FIRST UP. I am back in Manchester. Berlin was great, but I couldn’t get a job and ran out of cash and was losing my mind and there were about 8 million other things that all compelled me to return. So yay for Dane Bank!
ANYWAY… It is that time once again… the best-of lists are appearing, and now it’s time for mine…
Of course, this activity requires a certain amount of reflection upon the last 12 months. 2008 began for me in a dome, in a field, in Wisemans Ferry where a bunch of us had decided to put on our own festival after Peats Ridge got cancelled. We threw it together in a little over a week, had over a thousand punters and a fuckin wicked time.
Me in a field this time last year. The dome got bigger, the dog got into a fight and I had a lovely time.
Quite a few really good parties followed; the Bodega pulled off a couple of shroomy crackers with The Mysterious Passtimes Of Mohini-Murti and The Digital Hysteria Remedy.
Space Is The Place brought Flying Lotus and Theo Parrish to Sydney and Sunday Dub Club went from strength to strength. It warms my heart to know that these parties continue after my departure from Sydney. I feel like I’ve left a little bit of a legacy.
08 was a pretty good year on the production front as well; the year started with me and Mr Razzle Dazzle working hard on the Mr Johnson’s Marching Boys album which we managed to get out in April. As the year progressed I felt my productions improved, and as we draw to a close I’m focusing on a couple of secret projects, one of which is getting some very good attention from the higher echelons of the disco scene. The other project is still in its naissance but I’m quite hopeful for it. After about 2 and a half years of trying I’m finally writing stuff which sounds like dubstep and it makes me so happy to be able to write this sentence! And, of course, about a month ago I finally entered the 21st century and the realm of Apple. Shiny metal notebooks rule, as does being able to listen to your stuff in realtime instead of having to render and listen once you’ve got more than 5 channels of audio on the go…
But enough of my own expressions in this world this year – I have been privy to LOTS of other people’s as well. So many parties and events and music and art this year. I feel full!
Witnessing Paradise Lost go from strength to strength (thanks in no small part to my superior doorbitchin skills) was probably my Aussie highlight, but the real stand-out of the year was getting finally to go to Cielo in NYC for Francois Kevorkian’s Deep Space night. Twice. It was fuckin mental. Runners up include FWD, Burning Man, the crazy sex party at the Playhouse, the Rothko show at the Tate Modern, the Berliner Strasse Vernissage and Technicolour, a great Sunday evening monthly put on in Manchester by friend and fellow RBMA alumnus Mooken Tooken.
There was much travelling; my itinerary reads like some dodgy perfume company.. Sydney, Adelaide, Manchester, London, Brighton, New York, the Black Rock Desert, Paris, Berlin. As my brother pointed out, I have to plant a couple of trees to cover the amount of polluting my air travel did this year. It has been great to not work for so long and just travel around, soaking up cultures, ideas, inspiration.
But it’s also been lonely. And loneliness – and loss – have been the major themes of the year for me. Not that I’m whinging here, nor canvassing sympathy; this is important territory to explore, and after so many years as viviacious party host it’s a refreshing change to be just me, living with my mum in an anonymous suburb where the last exciting thing happened 60-odd years ago (German fighter pilot got shot down, my gran saw it). I have my computer, and my internet connection, and a bunch of tunes are falling out of me. I miss Australia, I miss the people I love and yes it is quite painful to be so far away. But the music is coming, and this is why I left, so despite the hurt I am content.
Right. Let’s get on with the best releases shall we?
There’s no particular order here, except for the first one which is for me EASILY the best thing put out in 2008, and possibly the last five years.
