Earlier today, possibly in attempts to release new music before the apocalypse, or, more likely, just to treat their fans for the holidays, Brooklyn’s Laurel Halo, Manchester’s Lone, and London’s Blanck Mass all uploaded new tracks to their respective SoundCloud pages. Lone dropped the atmospheric “Ghost Channel,” which, according to Pitchfork, appeared on the producer’s Twitter exactly a year after he finished it. Dummy points us to where Laurel Halo actually uploaded two tracks, one of which is presented under her King Felix moniker and the other of which is the “Micron Heavy Live Rework” of her new single “Sunlight on the Faded”. Though filed under different aliases, both tunes are similarly hectic and hyper jams that may speak to your frantic anxieties about today’s myths of impending doom. Last but not least, Blanck Mass (pictured above) gave away the aptly titled “Hellion Earth,” which is a surprisingly upbeat, electro-touched jam dominated by trancey synths and bright arpeggiations. The tune is available for a limited time only, and can be found with the rest of the aforementioned music, below.
Longtime friends Alexander Tochilkin and Lev Golikov have just released a collaborative 12″ under the moniker Kött & Wellbeck, calling it Can You. The four-track record is a solid collection of thick, jazzy deep house injected with raw instrumentation, like the driving piano stabs on “Dropman.” Though the slow-building tune is less jazzy than the rest of Kött & Wellbeck’s EP, it nonetheless relies on the same kind of throwback grooves and swinging vibes heard in those productions, all of which you can preview after the jump before they drop on December 24 via Fuselab.
Well, it happened—December 21, 2012 arrived and we are all still here (for now…), so why not indulge in a little armageddon-themed music to celebrate the fact that Earth still exists? Fortunately, UK producer Om Unit has supplied just such an opprotunity with the 11-track Pseudogeddon compilation, which he’s released today as a free download. The eclectic tracklist boasts the kind of “jungle footwork” which Om Unit’s Philip D. Kick moniker explored, with Machinedrum remixing Future Sound of London, Om Unit remixing Lennie De Ice, some original tunes from Chrissy Murderbot, and more. You can stream the whole compilation below and pick it up as a free download here.
This is it, the final installment of XLR8R‘s comprehensive Best of 2012 coverage. Over the past two weeks, we’ve tackled a myriad of categories—podcasts, features, tracks, releases, labels, and more—each time utilizing the opportunity to spell out our opinions on the past 12 months of music. For this final year-end feature, we’ve decided to flip things around by unveiling what the XLR8R audience has to say about 2012. Interestingly enough, after tabulating all the votes from our Best of 2012 Readers Poll, it appears that the tastes of the XLR8R faithful don’t actually veer that wildly from our own. While the choices don’t perfectly align with those made by our editorial staff, there’s definitely some overlap. Furthermore, it appears that our audience can’t quite make up its collective mind, as certain artists and releases have been tabbed amongst the year’s best while simultaneously being labeled as overrated and/or underwhelming. Of course, there’s no definitive answer about these things, but that doesn’t make pouring over the results any less interesting.
Best Releases
1. Actress R.I.P 2. Burial Kindred EP 3. Flying Lotus Until the Quiet Comes 4. John Talabot ƒin 5. Disclosure The Face EP 6. Andy Stott Luxury Problems 7. TNGHT TNGHT EP 8. Mala Mala in Cuba 9. Lone Galaxy Garden 10. Grimes Visions
Best Tracks
1. Blawan “Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage?” 2. Burial “Ashtray Wasp” 3. Jessie Ware “Running (Disclosure Remix)” 4. Todd Terje “Inspector Norse” 5. Joy Orbison “Ellipsis” 6. John Talabot “So Will Be Now…” 7. Julio Bashmore “Au Seve” 8. Grimes “Oblivion” 9. Four Tet “Jupiters” 10. Bicep “Vision of Love”
Best New Artists
1. Disclosure 2. TNGHT 3. Happa 4. Bondax 5. Baauer 6. Ryan Hemsworth 7. Dusky 8. Vessel 9. Karenn 10. South London Ordnance
Most Overrated Releases
1. Disclosure “Latch” 2. TNGHT TNGHT EP 3. Flying Lotus Until the Quiet Comes 4. The xx Coexist 5. Julio Bashmore “Au Seve” 6. Grimes Visions 7. Actress R.I.P 8. Laurel Halo Quarantine 9. Purity Ring Shrines 10. Scuba Personality
Most Underwhelming Releases
1. Flying Lotus Until the Quiet Comes 2. The xx Coexist 3. Scuba Personality 4. Addison Groove Transistor Rhythm 5. Teengirl Fantasy Tracer 6. Daniel Lopatin & Tim Hecker Instrumental Tourist 7. Mala Mala in Cuba 8. Clark Iradelphic 9. TNGHT TNGHT EP 10. The Gaslamp Killer Breakthrough
Don’t forget to take a look at the rest of XLR8R‘s Best of 2012 pieces:
Courtesy of Loaded sub-label Skint, we’re treated to an as-yet-unreleased track from British heavyweights X-Press 2. Leaving behind the pop-laden vocals so prevalent in the duo’s past numbers, “Down” finds the producers instead returning to their early passion for Balearic club music. Starting with the introduction of a bubbly melody and broken synth that seems to be rebuilding itself, X-Press 2 eventually builds its track into a flurry of catchy “da da” hooks and fist-pumping kicks. And after you download the tune, be sure to stream the pair’s recently released “Move on Aruba” b/w “Why Our Groove” 12″ after the jump.
