Best of 2007 by Mochipet

Daly City Records boss David Wang waxes poetic on Dan Deacon, Serato, and Burning Man fashions.

Best Artist
Cornelius. I have loved Cornelius forever, and I feel it’s about time I gave Keigo some props. His new stuff is tamer than I like, but still good. But come on, Keigo, get crazy already. The crazy stuff is the best!

Worst Artist
Juiceboxxx. I saw Juiceboxxx with Bonde Do Role and all he had was an iPod nano plus a microphone. The first 15 minutes were the best thing I’ve seen all year. However, the last 15 minutes were probably the worst I’ve seen all year.

Best Album
Dan Deacon’s Spiderman of the Rings. I don’t know what’s up with Baltimore. [It keeps] coming out with the crazy stuff, and I love it. But everyone I meet from Baltimore says it sucks. Are they keeping a secret from me? Maybe I should move Daly City Records to Baltimore.

Worst Album
Bitter:Sweet’s The Remix Game.

Best Single/12″
Hexstatic’s Red Laser Beam. I can’t help i: anything with robots and lazers, I’m in. So it’s no wonder I love this single by Ninja Tune’s old-school electro duo.

Best Record Label
Harsh Noise. The Bay Area noise artists have been making some really good stuff for a while now, and I feel no one is really appreciating it. Time we give them some props, yo!

Best Live Event/Festival
Glade Festival.

Best City and/or Scene
The Daly City Filipino breakfast parties. If you’ve ever had Filipino breakfast, you know what I’m talking about.

Best DJ
Torq and Serato. Who needs DJs when you can have computers to do it? Does this mean I’m out of a job?

Best Music Trend
Dubstep. I love Dubstep!

Worst Music Trend
Dubstep. Dubstep is over!

What will be big in 2008?
China is going to spend $666,000 on GPS to spy on panda sex! I think this could be a major cultural movement.

Biggest/best music-related beef of 2007
Kanye vs. 50 Cent. C’mon people, they are both on Columbia Records. Can you say, “scammed by some record executive?” This beef was just hype to sell records. Who wins in the end? The corporation with your money.

Best Music Hardware
Drivers license as MIDI Controller

Best Music Software
Ableton Live. I had my doubts about it, but Ableton has really made Live work as sequencing and performance software. It’s very customizable and easy to use.

Electronic Gadget You Can’t Live Without
My girlfriends hate it, but I have to say my Blackberry.

Best Visual Artist
Suryummy, Josh Churchill, KG.

Best Shoe
Roller Shoes. I know these things came out in 2000, but I still love them. I can cruise around the hood just by poppin’ my heels.

Best Clothing Label
KittinHawk. I hate ties, but this girl makes amazing ones that I would wear, and have. All hand-made and sexy-beautiful.

Best Style Trend
Ko akuma Ageha (Little Devil). I love anything from Japan!

Worst Style Trend
Anything Burning Man. I’m not sure exactly when Burning Man became so homogenized that it is now called “attire,” but I can’t go anywhere in San Francisco now without catching some trace of this fuzzy, feather-leather, tribal, hippie wear. C’mon people, alternative culture means you do not all dress alike. Am I completely lost here? Oh screw it, I’m gonna go get a Utility Kilt.

Best Media Item
Girls Crushing Cars. You have to see it to believe it! That’s right, girls crushing cars. I have no idea why this is popular, but I love it.

Best Videogame
Super Puzzle Fighter (PS3, Xbox Live) and Tetris vs. Street Fighter. What a combo! The same guys are doing Super Street Fighter HD and Commando. Can you say elementary school, baby?!

