the Portishead Third Boxset for example) than just a load of disco edits.

Thisisnotanexit Records will also be emerging in a new form in 2009 too with a bigger focus on developing highly limited but beautifully put together pieces of music. Say NO to generic run of the mill ideas. Say YES to innovation and labels trying something different. Now is the time to reappraise the underground - the resistance! Look at Pure Groove - they only stock 100 different records at a time and are those that they feel are highly interesting. Support this type of thinking! Racks of minimal house is BORING!

So next week is week one of 2009. I await Mondays new releases with a mixture of trepadation and excitement - join me as I try and develop a bigger appreciation of music purchasing and those artists and producers doing something different.

Reject the majors. Embrace the independents. Everything is permitted!

Gavin Russom

I've always been a fan of Gavin Russom's work since he appeared on the scene with Delia as DELIA & GAVIN back in 2003 on DFA with the El Monte / Rise 12". In fact that, The Days of Mars LP and the Black Leotard Front - Casual Friday 12" have never left my record box since I got them. Deep twisting electronic music of the highest order. In fact the Days Of Mars LP is probably the reason we've released the Brain Machine LP as its the closed in musical terms to the Delia & Gavin sound recently. I remember seeing Delia & Gavin play to a tent of only a hundred or so people at around 5am at Benicassim a few years ago - the crowd were just waiting for a kick drum to emerge from the whirlwinds of synths that steadily built in momentum and intensity. But it never came. I heard that once they gave in and dropped a kick drum and the venue they were playing practically exploded. That may well have been their last gig together. Who knows. Like Donnie Darko a worm hole could have opened at precisely the point the kick drums first hit the speakers.

Anyways I am unsure of Delia's whereabouts but Gavin Russom has emerged again recently after some hard drive disasters (mental note - I need to back up my hard drive) with a new project for DFA called Black Meteoric Star. Two works have emerged mainly via the DFA filter that is Tim Sweeneys Beats In Space show (mental note - why does Tim never play Thisisnotanexit Records? Bah) called DEATH TUNNEL and WORLD EATER. Both 15 minute epic dancefloor destroyers that has seen Gavins relocation to Berlin (the other side of the wormhole?) discover the kick drums that have now emerged in the Black Meteoric Star sound. Maybe Delia is a drum machine. Head to the Beatsinspace archive if you want to discover their sound - a little searching and a little work and you will be rewarded.

Gavin though has recently emerged as a remixer of the highest order as he has remixed Berlin band PALMS (which I heard him play at a small club in East London and sounds like that really wild Killing Joke Floating Like A Leaf Remix that I can't remember the name of...). I'm not sure when this is coming out but mark it on your list of records to hunt out as it is rather special.

The other work is the Gavin Russom Remix of Peter Dundov which emerged last week on Music Man. On white 12" vinyl in a clear plastic sleeve with printed artwork it sure looks nice - and dam if it isn't one of the best things I've heard in ages. In fact I've stopped buying records recently (well the odd one here and there - the ones that stop you in your tracks - the classics - the goose bump ones - not the mountains and mountains and mountains of edits that appear to make up the new release section now) and this is worth every penny I spent on it. In fact it will probably be in my record box for the next few years. Absolutely IMMENSE it is. 14 minutes of twists turns and pure twisted electronic genius. I told my mate MOSCOW to buy a copy and he literally got on his bike and cycled into town to buy a copy as he was that blown away by it.

Anyways search it out. Its the record you should definitely buy this week if nothing else. Think of it as a little Christmas present for yourself.

As an aside I remember that there was supposed to be a follow up to Black Leotard Fronts 'Casual Friday' called Hey Coach. In fact I'm sure I saw James Murphy DJ and he played it. This might be a lie. Or a dream though.

I can't find my Claro Intelecto 12"

2008 in review...

I was going to write some thoughts about 2008 and whats happened musically but then my mate Kiran Sande from FACT Magazine went and wrote something a whole lot better than I could ever manage. So here it is cut and pasted from the FACT Magazine website. I'm not claiming this in any way but thought it was an interesting read. Enjoy.

2008: Put a donk on it....

What was 2008 all about? What does it boil down to? The global financial crash? America electing their first ever black President? Burial being unmasked? By its very nature, history, however recent, is a formless mess; we humans impose order and teleology on it to stop ourselves going mental. The past is, at best, a sub-Burroughsian cut-up, a jumble of phrases and sentence fragments with the occasional unifying flourish. There’s no grand narrative, no through-line that we can draw from Mark E. Smith killing a couple of red squirrels to Sam Taylor-Wood releasing a single on Kompakt and ‘Put A Donk On It’ clocking up a million YouTube views. Or is there?

