XLR8R’s Best of 2014: Top Downloads (50 – 26)

Today, we officially enter the second half of our Top Downloads countdown. Just about equally populated by remixes as it is original tracks, this next batch of 25 songs includes contributions from the likes of Submerse, Larry Heard, Gerd Janson, Canblaster, Clockwork, Com Truise, and DJ Earl, among others. Again, the collection of tunes showcases the diverse range of styles found in our Downloads section throughout the year, where tracks intended for lively dancefloors are just as welcome as those intended for solitary headphone sessions. The latest helping of the year’s top downloads can be found after the jump, with the final 25 set to be presented tomorrow along with a ZIP file containing all 100 of XLR8R‘s most popular downloads of 2014.

50. Clockwork “Dent”

49. Neue Grafik “Blanche”

48. Francis Harris “Lean Back”

47. Joakim “On the Beach”

46. Guerre “Deatheat”

45. Reid “Singapore”

44. Soul of Hex “Lip Reading (Larry Heard Midnight Remix)”

43. Howson’s Groove “Shake Up (Arkist Remix)”

42. GL “Won’t You See (Gerd Janson Dub Mix)”

41. Gidge “You”

40. Little People “Aldgate Patterns (Marley Carroll Remix)”

39. VesperTown “Royal Flash (Tokyo Hands Remix)”

38. Rival Consoles “Helios”

37. King of the Mountains “Zeotrope”

36. Weeknight “Dark Light (Com Truise Remix)”

35. Gina Turner “Turn Me Up (Canblaster Large Remix)”

34. Repeat Pattern “Half of Half (Submerse Remix)”

33. Bobby Tank “Learn from You”

32. Lumumba “Coltan”

31. Daisuke Tanabe “Origami”

30. Clap! Clap! “Ashiko (Lurka Obeah Remix)”

29. Citizens! “Lighten Up (TÂCHES Darkened Down Remix)”

28. Marley Carroll “First Thought, Best Thought (Little People Remix)”

27. Computer Jay “Binary Fix (Eprom Remix)”

26. DJ Earl & Heavee “Sex a Pill”

XLR8R’s Best of 2014 coverage will continue throughout the next few weeks, so check back each day for additional year-end round-ups. In the meantime, don’t forget to take a look at the other Best of 2014 pieces we’ve posted already:

XLR8R’s Best of 2014: Top Downloads (100 – 76)
XLR8R’s Best of 2014: Top Downloads (75 – 51)

Hear Morgan Geist Remix Les Sins

Following shortly behind the release of Chaz Bundick’s (a.k.a. Toro y Moi, pictured above) debut album as Les Sins last month, disco don (and one-half of the fabled Metro Area outfit) Morgan Geist has been tapped to remix LP cut “Bother.” A soul-lined, percussion-heavy production in its original form, Geist strips “Bother” down to a more efficient effort, hanging a series of sharp synth patterns from the remix’s crisp rhythms, while sneaking in a particularly bouncing bassline underneath the procession.

Morgan Geist’s new remix can be streamed in full below, and is out now via Bundick’s own Company label, from which Les Sins’ debut LP, Michael, is also currently available.

MCFERRDOG Preps Return to 1080p, Shares New Track

NYC-based producer Max McFerren will return to Vancouver’s fast-growing 1080p label with a new album under his MCFERRDOG guise (a recent remix from which landed in our monthly Top Downloads round-up) early next month. Entitled Lawd Forgive Me, the 12-track effort follows behind Club Amniotics, the record which served as MCFERRDOG’s 1080p debut earlier this year.

Along with the announcement of Lawd Forgive Me, 1080p—an outpost we highlighted as part of our recent Labels We Love series—has passed along a full stream of album cut “Ideal Coach,” which sees McFerren continuing to explore melodically rich club hybrids, with this new production taking a particularly snappy, chord-fueled path to that end. “Ideal Coach” can be heard (and downloaded) via the player below before MCFERRDOG’s next record lands in both cassette and digital forms on January 20.