More Best of 2007
Switch: Artist of the Year
Sage Francis’ Top Five Albums of 2007
Best Artists of 2007
Best of 2007 by Cameron Bird
Best Albums of 2007
Best Singles of 2007
Best of 2007 by Busy P
Best Live Events of 2007
Best of 2007 by Dust La Rock
Best Visual Artists of 2007
Best of 2007 by Dirt Crew
Best Music Trends of 2007
Best Style of 2007
Best of 2007 by DJ Ulysses
Best Music Technology of 2007

Fukkk Offf “The Bottom”

Bastian Heerhorst’s music is as aggressive as his Fukkk Offf moniker. The Hamburg-based artist has been steadily gaining popularity with his throbbing, fast-paced dance music. “The Bottom” appears on Australia-based Pistol Digital, a new company dedicated to showcasing unsigned artists.

Fukkk Offf – The Bottom

Alter Ego Releases Why Not?! and The Kings of Electro

With a new full-length and mix disc, German masters of synths and drum machines Alter Ego provide a crash course on where electro-tech has been and where it’s going.

Alter Ego–Roman Flügel and Jörn Elling Wuttke–has pretty much dominated underground-techno peak time in clubs worldwide since releasing “Betty Ford” in 2000. Their latest full-length, Why Not?! (Klang Elektronik), reaffirms their status as kings (and court jesters) of maximalist 4/4 anthems that slam hard and weird. Ten of the disc’s 11 tracks are pure DJ dynamite, so expect Alter Ego’s dancefloor reign to continue full ear-bleed ahead.

The title cut establishes Why Not?!’s brain-bonking bravado from the jump, as a rigid, rugged groove plows through a panoply of unhinged video-arcade sound effects. Madness ensues. “Gary” lifts the so-dumb-it’s-genius beat from the Glitter Band’s 1973 hit “Do You Wanna Touch Me? (Oh Yeah!),” which is the perfect chunky foundation for Alter Ego’s brown-sound bass blurge and asteroid-belting analog-synth flash pots. “Fuckingham Palace” hints at these pranksters’ irreverence with sonics to match the title: Imagine Si Begg’s or Luke Vibert’s blubbery-bassed whimsy and flagrant freq-outs unsuccessfully reined in by German techno’s efficiency.

Flügel and Wuttke have done extensive research on how to create the ultimate demented sounds to induce maximum eye-rolling ecstasy (and hip-shaking madness) in chemically enhanced clubbers. You sense that these guys have perma-grins plastered on their mugs every flamboyant minute they’re at the controls. They’ve achieved the rare feat of making music that inspires laughter as much as it does bumping and grinding, music that’s as goofy as it is disturbing.

The duo’s selections on the double-disc mix The Kings of Electro (Rapster) isn’t as madcap as Why Not?!, and it’s not even really “proper” electro as most aficionados would consider it. Alter Ego supposedly provides an overview of electro’s “present,” but many of their choices aren’t new and they lean more toward underground techno, with a heavy Detroit emphasis. This is no bad thing, of course, but Plastikman’s “Kriket,” Robert Hood’s “Minus,” Psyche’s “Neurotic Behaviour,” Dan Bell’s “Baby Judy,” and Maurizio’s “M4” have only tenuous connections to the genre spawned by Kraftwerk’s “Numbers” and Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit.” Closer in style to common notions of electro are Detroit Grand Pubahs’ “Big Onion (Joakim Remix)” (spare, bloopy, ass-fixated electro-funk) and Dopplereffekt’s “Cellular Phone” (next-level, cold-chillin’ robotic funk that’s as stark and forbidding as Detroit’s east-side ghettos). So Alter Ego’s version of Kings of Electro is a misnomer, but not a misfire.

The 19 tracks on Playgroup’s CD touch on typical electro and its stylistic deviations, striking a nice balance between inventiveness and party-igniting. The history lesson presented by Playgroup (British producer Trevor Jackson, boss of the defunct Output Recordings) hews much closer to the consensus view of what electro was/is. He starts with Chris & Cosey’s chilly Teutonic throb and melodic grandeur (“This Is Me”) before taking a 180-degree turn into Just Ice’s lean, hard hip-hop that, amazingly, carries Autechre’s DNA in it. Jackson unearths obscure gems (Just Ice’s “Turbocharged,” Tilt’s self-explanatory “Arkade Funk,” Energize’s minimal, spooky “Report to the Dancefloor,” High Fidelity 3’s “B-Boys Breakdance [Dub]”) and resurrects expected genre standards (Hashim’s “Al Nayfish”; Model 500’s “No UFO’s,” which now sounds surprisingly hokey; Ryuichi Sakamoto’s awesome “Riot in Lagos”).

