i would listen to all these xlr8r best of the year tracks

gonna try anyway.

for my own amusement. so go away if you hate me. i have not heard any of these albums.

they divide their best-of albums into sections:

Jackin' 2K9
Bubblin' 2K9
Bumpin' 2K9
Trippin' 2K9
Dreamin' 2K9

i'm gonna listen to dreamin' stuff first.

Tomasz Bednarczyk
Let's Make Better Mistakes Tomorrow

if you buy only one album that sounds like a scratchy harold budd record fed thru a computer, this might be the one. unless there is a better one out there. there might be! better hold off then. we need confirmation that this is the best example of a scratchy harold budd record fed thru a computer.

Cold Cave
Love Comes Close

this track (they only give you one track i'm guessing they are fairly representative of the albums?) starts out with a solid house beat and then some jangly tweecore guitars come in and i like that! like flying nun house music. which i would support if there was such a thing. actually the field mice did this a little bit towards the end, didn't they? i like the field mice songs with beats. but then there is bad sub-ian curtis vocals and i don't like so much. and the song is sub-joy division too. they had me going for a minute though.

Delorean
Ayrton Senna EP

this track "seasun" is poo. maybe they picked the wrong track to sell this EP. misuse of disco handclaps is a crime where i am from. you would have to be on life support to find this invigorating in any way.

plus, there is nothing dreamy about it AT all. being boring does not equal being dreamy.

Intrusion
Seduction of Silence

digging the modern minimal dubbiness of this, but then the reggae singer comes in and...well, okay, at first i thought he was an intrusion, but i'm getting used to him. he is kinda dreamy. he should be dubbier though. or singing on the telephone from jail like HR on that one bad brains track. he needs more static or lonesomeness to his vocals. the backing track is fab though.

Junior Boys
Begone Dull Care

the track here is "parallel lines". again, not dreamy. and just not that good in general. the vocals are terrible. like if the guy from eagles of death metal started a lol 80's new wave band. the cod 80's fx are poorly constructed and tedious. so, let's run this down: competely unmemorable song, bad vocals, and shoddy craftsmanship. buy it now!

Mount Kimbie
Sketch on Glass

this is better. or more interesting anyway. and the handclaps work. abstract use of handclaps! the sounds are fun. don't know if i would need an entire album of this stuff, but the beats are schizo in a fun way and the cut up computer action is entertaining.

(yeah i won't be looking for dreaminess on this list anymore.)

Nite Jewel
Good Evening

not good. not dreamy. not worth money. or at least this track anyway: "what did he say". don't know about the rest of the album. the vocals are an afterthought. the 80's sounds are tepid. like, does nite jewel even LIKE the 80's? come one. show some love. go out on a limb. work it. this is blahhhhhhh.

Nudge
As Good As Gone

eh. indie rock ambient. maybe the whole album is better. the dreamy falsetto has to go. or maybe my morning jacket fans would dig it, i dunno. nice album cover though.

the only one of these i'm having fun going through is "bumpin'"

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

i'm sure they are nice people. or know how to whip up a mean latte or something. i'm just old. i've lived thru 15 tweepop revivals. i mean, if i were 15 maybe i would feel differently about groups like this. but i'd still probably have better taste even then, so...

which tpobpah song did you listen to?

Pictureplane
Dark Rift

this is cool! they are fucking with stevie nicks, right? the song is "goth star". i like the cut up action. and it sounds like it was fun to make too.

the pains song was "everything with you".

Telepathe
Dance Mother

the song is "so fine". if i could be assured that all the songs on this album had similar vocals and were at least half as cool, i would totally buy this album. this song is awesome. i want to play it again!

the telepathe song is everything that junior boys song isn't. totally memorable, non-obvious use of 80's stuff, non-obvious vocals and lyrics. just a great vibe all around. you could remix the hell out of it too.

xxp well that's a good song but definitely not the most dreamy or immediately captivating of the album. the distorted guitar just washes over everything, and the hook isn't one of their strongest. listen to "teenager in love" or "contender" if you've still got any desire to give them another shot.

Tin Man
Cool Wave

tin man is no sven vath. unless he is sven vath, in which case, my apologies. but this track is pretty duddish.

Brock Van Wey
White Clouds Drift On and On

okay, this is more like it as far as dreaminess goes. the title track and it does indeed sound like white clouds drifting on and on. i think he should call his next album: Brock's Wey or The Highway.

V/A
The Grandfather Paradox (Compiled and mixed by Henrik Schwarz / Âme / Dixon)

i don't know what this album is, but the track is by Cymande and i'm a fan of theirs so this is fine.

The Grandfather Paradox is a mix CD (plus bonus disc) of early electronic stuff, minimalist composition, Krautrock, no wave-era rhythm bands, and some other cool stuff. Scott, you'd love it.