1. Bless This Mess
2. What Justifiable Confidence!
3. Peak of My Curiosity
4. Timeless
5. Lifeswork
6. Acid
7. Chapped
8. Crying Mantis
9. Make Our Own Prisons
10. Bio Pic of Atrus Groovmacher
11. Ideal Coach
12. Lawd Forgive Me

Future Brown Details Upcoming Debut LP for Warp; Hear a Track Now

After officially joining the venerable Warp imprint’s roster with the “Wanna Party” b/w “World’s Mine” 12″ last month, Future Brown—the collaborative project of Fatima Al Qadiri, Nguzunguzu Asma Maroof and Daniel Pineda, and Lit City Trax founder J-Cush—have revealed plans to issue its debut LP through the label early next year. A self-titled affair, the 11-track album will feature guest MCs and/or vocalists on each track, with Kelela featuring on “Dangerzone,” while Chicago MC Tink, Ruff Sqwad members Rapid and Dirty Danger, and Roll Deep affiliates Roachee and Riko Dan all make appearances on the record.

Slated to see a release on February 24, the artwork and tracklist for the forthcoming Future Brown LP can be found below, where a full stream of icy LP cut “Talkin Bandz” has also been included.

1. Room 302 (feat. Tink)
2. Talkin Bandz (feat. Shawnna and DJ Victoriouz)
3. Big Homie (feat. Sicko Mobb)
4. No Apology (feat. Timberlee)
5. Vernáculo (feat. Maluca)
6. Dangerzone (feat. Kelela and Ian Isiah)
7. Speng (feat. Riko Dan)
8. Killing Time (feat. Johnny May Cash YB and King Rell)
9. MVP (feat. 3D Na’Tee and Tim Vocals)
10. Asbestos (feat. Roachee, Prince Rapid, and Dirty Danger)
11. Wanna Party (feat. Tink)

Check Out a New Remix from Robert Hood

Detroit techno maven Robert Hood‘s remix for the upcoming Walfisch EP from French producer Roman Poncet can now be streamed in full. A characteristically efficient and structurally solid production, Hood’s effort redirects Poncet’s driving original track into slightly darker territory, infusing its rhythms with a bevy of gritty hi-hats as the rework burrows beneath a set of dubby chords.

Set to include two original tracks and an additional remix from Psyk, Robert Hood’s contribution to Roman Poncet’s forthcoming Walfisch EP can be heard in its entirety below before the record lands on December 8 via the ARTS label. The remix stream arrives in the midst of what has been a particularly active week for Hood, who on Tuesday delivered the final XLR8R podcast of the year under his Floorplan alias, and whose illuminating RBMA Tokyo lecture surfaced yesterday.

Ben Klock Counts Down His Top 10 Berghain Tracks of All Time

Berghain celebrates 10 years in operation this month with a massive anniversary party, and to mark the occasion, resident DJ and perennial favorite Ben Klock has pledged to share a track that “captures the spirit” of the Berlin club via Facebook every day for the next 10 days. “Each track has a story, memory, or feeling, that connects me and I’m sure so many others to that magic place,” Klock writes in the post outlining his plan. He starts things off with “Wide Open,” a jacking cut from DJ Hyperactive. “I’ve been playing it since it was released in ’98, but not ’till I played it at Berghain for the first time did its stomping beat and the simple but amazing staccato chords reveal their full potential,” he says. “Within these walls, the track was reborn.”

Klock will continue to post one track every day until Berghain’s 10-year anniversary party on December 13, and “Wide Open” can be streamed in full below.

Pinch and Sherwood Ready First Collaborative LP, Stream Track

UK labels On-U and Tectonic have revealed details of Late Night Endless, the debut album from legendary dub producer Sherwood and Tectonics head/dubstep stalwart Pinch. The LP follows from the release of two limited-edition, collaborative 12″s—Bring Me Weed and Music Killer—and has reportedly been two years in the making, not only in the studio, but also at Sónar Tokyo in 2013, where the duo essentially transplanted their studio onstage for a live performance. The album comes described by Joe Muggs as “a collision of the (pun intended) tectonic plates of international soundsystem culture,” in which “The currents that link post-punk, jungle, dubstep, almighty reggae, techno, Jamaica, Ramsgate, and Bristol all come together.”

