Some music I liked from this year

Submitted by jet jaguar on Wed, 12/23/2009 - 13:05

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Kind of hate how seriously end of year lists seem to get taken, but on the other hand I do like to hear people's recommendations, especially if they wouldn't give them otherwise... So...

For those who don't follow my music news either here or via Facebook, I put a Jet Jaguar EP out through Angry Rabbit and aged net label Monotonik put out a Malty Media EP too. I'd better mention that up-front, cos it's not like I have any budget to promote the stuff any other way. :p

Group Five (Andrew who runs Angry Rabbit with Stuart & I) just put out his third EP, Retrenching, and it's a good way to round-off the nepotistic phase of this round-up. The shift from wilfully budget / crusty breaks to a wider palette of tweaked drum machines and so on suits my tastes well, and his particular mix of summery and chilly vibes is its own thing.

Electric Wire Hustle's debut album has sustained heaps of repeat listens in the last few months. Here's the vid for 'Perception', which is not my favourite track on there at all, but is pretty indicative of the kind of territory.

Vocalist Mara TK does some pretty blatant Marvin Gaye throwbacks, which is all for the good compared to a lot of soul vocals that don't seem to really stretch beyond ... well, acid jazz type antics. My favourite track is the unabashedly sincere love song 'Again'. I can't pretend to be anything but a soft-cock. :D

Julien Dyne also released Pins & Digits, a great album of the kind of jazzy smoothness that tends to divide people. Mara TK from the above does some vox on some tracks. It's much more polished and, well, smoother than Electric Wire Hustle which is sometimes a strength and sometimes a weakness. For example, straight-up jazz closer 'Spirits' does little for me, but I love the pulsing layers of 'Falling Down' (with Parks on vox). Here's a live version of the latter, I'd recommend having that running in another window while you read or look at something else. ;)

I was really glad to hear Atom™ doing something not-so-gimmicky with Liedgut. His stuff as Senor Coconut, LB, etc. has its moments, but he has such fantastic production skills I'd been hanging out for him to get stuck into something that wasn't trying to be funny. The album has a theme running through it, basically following a strand running through German music from Romantic stuff through to Kraftwerk. It's sometimes a bit dry and hard-going - waves of white noise being pushed about through effects while robot voices intone German phrases - but it still has plenty of character.

Rad packaging too.

At the opposite end of techno, DJ Koze's Reincarnations is a decent collection of remixes from the last few years. I posted a link to a free MP3 of his remix of Matias Aguayo's 'Minimal' last year and that's still a fave, but throughout the album there are heaps of good times, lots of humour and psychedelic combinations of sounds. Pitch is as much of a plaything as rhythm - chipmunk vox vs. bending strings and squelching synths... Heaps of goodies, including some much straighter techy numbers like Heiko Voss's 'Think About You' and Lawrence's 'Rabbit Tube'.

Lastly on the albums front, Australian Lawrence English turned out my fave ambient album of the year, 'A Colour for Autumn'. Nice mix of electronic-sounding stuff and obviously acoustic sources, including wordless vocals, some woodwind and guitar. The 12k label website has some full tracks to stream.

Heaps of great singles this year.

Free ones I've already blogged about:

Kuroma - 'In New York, Everything Is Tropical (El Guincho Remix)'
Miike Snow - 'Animal'
Dãm-funk - Toeachizown

Free ones I probably will blog about:

Major Lazer - 'Cash Flow (Classixx Glass-Bottom Dub)'
Lindstrøm & Christabelle - 'Baby Can't Stop (Aeroplane Vocal Remix)'
Bot'Ox - 'Blue Steel (Azari & III Remix)'

Not supposed to be free ones:

Parallel Dance Ensemble - 'Weight Watchers'