Down
Banquet
The Best of 2004
Read about which artists sizzled and which slumped in 2004. Other features include Sa-Ra Creative Partners and a section devoted to Global Music, including DJ Krush (Japan), Anthony B (Jamaica), Polish Jazz, and Reggaeton (Puerto Rico). Also featured: UK artist ehquestionmark, Ali Shaheed Muhammed, DJ Sasha a.k.a. Inflagranti, Geoff White (Aeroc) , Platinum Pied Pipers, Tomlab, Tussle, and Detroit MC Invincible.
Novo Tempo Meets Eurasian Suite 2 Novo Tempo Meets Eurasian Suite 2
The six-piece Novo Tempo live jazz ensemble share sides across the oceans with Japan’s Koichi Ozaki. Live and electronic jazz styles abound, from Novo’s “Carmo” (cinematic soul/broken beats reworked by Brick & Piknik) to Ozaki’s Kyoto Jazz Massive-esque “Dragnet” (a superb, swinging live bossa-jazz ‘n’ house number featuring cascading piano solos). International cooperation has never sounded as harmonious.
DJ Distance Replicant
Rinse FM’s Distance shares DJ slots in London clubs with heavies like the The Bug, Digital Mystikz and Horsepower Productions, whose influences show up on these three gritty tracks. Standouts “Dark Crystal” and “Roots” are superb minimal dubstep replete with exotic African and Indian percussion, slithering basslines and echoing flutes. Spacious and foreboding, this is essential sound system pressure.
Edski Calypski
Somewhere in between all the grime, breakstep and experimental dub lies that original party blueprint for 2-step garage, an infectious blend of sub-bass-saturated sped-up house beats that popped champagne bottles around the globe for a few years. It’s four/four tracks like Edski’s that recall the novel vibe of the genre’s dawning, with his ragga-influenced steppy rhythms, a swinging house groove and even acid- synths to spice it up. Like an Oakland Raiders throwback jersey-we want more music like this.
Total Science Good Game
When Oxford duo Total Science burst on the drum & bass scene, they served up a driving, bouncy sound that was accessible without resorting to obvious gimmicks and sheer absurdity; simultaneously, their tunes trumped the popular dark, heavy metal-inspired sound for playability and chart placement. With Good Game, the pair proves that jungle still needs them, with nine tracks designed to stoke dancefloor fires again and again. Full of crisp snares, spiraling low-end and clever influences cribbed from techno, house, dancehall and old-school hardcore, Good Game is pure fun. Play on, boys.
Blu Tribunl Blu Tribunl
The follow up to 2003ís dub tribunL, blu tribunL finds idiosyncratically excellent producers Akufen, Freeform and Rip Off Artist modernizing one of the most tradition-entrenched genresñthe blues. Each artist deconstructs venerable songs into Cubist mutations that will horrify purists (in the unlikely event they ever hear this disc). blu tribunLís frissons spring from the novel incongruity of Mississippi Delta mud mingling with clicks íní cuts jaggedness and getting atomized by antiseptic DSP. Ironically, Akufen, Freeform and Rip Off Artistís irreverence toward the blues actually revitalizes electronic music, and unexpectedly reveals the blues as a rich springboard for musical innovation.
Robert Henke Signal To Noise
Inspired by a photo he took of Joshua Tree National Park prior to a thunderstorm, Berlin-based producer Robert Henke (Monolake) has conjured another disc of monument, beatless music. Signal To Noise will appeal to those into Monolakeís Gobi. The Desert EP, a vast, elemental vista of becalming and vaguely sinister ambience. Signal To Noiseís slowly evolving, vastly spacious soundscapes possess a holy aura and that quality which marks the best ambient music: It evokes the wonders of nature without getting Hallmark card sappy about it. The musicís subtlety and power point to a master producer/sound designer at the controls.