Jacaszek – Treny
This immediately enriched my life. Perhaps it’s because I have been quite sad (Treny is the Polish word for Lament), or maybe it’s because this is the most fucking beautiful 54.4 minutes of music I’ve heard in ages. It grabbed me from the opening stabs of ‘Rytm To Niesmiertelnosc’ and I was a convert before I was halfway through the album. It’s so majestic, so grandiose yet miniscule, freezing cold and searing hot all at the same time. These contradictions can’t help but twist your head. The production is just magnificent – the source is simply well-recorded strings, voices and harp but then Jacaszek has exhibited technical mastery and studious restraint in what he’s done with the raw recordings. Think Erik Satie or Arvo Pärt joins Pole or Mika Vainio on a mission to make angels cry. And then buy this album. Good for night drives on the M60, comedowns, bathing, crying, laughing, killing. Listen to it in its entirety and check your sense of lightness and melancholy elation after the last measures of the final track play out. This goes beyond being a piece of music, or even a work of art. It is a magic spell.
Maurice Ravel / Modest Mussorgsky – Recomposed by Carl Craig and Moritz Von Oswald
Staying in the realm of classical-esque music, this appeared in October and had me excited. Two classical composers whose music I really like versus two contemporary producers who I fuckin adore. BUT, echoes of that disastrous orchestral version of Jeff Mills’ The Bells resounded in my head and I was quite anxious to see if Carl and Moritz had just consigned themselves to the realm of ‘killer producers (whose fans are mostly sweaty caners) desperately looking for acceptance amongst the chattering classes’.
Well, I’m not privy to what drives them so they may well now be members of said realm (especially seeing as how they showed up and did a concert with an orchestra) but it doesn’t matter because this album stands as a really great piece of music. Well, the opening 15 minutes DEFINITELY does, as Ravel’s Bolero is recontexualised into a delightful modern piece that I think Maurice himself would approve of. The rest of the album is more traditional pumpy C2 and Moritz fayre but what the fuck, they are both geniuses and traditional pumpy C2 and Moritz fayre is fine by me.
V/A – Kompakt Total 9
Let’s stay in 4/4 tekkers territory for a moment and look at those lovely boys from Köln. Kompakt is a label I haven’t really been paying much attention to for a while, but a night at Weekend in Berlin changed that for me, cos it was there that one of the Mood Music DJs dropped DJ Koze’s Zou Zou off this album. Wow! Crazy Chinese-esque samples loop around with a discordant lead synth, a submarine kick and oh my god we’re in fuckin techno heaven. The rest of the album is really solid, great techno, neo-trance and pumpy minimal like you remember it being back in the day. Superpitcher is still making great tunes, there’s a wonderful contribution from the always delightful Thomas Fehlmann and Kaito brings a lovely heavy dubby one that’s good for the dancefloor too I reckon. Don’t believe the haters, techno is still good shit. Richie might be suckin some cock but those pasta lovin boys in the little town are still keeping the fire burning.
Theo Parrish – Love Triumphant
Oh Theo… well, a real thrill of the year (and also of my entire life) was handing over the decks to him back in April – and I was lucky enough to see him for a second time, at his Plastic People residency where he was thrashing one of the world’s legendary sound systems (and our ears) to within an inch of its life. I’d taken my good friend Ed along to the night – Ed’s not the biggest Theo fan, but he came along cos he’s my mate and has an open mind. Nonetheless, we were in the bar having a little chill and a drink and these mad fucking FLUTES came soaring over our heads. Ed was all ‘man this is a bit of alright’ and I was ‘fuckin hell this is epic, what is this, it’s either Theo or Omar S but it’s fuckin amazing whatever it is’ and so we went back to dance and the flutes kept on and on and on and then this mad fuckin synth came in and the joint went fuckin apeshit. Good shit Theo. GREAT FLUTES!
Steel An’ Skin – Afro Punk Reggae Dub
Not much to say on this one. Nice and deep and dubby and just lovely. I bought it from the Honest Jon’s shop itself which was a thrill. Oh my god, the record stores up here are just amazing. Nice shit!
Disrupt – Foundation Bit
I have been following netlabel Jahtari for a few years now, and so it was great to see the man Disrupt get himself a full release, on the mighty Werk discs no less. This is a great album of old school digi dub, dripping in JA flavours and it’s got a Commodore logo on the label. I also like this cos it’s good to see people putting out contemporary JA-influenced electronic music that is fresh but not dubstep. Yeah!