If there’s one unforgettable lesson to be learned from Playgroup’s side of The Kings of Electro, it’s that most ’80s drum sounds suck: they’re clunky and of chintzy timbre, like tapping pencils on wax paper. But despite this drawback, electro undeniably signified a gleaming, if brittle, astral future for music–for about two years, although even in its obsolescence, it can still move bodies 25 years later.

Shooting Spires Shooting Spires

Shooting Spires is the solo project of BJ Warshaw, best known as the bassist and vocalist of New York noise-punk trio Parts and Labor. While Shooting Spires maintains Parts and Labor’s love of messy electronics, Warshaw eschews the aggression for some anthemic pop songs. Opener “Right” builds a monstrous melody from warbling synths and a tasteful horn section that, underneath the chaos, recalls David Bowie. “Quarantine” is even louder, with a large, fuzzy bassline that often dominates the song, but still retains a pop structure. “At Last At Least” is an alarmingly minimal closer, employing strummed guitar before a searing descent into white noise. Addictively noisy but ultimately listenable, Shooting Spires is another quality release from Warshaw’s head.

John Keys “Inland Empire”

John Keys is Dandy Jack and Andres Garcia, and it’s just my favorite kind of music for the 21st century–this is how contemporary electronic dance music should sound. DJs of the world, get this record and bring this music to the people! From extravagant club hits to pop ballads, this record offers a taster for his album, due out in 2008. A master cometh.

Machinedrum “Winter Wonderbells”

North Carolina-born, Brooklyn-based Machinedrum furnishes XLR8R with an unreleased gem just in time for the holidays. The 25-year old producer’s take on “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” is definitely one of the more bizarre versions of a classic Christmas tune we’ve heard, with cut-and-paste bleeps and vocals laid over a rumbling bassline. Pass the Christmas cheer!

Machinedrum – Winter Wonderbells

Nothing’s Too Weird – Black Dice

Aaron Warren and Bjorn Copeland, of the ever-evolving Brooklyn experimental group Black Dice, explain that they attack music and visuals in the same manner–nothing’s too weird. In fact, sometimes it’s not weird enough. From their early days in the Providence, RI noise scene, playing alongside Lightning Bolt, to their current incarnation as visual and sound collagists, Black Dice has always had a dominant, unifying aesthetic that shapes their output.

The 12 Days of Christmas: Day 11

Since it probably won’t be too many more years before print media is dead and buried, you might as well take advantage of it and buy your friends an XLR8R subscription for the holidays. For only $20, you will receive a year’s worth of XLR8R issues, each packaged with our exclusive INCITE CD* and delivered straight to your doorstep. Each edition of INCITE features tracks from artists in the pages of the magazine, along with episodes of XLR8R TV, software demos, movie clips, and more. Click here to buy your subscription today.

*INCITE is for U.S. subscribers only.

More Days of Christmas
Day 1: Rhino Box Sets
Day 2: Death In June Brown Book
Day 3: Selk’Bags
Day 4: Hangar One Raspberry Vodka
Day 5: Mishka Keep Watch Eyeball Hat
Day 6: GRN Apple Tree Hoodie and Nixon Watch
Day 7: Canon HG10
Day 8: Gee Vaucher Artwork
Day 9: Kid Robot Smoker’s Delight Bundle
Day 10: Eco-Friendly Bags from Colette
Day 12: Ableton Live

Best Style of 2007

Puritan Chic
Some Berlin-loving Scandinavians are going for a seriously Puritan look nowadays. When they walk through Berlin’s Mitte district in couples they look like they are part of some orthodox movement, with the beards and 300 Euro Jesus sandals.
Sasha Perera, Jahcoozi

