I‘m a real sucker for melodic guitars, and this record shows that there‘s a lot of life and a lot of love in making music that doesn‘t necessarily have to be a hit on the dancefloor, but is great to listen to at home. Roll on TC! This is what we call contributing to d&b.
Kareem Noctocromas Kareem Noctocromas
You are in an elevator. In a submarine. The elevator is descending, well below what you know to be the sub‘s lowest floor. Your ears are getting tight. Your head is starting to feel the ultimate ice cream headache. The sound of bending metal, popping bubbles, exploding air pockets and cracking ice begin to invade your personal space. Finally the elevator stops, thrusting you out into a world of frigid water that sucks the life out of you, pushing you down, down, down. Peace at last.
Brazilian Girls Brazilian Girls
A four-piece transcontinental band from Manhattan, Brazilian Girls references not only Brazil, but model-flaunting catwalks, fashionable Parisian shopping districts, German burlesque houses and deep down and dirty Copacabana sex shows. Theirs is generous, multi-faceted pop music that recalls the brainy zeitgeist of Talking Heads and UK trip-hop filtered through lush vocals and garish instrumentation. “Corner Store” dances on hazy brass and a funky New Orleans groove; “Pussy” drips with ska humidity and city smarts; “Lazy Lover” sounds like The Orb cooling it with Debussy. Ute Lemper eat your heart out.
Ricardo Villalobos The Au Harem D‘Archimede
Glitch and girth music is all too often like a band of bugs hitting you up for spare change. You see them coming, you try to look away, but before you know it the music is zapping your head and your pockets are emptied. Ricardo Villalobos builds on this cycle, making music that is surprisingly elastic and warm yet still full of brain zappers that will keep yours ears perked. “Hello Hallo” is liquid and lusty; “Miami” is oddly impersonal; “Temenarc 1” recalls elevator sex with a stranger: fast, tight, abrupt, satisfying.
Krinjah Fugees Hand Grenade
Krinjah is little known outside the inner circles of the ragga jungle resurgence, but for some he‘s a hero. The A-side is a rinsing update of “Squeeze,” the jungle classic by DJ Ash & DJ Vern, while side B rides Lauren Hill‘s “Killing Me Softly” into an onslaught of jungle madness.
Take Colossal Vol. 2
First they had the Space Needle. Now Seattle can add Take to its cosmic collection. They also have cold weather, which might explain the hibernation-friendly tempos and warm downtempo dreamscapes. Fortunately, Take tracks are sprinkled with just enough glitch-n-grit to keep ears bent. As a bonus there are remixes galore, including the cinematic vocoded Caural version and one by the ever-sporadic Daedelus.
Linkwood Family Miles Away
An old proverb states: “Make first record on your new label a good one, or all future releases will automatically end up in the trade pile.” Fortunately these Scottish fellas knew this, turning out a quality EP including vocals by Joseph Malik, tasty soulful house, dirty-edit disco and a Sun Ra-flavored thang. Reminds me of another proverb: If it‘s not Scottish, it‘s crap.
Lethal Bizzle Pow
This tune is bound to cause a ruckus-in fact, it‘s been banned from all Essex clubs for just that reason! Lethal Bizzle (of More Fire Crew) makes his production debut with an electro-handclap-spiked string attack, then trades a hot eight bars with 10 (10!) other MCs. Easily the biggest grime tune this year.
Digital Mystikz And Loefah 02 EP
Digital Mystikz and Loefah turn out tracks that strip the Rasta-in-space sound of Horsepower Productions back to heavily reverbed drums, slow grinding subs and raw synth blurts. These tracks exemplify the dubstep scene‘s musical premise-like dinosaurs caught in a tar pit, the beats pull against the glutinous basslines but never quite break free.
Saukrates Hope
I don‘t know Saukrates personally, but I am definitely a fan of his work. I probably have every record he‘s put out in the last few years and every time I get a new one it‘s always great. Lyrics, production, everything-this 12″ is strong.