Flying Lotus – Los Angeles
Well, what can be said really? Loads of fuckin hype around this one, he’s the poster boy for a whole scene, has a killer live act and made this whole album in Reason. Boy’s a genius, and this album which is mostly a dancefloor affair has rightfully earned him plenty of praise. I think I still prefer 1983 on the whole but there are some beautiful atmospheres in this album. More please!
Samiyam – Rap Beats vol.1
And now it’s time for Samiyam, Flying Lotus’ evil NES protégé, to bask in some praise. Killer harmonies, wonderful sounds, it’s like he sequenced a super nintendo, recorded it on a dictaphone then put it through a really expensive compressor. This collision of old-skool sounds with bleeding-edge production technique, coupled with a sensibility to the groove that defies most, makes Rap Beats vol.1 a fully exciting debut.
High Places – High Places
I was in New York, and reading Seb’s blog, where he mentioned he liked this band High Places. I checked out their myspace and saw they were based in Brooklyn. Well, I was in Brooklyn! And what do you know, they had a show on the following Sunday. So I went down and checked it out and fell deeply in love with this sound. Not dissimilar to Flying Lotus in many ways – one is assaulted with a barrage of microsounds all arranged with autistic diligence by Rob Barber into a wobbly (but NOT wonky!) maze of grooves that Mary Pearson’s delicate vocals negotiate with grace. I’m still undecided on the current debate that rages over whether the burying of the vocals in the mix is a good move or not, but I do know that I love High Places.
TRG – Broken Heart (Martyn’s DCM remix)
At last! The wonderful sound that Mala’s Left Leg Out alluded to has finally arrived in force, with 2562, Ramadanman and Martyn being the foremost evangelists. I’d tired of dubstep a little by the middle of the year, and then I listened to Appleblim’s mix on Tempa and it all got really fuckin exciting again. Broken Heart is so wonderful, and it’s the sound design that stands it above the rest. It’s dirty and warm – burned, even. The vocal is simple and plaintive, the chords are straight from Detroit, the beat is London as, and the whole is MUCH greater than the sum of its parts. Hessle have been putting out gold this year, and dubstep in 09 is gonna be really interesting thanks to the foreigners. FINALLY, it is no longer JUST a London Thing.
Millie & Andrea – Black Hammer / Gunshot
First up, this wins best record sleeve ever.
It’s a devastating slab of dubstep from MLZ and Andy Stott from Modern Love (GO MANCHESTER!) which owes a huge debt to Chain Reaction. Deep, dark, no halfstep anywhere, next to no wobble but more dubstep than most. Cold and grainy, just like Manchester. I got a disapproving scowl from the staff at Hardwax for only listening to this and not buying it.
Zomby – Spliff Dub (Rustie remix)
Ah Rustie… 2008 may well have been your year, you crazy Scottish bleep-fucker. So many good releases, all with the digital crunchiness that you can feel. No idea how he manages it, but fuck he makes stuff crunchy. Spliff Dub is a great example of this, that huge drop, so audacious, almost cheesy but the sheer WEIGHT of it blows any whiff of fromage away, replacing it with heavy sensi mayhem. I was fortunate enough to lay my hands on some of Rustie’s unreleased beats. Man, you are all in for a fucking treat and a half. He hasn’t put any of the REALLY good stuff out yet. Also, should give major props to Hyperdub for probably being the best label of 2008, going all the way to the wire with that latest release by Kode9 and LD. Pushin things FORWARD!
And that’s it. Bloody hell 2008, you were well intense. Time for the 09 now, let’s see what fuckin treats you have in store…
it’s this man’s fault
Some Freak vs Brut 33… aaaahhh
Keith Haring in the original Pop Shop in Tokyo
Koons’ Big Bunny
This is where we stayed. Our houseboat! Nice in the morning to get up and sit on the deck and watch the world float by.
Better believe it
Fucking. Purple. Weed.
Nice to see ol’ Ronnie representin’ for SITP
Invisible Motorbike
Joe Bataan and James Pants
Dorian Concept @ South Bank Centre
Headz at the door @ Brainfeeder