I love all those people dressing like pilgrims. It’s so good.
Charlie Salas-Humara, Panther

The ’90s
Finally everybody got hooked on it. Colorz, colorz, colorz! Wayfarers! Washed-out jeans! I’m a ’90s kid, so I like it.
Boys Noize

Neutral clothing with colors of this earth
Someone just told me they hate the color brown. How the fuck do you hate on the color brown? “My bad, I should have worn my hot-pink sweater and my acid washed ‘hint of yellow’ jeans to your barbecue. Damn!”
Prefuse 73, Warp

Mantyhose
It’s not news that skinny jeans are back, but I’m talking about these next-level, skin-tight denim stockings that cut off a guy’s circulation at the knees and ankle and leave nothing at all to the imagination. I can’t decide if I love them or hate them.
Leslie Hermelin, Mute

The dick.
Jamie Stewart, Xiu Xiu

Back to Basics
More refined and understated fabric choices with innovative cuts are making a huge push. I’m hoping the full-on Teddy boy look of pre-punk Britain will hit full swing soon.
Oliver Mak, Bodega

Worst Style of 2007

New Rave
Kids riding the fluo/nu-rave bandwagon, turning what used to be a cool classic-futuristic style into a parody of itself, looking like clowns in glasses without lenses and stupid faux bling.
Teki Latex, TTC/Institubes

I just don’t see the point. Fluo was bad back in the day and it’s still bad today.
Ghislain Poirer, Ninja Tune

Skinny Jeans on Guys
Do we really need to see hipsters’ ass crack from behind and the disturbing site of their nuts crammed in the front like squashed grapes? Guys, you need some blood flow in there.
Enrique Soissa, Paper Bag

Glow Sticks
Get over it people, they sucked the first time around.
Brian “C.L.A.W.S.” Hock, Tigerbeat6

The “Jesse James” Look
You know, bandanna around the neck, with huge plugs and aviators.
Tim Saputo, XLR8R

Crocs
All of a sudden they were everywhere. Who knew it would get worse than Birkenstocks?
Derek Morris, Trophy Graphics

Nike Vintage
Why did Nike get all Abercrombie on us and try to sell us pre-dogged-out shoes for $80?
Mike Davis, Burlesque Design

Keffiyeh
Why in the fuck is everyone still wearing those Palestinian scarves?
Cameron Bird, Architecture in Helsinki

Frilly and loose bohemian dresses on girls
Luckily for the overweight semi-chic girls of the world, they can now cover up their love handles and look fashionable. Unluckily for men, who knows what’s going on underneath those big baggy sheets of fabric?
The Captain, Trouble & Bass

The Super Jesus Look
A beard and dirt doesn’t make you God.
Gabriel Jaffe, Puma

New Era caps with the sticker left on.
Gordon Hull, Surface to Air

More Best of 2007
Switch: Artist of the Year
Sage Francis’ Top Five Albums of 2007
Best Artists of 2007
Best of 2007 by Cameron Bird
Best Albums of 2007
Best Singles of 2007
Best of 2007 by Busy P
Best Live Events of 2007
Best of 2007 by Dust La Rock
Best Visual Artists of 2007
Best of 2007 by Dirt Crew
Best Music Trends of 2007
Best of 2007 by Mochipet
Best of 2007 by DJ Ulysses
Best Music Technology of 2007

The Abyssinians Satta Massagana (Deluxe Edition)

Recorded in 1976, this classic reggae album truly stands the test of time. (The three-part harmonies of Bernard Collins, Donald Manning, and Lynford Manning helped defined what “classic” reggae was in the first place.) The accompanying musicians, including Robbie Shakespeare and Horsemouth Wallace, provide a lesson in Jamaican folklore. While the title track became biblical in the Rasta world–a dreamlike ode to the roots of black spirituality–there is plenty here to reminisce and recline to. The two previously unreleased extended mixes of “Abendigo” and “Poor Jason Whyte” are nice collector’s items, but a bit unnecessary. The original always was, and will remain, enough to keep any mind occupied for hours.

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