Warpaint
Exquisite Corpse

this is pretty. and dreamy. breathy ethereal female vox. like catpower if she had been neutered. they break into "my guy" for a minute. but mostly just spell out billie holiday's name over and over.

this is cool! they are fucking with stevie nicks, right? the song is "goth star". i like the cut up action. and it sounds like it was fun to make too.

yeah yeah. the f/m song is "seven wonders." good song.

Washed Out
Life of Leisure

washed out. life of leisure. on the mexican summer label. a picture of a woman in the ocean on the cover. you do the math! doesn't really thrill me. nice druggy haze though. and i am a beachcomber from way back. the beat is lazy. the synths are lazy. the vocals are way lazy. they've got it down, that's for sure.

WHY?
Eskimo Snow

huh. this is on anticon. forgot about anticon. was this guy in clouddead? whatever happened to clouddead? they were getting pretty dreamy. this is, uh, interesting. wordy singersongwriter stuff. not horrible. clever? oh i don't know.

The xx
S/T

the song is "basic space". pretty slight. male/female vox. and by slight i don't mean spare. just not a lot here. music for delicate people who don't want to many "notes" or "sounds" in their music? or music in their music? maybe good for models who are watching their weight. not a lot of calories or nourishment here either.

okay, i'm trippin' next. or as xlr8r puts it: "fine assortment of our favorite hazy, crazy, occasionally lazy mind-fucks of the year".

the xx grow on you

http://www.mpfree.com/otherimg/Akon.jpg

"i wanna mind-fuck you"

Animal Collective
Merriweather Post Pavillion

the song is "also frightened". doesn't thrill me, really. got the martin denny + beach boys swirly swirl thing going on. no real song to speak of.

Matias Aguayo
Ay Ay Ay

digging this. love the vocal layering. animal collective should listen to this. the song is "rollerskate". very inventive. and modern. sounds like now and finally i don't have to get in my wayback machine to the 80's or wherever.

Boxcutter
Arecibo Message

speaking of the 80's, it's nice to see that people are still getting inspiration from old Tackhead records! needs more doug wimbish-ish bottom though.

Broadcast and The Focus Group
Broadcast and the Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age

this track is only a minute and change so its hard to say just how "trippin" this album gets. really just a snippet so i don't know whether its good bad or ugly. getting a white noise + syd barrett vibe from what's here though.

Dorian Concept
Trilingual Dance Sexperience

good thing i don't usually judge albums by their titles, you know what i mean? this is okay. sounds like someone is physically assaulting derrick may and taking nude photos of him.

good thread, kiu

The xx
S/T

the song is "basic space". pretty slight.

tru but it's not really the best introduction to them tbh

everybody should buy the xx album and bury it in the ground and dig it out in 2015, I wonder what it will sound like then

Fuck Buttons
Tarot Sport

someone could remix this really good, i'll bet. it's got the long buildup that's kinda cool, but i don't know if its worth finding out where they are going with it. cuz it doesn't exactly go somewhere all that transcendent. this reminds me more of tedious crescendo-rock then of dance music that builds to some ecstatic peak. (or i guess i just want it to be cool dance music with elements of lo-fi shoegaze noise in it, but it isn't really that so that's my problem, really.)

Harmonia & Eno '76
Tracks and Traces (Reissue + Remixes)

i like this idea in theory. but its also a real challenge to remix this stuff. you need a really steady hand. the track here is "By The Riverside" (Appleblim & Komonazmuk Remix) and sadly their beats aren't up to the task. they trample over something fairly sublime.

that telepathe track is nice!

can't wait for bumpin and jackin

yeah those two lists look amazing

HEALTH
Get Color

the track is "we are water". i like it. AGAIN, i think a remix of this would be very cool. this is kinda like ed banger + xmal deutschland. at the very least it makes me wonder what the hell the rest of the album sounds like.

http://dev.xlr8r.com/tags/2k9

enjoying this thread!

Etienne Jaumet
Night Music

every generation gets the oxygene that it deserves. apparently this generation deserves saxophone in theirs? whatevs! no bigs! lol!

Joy Orbison
Hyph Mngo + J. Doe

someone a LOT smarter than me will have to tell me what makes this album - or this track "hyph mngo" - important or best-of-the-year worthy. does nothing for me. poitively screams for an omar santana freestyle edit. so not trippin' either.

maybe they meant it like homie you are trippin'

Moritz Von Oswald Trio
Vertical Ascent

this is interesting even as it verges on worldbeatelectronewage fusion territory. you know, that relaxing stuff that burnt out old hippies listen to that combines beats and "ethnic" sounds. my life in a bush full of whole foods shoppers. i'm no purist though. i'd listen to this.