Munich’s Compost imprint is set to drop a new EP from producer Show-B early next month (convenientally enough called Compost Black Label #93), and has sent along “Jammin,” one of two digital extras slated to accompany the record. Clocking in just over seven minutes, the tune is a house expedition of sorts, one where glossy synth tones, vibrant bass, and a bit of—maybe African—guitar lead the charge, occasionally joined by a popping, space-age melody. While “Jammin” won’t appear on the vinyl edition of Compost Black Label #93, a remix of the track from Huxley will be there alongside three original Show-B tunes when the EP drops on January 11.
Over the past 12 months, LA/SF duo 5kinandbone5 has shed many of the hip-hop underpinnings which marked its initial output. While this year has still seen the outfit producing tracks for a number of budding leftfield rappers, its own efforts continue to become more aligned with the various strains of house, techno, and bass—all of which are explored on the Sex Lies & Videochat EP.
In some ways, this EP seems to hint at a gradual maturing of the 5kinandbone5 project. Even the artwork is a bit toned down by the pair’s standards, and despite the tracklist containing a few less-than-serious song titles (“Niggaz Is Machines” and “Matrixxfuck” the most questionable among them), the productions here display a newfound reserve and patience, specifically in the elongated arrangements and less brazen sonic trappings being used. The seven-minute “Forest Nymphs” is one of the best examples of this, locking into a funky Midwestern groove before eventually rolling out a perfectly bouncy bassline and matching melody sequence made up of what sounds like the staccato hits of a general MIDI vibraphone patch. The closing “Machines Don’t Lie” is a similarly fitting example; gradually working a set of filtered chords back and forth across the frequency spectrum atop a pumping four-on-the-floor house beat, it remains an intriguing listen while not really doing much more than assembling its handful of ideas in various patterns. These tracks—along with the spoken-word featuring “Black Matter” and the hyper, Lone-esque “Niggaz Is Machines”—are impressive in their ability to move and evolve in small, necessary steps. Never does Sex Lies & Videochat lead the listener to any sort of “drops” or big moments; rather, the ideas presented in the opening sections of the tracks are explored and developed for five-plus minutes.
In the end, this doesn’t make for the most outright exciting EP, but—with the exception of the aforementioned “Matrixxfuck” tune, which proves to be the record’s only lackluster outing—it’s hard to deny that 5kinandbone5’s continued dedication to its Detroit, London, and Berlin inspirations has led the group toward an increasingly intriguing sound. More importantly, the duo does not come off as a duplicate or needless derivative of any sort, having found a unique place all its own amongst the current crop of retro-futuristic dancefloor outfits—a fact that bodes well for this and future releases.
London club and home of consistently quality mix CDs (seriously, two of them made it into our Best Releasesof 2012 list), Fabric has announced a new label endeavor called Houndstooth. The imprint will be helmed by Electronic Explorations curator Rob Booth, who in an interview with FACT said of the label, “Houndstooth is completely an artist-led endeavour, so the focus of what we’re doing will be squarely on them and their output.” In other words, Houndstooth will be issuing singles, EPs, and LPs, not mixes.
Houndstooth’s first release will come next year from Berlin’s Call Super (a producer who has appeared in our Downloads section a couple of times over the years), which will be followed by records from ?kkord, House of Black Lanterns (the new project from King Cannibal), Al Tourettes, and _Unsubscribe_. While Call Super’s The Present Tense EP does not have an official release date, tracklist, or artwork yet, Houndstooth did release a nifty promo video of Fabric’s logo morphing into its own, which you can watch below.
DC-based house duo Benoit & Sergio is ready to kick off its 2013 release schedule with a new 12″, the Bridge So Far EP. The two-track record will be the duo’s first for the London-based Hot Creations label, with the title cut purportedly boasting “layered synth keys” and touches of electro and the b-side pushing a deeper “chugging groove.” Benoit & Sergio’s record will follow its recent New Ships EP when it drops on February 4.
Veteran DJ, producer, and possesor of an incredible depth of musical knowledge, DJ /rupture (a.k.a. Jace Clayton) has delivered an early Christmas miracle of sorts, posting eight hours of his own mixes from 2001 up to present day onto the web as free downloads. From cumbia to hip-hop to dubstep to a wide array of exotic sounds culled from the electronic and urban music scenes of the often overlooked corners of the world, the NYC artist’s mixes seem to always follow a fluid path through such disparate and inspiring sources. Some highlights of the collection of mixes include 2008’s dubstep-focused Uproot, a 2009 cumbia mix for BBC Radio 1 (which is apparently the first cumbia set ever aired on the UK station), and the original mix that launched Clayton’s career: 2001’s genre-hopping, three-turntable-wielding Gold Teeth Thief. Basically, there’s a lot of top-quality, mind-expanding sounds to be had, so head here to start listening. It should be noted that while these mixes are free to download, DJ /rupture is accepting donations from those listeners able to show their appreciation by helping the musical guru pay his rent.
