For a steady diet of Amens, “Staggered Dub” is your best bet. Fusing the famous break with dub chants that are truly evocative of a jungle, Breakage turns very few musical elements into a compelling, energetic composition. The same is true of the flip side, “For Me,” which includes tribal drums and some nicely positioned Rhodes chords in the musical layout.
Break Reform And I
Forget yr Norah Jones, or any other cooing vocalist-Break Reform‘s Nanar re-envisions smooth British soul with confident, intelligent songs matched by equally challenging, yet sensible, music. Add a downbeat Yam Who? rub and Sidewinder‘s swinging retouch and you‘re hearing the likely heir to Soul2Soul‘s legacy.
Echo Falling
Anyone who remembers SF‘s era of dark drum & bass will recognize the name Echo, and on “Falling” he evokes the depths of a twisted mind with an evil sickness that only DJs who play as tormented as Dylan and Grooverider could handle. Paradoxically, Calyx delivers one of his most accessible songs to date with “Out Of Time,” full of filtered acid sounds, a Tears For Fears sample, and aggressive breaks that never stagnate in the hands of this d&b Ginsu.
Various Artists Pop Ambient 2005
Since 2001, Kompakt has been franchising the most beautiful sounds next to silence-respect to any company that can turn on thousands to rarefied beatless music. Kompakt‘s potent name recognition means loads of folks can access yearly primers of top-shelf ambience from trusty producers like Gas, Markus Guentner, and Peter Grummich. Lulling lavender odes to amniotic tranquility prevail on Pop Ambient 2005, but Klimek brings some amazing guitar-chord dispersion that shimmers like a heat haze and Thomas Fehlmann rises above a strong lineup with a track of iceberg-like majesty, which drifts into this pantheon of slow-motion drone beauty.
Plat Compulsion
Through mysterious means, Iceland‘s Arnar Helgi Adalsteinsson and Vilhjalmur Palsson have captured the lonely, pathos-laden aura of sparsely populated towns in the American Southwest. Plat‘s deft use of space, reverb, and hyper-intricate percussion enables them to conjure poignantly cinematic soundscapes that recall A Small Good Thing and Icarus. Subtlety guides Plat through their 10-track debut album, as they seamlessly mesh organic and electronic elements into elegant compositions. Plat‘s chops on guitar, bass, drums and computer are impeccable, but not at the expense of emotional depth. Compulsion is an accomplished debut that launches Plat to the head of the Icelandic music pack.
Venetian Snares Winnipeg Is A Frozen Shithole
Hatred spurs Venetian Snares‘ creative juices on Winnipeg Is A Frozen Shithole, as he dishes out nine furious anti-paeans to the Canadian metropolis “chosen by the London Times four years in a row as the capital of sorrow.” Venetian Snares (Aaron Funk) programs his drums to stun; the ferocity and velocity of his snares, cymbals, and boinging kicks seems designed to level Winnipeg‘s city hall. The prolific Funk‘s well-honed m.o. comes to demonic fruition on Winnipeg: It‘s a five-dimensional, super-humanly dexterous drill & bass/gabber fusion that leaves you-and the title city-utterly trashed by disc‘s end.
Eluvium Talk Amongst the Trees
Seattle guitarist/pianist Matthew Cooper (Eluvium) is becoming one of the most adept ambienceurs of this young decade. His third release, Talk Amongst The Trees, conjures an expansive pathos with a minimalist‘s economy of means. This eight-track disc alludes to some of history‘s most sublime dronemeisters, but never blatantly replicates them. The mournful, mellifluous swells of “Show Us Our Homes,” for example, obliquely evoke William Basinski‘s elegiac symphonies to decay, while “Calm Of The Cast-Light Cloud” sends gorgeous My Bloody Valentine-shaped whorls of emotional ambiguity skyward. Poignant enough to rub microtones with Eno‘s beatless classics, Trees stands tall among the era‘s elite sound paintings.
Prefuse 73 Surrounded By Silence
What the fuck? Cheescake cover photo and MCs who cash checks from majors on a Prefuse 73 joint? Yep, Ghostface and GZA appear as do many sterling indie rappers (Beans, El-P, Aesop Rock) and musicians (Tyondai Braxton, The Books), but Surrounded By Silence is undeniably Prefuse 73‘s show. Scott Herren‘s orchestral, camera-shutter funk has become familiar, but it‘s still potent. “I‘ve Said All I Need To Say About Them Intro” kills it from the jump with astral-sexual, futuristic funk featuring warped vibes and smeared videogame FX. The rest of Silence finds Prefuse crafting both his most accessible tracks (Ghost/El-P-laced “Hideyaface” and the Camu-fronted “Now You‘re Leaving”) and his weirdest (“Ty Versus Detchibe,” “And I‘m Gone”). This is a brilliant culmination of Prefuse‘s career to date.
DWH Beauty
On the Sheffield-based trio‘s second EP for Counterpoint, Zagreb‘s Eddy & Yannah skillfully rework “Beauty” into a Latin-tinged dancefloor filler. Blackbeard goes into dirty slow jam mode on “Darkside” with blistering results. The original “Beauty” and “Latter Rains,” along with remixes, showcase Genifa Vernon-Edwards‘s elegant vocals, which make a strong first impression.
Middlefield Incoming
Toronto-based Middlefield‘s catchy blend of jazzy, atmospheric house influences makes this EP a cut above. T-dot‘s other favorite son, Moonstarr, turns “Incoming” into a Latin-tinged broken epic on one of his finest remixes. Just don‘t let it overshadow this EP‘s overall strength; Middlefield is poised to make his mark.