Scuba
Aesaunic EP + Speak 10"

if scuba is striving to be nondescript and forgettable, they've won! give them/him/her a prize.

Shackleton
Three EPs

tabla + beats! my new age father in law is getting this in his christmas stocking.

that strikes me as totally wrong. how is donaeo not open to influences from 'all over the place'??

xp

I'm kind of with the Lex on this anyway, it feels like there's a critical binary being drawn up, sometimes consciously sometimes not, that doesn't really exist in real life. And funky and dubstep don't really seem that far apart when you consider a) where they both come from and b) that grime places itself somewhere in the middle now.

how do the singles not seem to have a variety of influences?

why is "variety of influences" even being used as a benchmark here?

there is more than an element, here, of: you know how lots of british critics write really cluelessly about hip-hop? well.

its not really 'false, nonexistent' if you read xlr8r, apparently

i don't read xlr8r and this thread isn't making me want to, though i love pretty much all the artists mentioned here (donae'o AND l-vis 1990! yes both!).

fwiw a lot of these producers are generally disdainful of "dubstep" and enraptured by "uk funky".

A lot of which producers?

these

XLR8R always seems like the american version of FACT. Minus the podcasts, I guess.

Or rather minus the endless podcasts (seems like there is a new one every day on FACT's site whereas a XLR8R has like one a week, I think.)

Actually it was XLR8R itself that set up that dichotomy.

Bok Bok & L-Vis 1990 have made some awesome tracks btw. I'm generally approving of all of these producers.

Anyway let's not talk about this as it seems to upset everyone when I acknowledge the trend.

The magazine's article on "funkstep".

some of those tracks are obviously not 2009 releases. what an out of touch website.

xlr8r is the NME of dance music

shit getting heated

xlr8r gettin called out by its real name

it seems like a really cool job, whatever people's opinions of the mag itself might be. i'm pretty sure in the 90s when i was really into electronic music and living in the middle of nowhere, this was one of those magazines that helped me stay abreast of new stuff.

oh i had no idea anyone here wrote for xlr8r. even if they set up the binary in the first place, why run with something so obviously wrong-headed? labelling cooly g, bok bok et al as just "smart" funky, as if people don't play those tunes in clubs and as if they don't go down as well as - and in the same sets as - donae'o, ill blu, stush and kyla - does them as much of a disservice as anyone trying to sideline "real" funky. these are completely artificial distinctions which don't do anyone any favours.

and tbh the reason i don't really care how xlr8r are framing these tracks is because the fact that bok bok & l-vis, ikonika, guido et al are reaching an international audience in the first place is tremendously exciting to me - all i'll say is that in missing out subeena, they completely missed a trick. that girl is amazing:

i) http://www.last.fm/music/Subeena/_/Boksd (full track)

ii) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn7vFdhhd-g

I just re-read the XLR8R piece. The writer quotes a bunch of artists who refer to the scene splits, call it "funkstep," etc. Since it's the artists who call it that, it seems disingenuous to say that the magazine itself is making those distinctions.

is this the cooly g/roska/geeneus piece we're still talking about? first i actually heard of it was cooly g and geeneus disowning the word "funkstep" on twitter

It is, yes. Roska and Scratcha used it, Geeneus dismisses it as a joke. It just seems odd that on this thread the term seems to be discussed as something the mag made up on its own.

/remove bookmark

oh i don't blame the mag for making it up - there's a big vacancy in the market for some adequate term to describe this particular interlocking scene of music which takes in dubstep/funky/grime/house/techno - and tbh "funkstep" isn't that offensive - certainly not compared to w*nky. i understand that some of the producers are trying to make "tropical" happen at the moment. i take issue with the false smart/real binary and the idea that producers who make one are somehow in opposition to producers who make another.

Ah, that makes sense. And yes, I was genuinely curious, so I appreciate it. I think "funkstep" is an easy enough stand-in for the binary you (correctly) criticize; I was reading things a little too literally, obv.

"XLR8R always seems like the american version of FACT"

and fact is kinda like the nme of 'uk bass music' or whatever it should be called (in the same way xlr8rs like the US nme as has been noted).

funkstep isnt the best term. but the writer prob didnt have enough funky understanding to know that even if the artists were calling it that, they were just hyping their own thing to get a little mileage out of the fact theres a lot of stuff that falls between all the many diff scenes at the moment. was an interesting article all the same tho, tbh.

yeah it's all in such flux that it's hard to know how to pigeonhole any given thing, which is probably a good indication of the music's health. there's no such thing as getting it wrong, really, but i object to divisiveness wherever it occurs, cuz that's the least helpful thing.