Status update: since the turn of the century, the fate of music has been inextricably linked with the evolution and convolutions of the internet. Recording, production, distribution, publishing, marketing, listening, copying, pirating: these are all activities that have been revolutionized, rotted or reinvigorated in the era of Web 2.5. Our day-to-day relationship with music is no longer passive. These days we’re all getting involved, all giving our tuppence-worth: not only listening to music, but blogging about it, remixing it on our cracked copy of Reason, rubbishing or recommending it to our mates on Facebook.
Perhaps the most significant ‘net trend of ‘08 has been the ubiquity of the album-sharing blog. Such sites are often harmless, even helpful, to an artist: as on “sharity” blogs, which bring hard-to-find or out-of-print records to an audience they might never have otherwise found. But then there are the other kind: those sites which leak albums far ahead of their release date, sometimes even before they’ve been completed. “Making music is no longer a way to make a living,” declared Morgan Geist’s when his Double Night Time turned up on a blog a whole three months before it was due out. Deerhunter’s Weird Era Cont and embryonic Atlas Sound tracks were pilfered directly from Bradford Cox’s Mediafire folder. “Who do they think they are exactly,” Cox railed, “to decide when my album comes out?”

We music fans are deeply complicit in all this: while we might not officially ‘approve’ of the Rapidshare era, who among us hasn’t at least once enjoyed its fruits? Still, you have to laugh at some of the most shameless, self-aggrandising bloggers behaving as if there’s moral purpose to their antics: they see themselves as Robin Hood figures, liberating music from the tyranny of marketing and release schedules, and getting it to the people who need it. “Well, to say that I’m living up to my reputation today is an understatement,” proffered Antiquiet’s Skwerl shortly before he was arrested for posting tracks from Guns ‘N Roses’ Chinese Democracy. That arrest is unlikely to set a precedent – the epidemic is too virulent and diffuse to be easily contained. Most people under the age of 25 view music as a free entity, on a par with air or water – albums are no longer released, they are simply leaked. Wait three months to pay £10 for a Telepathe album when you can get it for free now? Are you fucking joking? Legal action might be costly, but the record industry’s best option could be to attack: don’t be surprised if dummy albums and virus-ridden zip folders flood the web in 2009.

War isn’t the only option. Creative and commercial minds alike have realized that – indignity of indignities - music alone isn’t going to be enough to sell music (though it’ll happily help you sell jeans or mobile phones). No, if you want people to buy an album, you have to give them some incentive. While the In Rainbows pay-as-much-as-you-want model proved untenable for less robust artists (just ask Cliff Richard – his loyal but not entirely stupid fanbase didn’t want to pay much more than £0), it sparked a vogue for deluxe vinyl editions of old, and more crucially new, albums: Portishead, Primal Scream and Madvillain all got the deluxe treatment. The Flaming Lips went as far as to offer popcorn and a gig ticket with their Christmas in Mars CD, while bands like Foals, Earth and Sunn O)) continued the time-honoured tradition of tour-only 12”s and 7”s. Kate Moross’s Isomorph label presents short-run 7”s and 10”s by artists like Midnight Juggernauts and Heartsrevolution in bespoke, visually ravishing artwork, and sells them directly to fans at a premium price. Underground acts as diverse as Blank Dogs and The Caretaker placed a little more trust in their fans, giving them the option to download music for free and/or purchase it on limited vinyl, cassettes and CDs.

Ah, the poor old CD… Much of the early part of ’08 was spent intoning its funeral rites, but reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated. The CD not only continues to shift units in all genres, it’s also the most versatile, space-saving way of owning musical physically, and surely the best vessel for enjoying much ambient and long-form music. Yes, the CD is the lumbering Neanderthal man to the mp3’s homosapiens, but trust me – it will live on for some time, if only as a nostalgia item (and nostalgia is, let's face it, big business these days). Labels like Touch, Ghost Box and Raster-Noton have always striven to make CDs beautiful – and the latter’s GAS book, a lavish photo-journal with a disc of previously unreleased music enclosed, suggested a way forward. At the other end of the scale, home-made CD-Rs from artists like Hush Arbors, Glass Candy and Voice of The Seven Woods proved very desirable, and even the humble cassette enjoyed a resurgence thanks to hipsterish bands like Titus Andronicus and Times New Viking. The OED’s secondary definition of ‘fetish’ applies could conceivably be that of ‘record’, ‘cassette’ or ‘CD’: “an inanimate object worshipped by primitive peoples for its supposed inherent magical powers”, “a thing evoking irrational devotion or respect”. In 2008, we came to terms with our fetish, and went out of our way to indulge it.

If the 12” and cassette are these days the realm of fantasy, then the internet is our undeniable reality, and this year saw major and independent labels accept the reality, to work positively with bloggers and websites to generate hype around their artists. Hence a deluge of free mixes, mp3s, internet exclusives, webcasts – an unprecedented level of choice for the average consumer.

Right up ‘til the end of last year, major and medium-sized labels were signing up British indie bands and nu-ravers faster than Topman could manufacture natty belts, hoping for the next Klaxons, Hot Chip, Horrors or Libertines. Hardly any of these derivative, idea-starved groups sold any records; most were dropped, and the world’s eyes turned away from London and over to Brooklyn – where scene godfathers like Gang Gang Dance, Yeasayer and Animal Collective found themselves presiding over a vibrant petri-dish culture of neo-hippie pop. As well as launching a thousand cult concerns like Telepathe and High Places, this new psychedelia has crossed over into the mainstream thanks to the watered-down iPod fodder of Chairlift and the rather more affable anthems of MGMT. The band’s most famous song seems to nail not just the spirit of youth, but of our general cultural condition: we are indeed fated to pretend.