“This is an exciting record because it’s full of hints of how much more there is to come from this meeting of minds,” Muggs continues. “It’s exciting because of the history that pounds and pulses through it. More than that, though, it’s exciting because of what it does to you as a listener right here and now in the present; as the sample of Andy Fairley’s vocal from the early days of On-U in ‘Precinct of Sound’ says: “Your head will become a crazy bulbous punch bag of sound…” and what more could you ask?”

Before Late Night Endless drops on February 9, LP cut “Africa 138” can be heard in full below, where we’ve also included the album’s complete tracklist.

01. Shadowrun
02. Music Killer Dub
03. Gimme Some More (Tight Like That)
04. Bucketman
05. Wild Birds
06. Stand Strong
07. Precinct of Sound
08. Different Eyes
09. Africa 138
10. Run Them Away

Anthony Naples Unveils Debut LP for Text, Shares New Track

Full details of the upcoming debut full-length from ascendant (and newly Berlin-based) producer/DJ Anthony Naples have been revealed along with a stream of the record’s lead single, “Refugio.” Slated to see a release on February 17 of next year, Naples’ Body Pill LP will arrive via Four Tet’s Text imprint and will feature eight new productions from the artist. “I wanted to make a streetwise record that was also solid and simple,” Naples explains in a press release, “like a brick or those weird fluorescent light tubes in the subway. They give off this weird hum that you hear only when you’re alone in the station between trains late at night. I wanted to make a record that evoked that experience.”

Described as his most “understated and mature release to date,” Body Pill is said to find Naples exploring bits of sonic territory beyond where his existing catalog has taken him, while also including a few “echoes of Naples’ work for Mister Saturday Night” (the NYC label that released his debut EP back in 2012). The album’s lead single, “Refugio,” serves as our first taste of Body Pill and can be streamed in full below ahead of the record’s February release.

1. Ris
2. Abrazo
3. Changes
4. Way Stone
5. Refugio
6. Pale
7. Used to Be
8. Miles

Dark Entries Announces Reissue of Die Form’s ‘Die Puppe’ LP

San Francisco label Dark Entries—which we recently profiled as part of our Get Familiar series—has announced a reissue of French industrial artist Die Form’s Die Puppe LP. Originally released in 1982, the album marked the artist born Phillip Fichot’s first foray into the vinyl market (after releasing all previous work on cassette) and was pressed in a limited run of 1,000 copies for his own Bain Total label. According to a press release, Die Puppe is made up of Fichot’s “first electronic experiments, often improvised… [with] underlying themes of eroticism, death, and other ‘taboo’ subjects,” and was produced using machines like the Roland TR-808, MC4, and an ARP 2600.

Dark Entries’ Die Puppe reissue is reportedly sourced from the original master tapes, and comes housed in a sleeve replicating Fichot’s original design. (New photos and liner notes are also included.) The album is due out on January 13, and its complete tracklist has been posted below.

01. Automatic Death
02. Invalid
03. Eastern Ghost
04. Darkness
05. Prefazione Di Pompei
06. After the Crime
07. Love with Animal
08. Lectura
09. Night Over My Life
10. Re-Search
11. In a Tea-Room

Dara Smith of Lakker Preps Debut EP as Arad

Dara Smith of Dublin duo Lakker has revealed details of his debut solo EP under the alias Arad. Active for over a decade as part of Lakker alongside Ian McDonnell (a.k.a. Eomac), the pair’s idiosyncratic, IDM-influenced techno has seen release via labels such as Stroboscopic Artefacts and R&S. But while Eomac’s solo career has been underway for some years now, Smith’s is just beginning. Set to arrive in early 2015 via Speedy J’s Electric Deluxe label, Haon is said to be underwritten by “years of experimentation and experience,” and will offer “a veritable feast of intriguing composition and influences” when it arrives on January 19 in 12″ and digital formats. Until then, snippets for all four tracks on the EP (which will also contain two additional digital-only bonus tracks) can be previewed below.

Page 1166 of 3781
1 1,164 1,165 1,166 1,167 1,168 3,781