ah yeah and titchy otm w/r/t individual artists' motivations! kinda like nas saying hip-hop is dead or whatever

am hoping a better name, one thats less cumbersome/mouthfully/pompous than uk bass music, will come along soon.

xpost, yeah its sort of like someone doing a piece on joker and getting over excited that theres a brand new sound from bristol called purple wow and forgetting theres a load of other producers operating in a similar-ish space at the moment too (tho to be fair, joker basically IS his own little world).

i must admit i'd be a bit uncomfortable if a colleague was posting stuff like this about me:

"also a note: k3n didn't find/ put together the actual samples used. this intern did, and he doesn't really know much about electronic music, quite honestly, which might explain some of the weird choices."

seems more appropriate for a staff meeting/supervision than a message board. it seems harsh on the intern and doesn't reflect well on the magazine.

Both XLR8R and FACT strike me as sites that are as much about the definition of a lifestyle/aesthetic than anything else - you only need to look at the design and advertising for that to hit home. I'd *maybe* throw in Resident Advisor, which has pretty much ignored funky altogether, as well.

Either way, in the former two cases it strikes me that Cooly G/Jam City/Roska/Lil Silva, even Donae'o, are a lot closer to that aesthetic than, say, Alesha Dixon remixes, or big fat dudes going "jump in the middle and skaaaank". I think all the above titles want to sell dance music as something that's both effortlessly cool and precisely sculpted and the endearing shonkiness, goofiness and willingness to throw things against a wall and see what sticks that marks out a lot of funky just doesn't fit into that.

i dunno though, the further you get to "proper" funky nights - by which i mean eg circle events, the real classy-dress-code stuff - the further away you get from the too-many-man skanking vibe (and let's be real the skanks pretty much suck if you hear more then one per night).

i mean i hope we're not saying that the wave of shitty sub-KIG skanks constitutes "real" funky are we?

I'm not just talking about the skanks, and like I said, I'm not saying it's a real binary that actually exists on the dancefloor. I think even a lot of the supposedly glossy diva stuff has that slightly shonky vibe to it as well, it feels a bit cobbled-together-in-someone's-bedroom even when it's trying to be sleek and sexy, and I like that. Exhibit A being every Crazy Cousinz remix ever.

What I'm trying to say is I'm not sure if Fact in particular can far enough away from the "every sound worked on and agonised over for weeks" mindset to fully embrace the whole range of this stuff.

Think the thing that threw me about Royal P's 'Between Us' was how deep and druggy and *expensive* it sounded.

Or rather minus the endless podcasts (seems like there is a new one every day on FACT's site whereas a XLR8R has like one a week, I think.)

it's one every monday, one every friday on FACT. the reason being that we do non-dance music podcasts too (cold cave, weatherall's rock one, etc), so whatever yr preference you'll hopefully get at least one mix a week that suits you.

What I'm trying to say is I'm not sure if Fact in particular can far enough away from the "every sound worked on and agonised over for weeks" mindset to fully embrace the whole range of this stuff.

that's a bit off i think. there are ppl who write for FACT who've had a pop at that end of funky, but personally i think both sides of it - and as said upthread, it's not much of an opposition; you'll find plenty of crowds losing it to migraine skank one minute and black sun the next - are great at times. i love blackberry hype as much as i do narst. and as far as FACT goes, we had 'frontline', 'in the morning', 'pull it' and crazy cousinz 't-shirt' remix in our top 100 tracks of the year, and no scratcha or roska. which we also got criticized for. lol.

plus we champion plenty of knocked-out scuzzy indie rock tracks and gutter dance music, so i don't think this 'agonised' aesthetic is something that crops up as often as you think.

(i have removed myself from this thread, but tom, XLR8R also has non-dance music podcasts. just a note).

im sure they do. i wasn't saying that to try & distinguish us from xlr8r, we like xlr8r, it's just our reasoning for doing 2 a week. that and we probably try to do one bigger name a week with one name that we think should be bigger.

cool, just clarification. and i love the fact podcasts, btw.

thanks man. always nice to hear

is there a URL for the podcasts I don't know about? I noticed FACT has started hosting the downloads on their own server again, so just wondered if it had been fixed and just not advertised....

I'd still really like to listen to these on my wi-fi internet radio thing if possible (or, if I used iTunes for this, to "subscribe" to them etc, either way, just want the convenience of a proper Podcast, otherwise they tend to go unheard unfortunately).

yeah, we've had massive problems w/ the subscribe/iTunes thing, i don't know why really, it's not me that's been organizing it it's the I.T. dudes. but i know, it's got stupid - we've been building a new site the last couple of months so it's been put on the backburner a bit. but come january it should get fixed.

til then we re-uploaded a pick of 20 fact mixes from the year gone by: http://www.factmagazine.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4199&Itemid=99

cool thanks for the update Tom.