The noisier likes of Ponytail and their west coast counterparts No Age pushed through: they made some of the year’s best records and have reached many, many more listeners than their sales figures might suggest (that’ll be the blogs…). Of course, with so many blog-inches to fill, many more bands are getting hyped then rapidly discarded: here-today-forgotten-tomorrow neo-hardcore bands like Health and Lovvers are a case in point. In Britain the media continues to puts it faith in quirky solo artists like Little Boots and Lykke Li. I mean, who is actually “into” Lykke Li?

As our current decade enters its twilight phase, the one that preceded it falls into focus, and we begin to look back on it in earnest. The ‘90s have resurfaced everywhere I look – in the nu-gaze of School of Seven Bells, in Zomby’s ‘ardkore tribute Where Were U in ’92, in the box-office-busting My Bloody Valentine shows at The Roundhouse. A raft of that era’s foremost electronica artists were formally canonized in 2008 – with reissues of key works by GAS, Basic Channel and Pole on that most ‘90s of formats, the CD. Perhaps this renewed interest in idea-heavy techno of the past had something to do with contemporary minimal techno running aground. Villalobos and Hawtin shows were more like circuses than raves; Berlin became overrun with wasters and wannabes; the underground had, inevitably, become the establishment, attracting idiot punters in their legions and off-putting sponsorship from companies like TDK and T-Mobile. More crucially, the music itself seemed to lose any semblance of punk attitude – even the better stuff was drowned out by the boring, merely functional records crowding the market. Minimal felt like one long, draining after-party that none of its self-conscious revellers could afford to leave. The comedown is going to be savage.

Dubstep, once a united front, splintered into (for the most part friendly) rival factions – the wobble-heavy thugstep expounded by Caspa, Coki et al, and the sleek, skippier, techno-influenced sound pioneered by producers likes Peverelist, Appleblim, Ramadanman and Martyn. Bass music – for want of a better word – was resoundingly where the action was to be found. The wonky sounds of Starkey, Ikonika and Rustie were big news, but it was Joker – the young Bristolian behind ‘Gullybrook Lane’ and ‘Snake Eater’ – who emerged as the most exciting, inventive beat-maker of the past 12 months. The Numbers and Lucky Me axis, earmarked for greatness throughout last year, also came good: Hudson Mohawke’s ‘Oops!’ being a highlight. The B-more breaks favoured by Jackmaster and his Dre$$ to $weat roster found favour with a post-MIA, post-Diplo public attuned to global ghetto music’s occasionally sublime frequencies. It’s telling that Mujava’s ‘Township Funk’ – a lo-fi South African kwaito tune roughly inspired by ‘90s bleep techno – was one of the year’s biggest dancefloor burners.

Of course, the “dancefloor” is by its very nature a global construct these days. The proudly localized phenomenon of pirate radio is, to all intents and purposes, a thing of the past; but online mixes and podcasts have taken up the slack – and proved to be even an even more invaluable tool for breaking new dance music, whatever the genre. You didn’t have to be living in the Greater London area and listening live to hear Marcus Nasty and Mak10’s landmark September mix for Rinse FM, widely considered to be the moment funky “happened”. From the soca-pop of Crazi Cousinz ‘Do You Mind’ to the heavy bruk of Roska and Lil’ Silva, this grime-infused derivative of funky and tribal house, bassline and garage sidestepped the considerations of fashion or propriety to capture London’s imagination and, after years of male-heavy, police-targeted grime raves and gangster-centric MC culture, everyone, not least the girls, got dancing again.

We’re all music fans now – and whether your taste is for Nigerian funk or Norwegian black metal, an online community, with an attendant shitload of free music, awaits you. Not only that: whether we know it or not, we’re each of us becoming cultural archivists, musicologists searching for and occasionally providing a context and a reference and a precedent for everything. The internet is a living museum, and it’s open all hours. But remember: there’s a world outside it too.

2008 was the year that the past became ever present – which makes the future a strange and thrilling prospect indeed. It was also the year that Timmy Mallett did the Rolex Sweep. Oh, to be sure: it’s been a good one.

KIRAN SANDE (Fact Magazine)

http://www.factmagazine.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1606&Itemid=52

Windowlicking

GLASS CANDY

December 15th Purchase

This week I highly recommend getting a hold of Glass Candy's new compilation cd called DEEP GEMS which you can get from the Italians Do It Better store for $12.00 (plus postage). Glass Candy alongside Chromatics have emerged from Troubleman onto Italians Do It Better and have become almost the pinnacle of the 80s italo-disco analog sound recontemporised for a 00s audience. Anyway the cd features a bunch of stuff that was previously unreleased and is as good as anything off BEATBOX.

http://www.troublemanunlimited.com/store/idib/

Go buy! Or befriend them on myspace - they now have a staggering 38,919 friends!

http://www.myspace.com/glasscandy

Detachments - Messages produced by Trevor Jackson. Free download!

Choose Your Own Adventure!

New York I love you but you're bringing me down

I'm still ill.