Top Ten Songs of 2019 | 24/12/19

Christmas is the time for GIVING and in that spirit, sweet lord, do I have some gifts to give you! I decided that I couldn't stop at one, but instead have two great posts to share with you to round off the year. That's right, in similar fashion to everyone else who has something else to say about music, I have made lists for both the year and the decade! So original, so unique, so scintillatingly riveting that I bet you're all on the edges of your seats as you read this. Below are my top ten songs of the year and my reasons why, and then click here for the 'decade' issue. Of course, please see this as my take and an insight into my experience of what this year has to offer; music is completely subjective, and everyone's experiences of it contribute heavily to the impact it has. This makes it pointless to criticise annuals as being accurate or inaccurate, and instead they should be taken as an opportunity for everybody to share their review of the last twelve months of their life through sonic material.

#10 - Bromley - Joy Overmono

To start things off, we've got a tune that has been played in set after set through the second half of this year, and finally got released in November. The combination of Joy Orbison and Overmono was something we never knew how badly we needed until this. I first heard it in Ben UFO's Dekmantel Boiler Room set where it stood its ground amongst impressive peers in an eclectic mix of tracks. That vocal sample going 'say it yeah-eh-eh-eh-eh, say it' dropping back into the beat satisfies your ear drums every time you hear it. Aside from this dramatic break in the music, the alternating notes of the tuned percussion give off such a wonderfully acoustic timbre that grounds the electronic beeps and whirling you hear, balancing the two ends of the production .

#9 - Deaf Ears, Blind Years - Saint Jude

Saint Jude's EP was going to have to make an appearance somewhere on this list considering how much I've listened to it consistently since it came out, and narrowing down my favourite was tricky. Ultimately, the raw vulnerability of the lyrics, mellow synth tones and a drum beat with one fantastic snare come together to create a pool of reflection in music form. With its release signifying a move into a more acoustic sound, genre-blending and use of his own vocals, 'Deaf Ears, Blind Years' allows Jude to share something more personal. I like to think of the UFO-sighting theme of the music video as symbolistic of the search for something that we were sure was once there, but there seems to be no trace of it left. 

#8 - Linked - Bonobo

Grammy-nominated Bonobo, no less. 'Linked' followed up his 'fabric presents' compilation with a continuation of his masterful ability to create a sound appropriate to both solitary chillouts and the dance floor. Seeing it performed live at Printworks definitely drove home the latter, particularly as the the countermelody builds up to a glorious, but not over-indulgent, final drop. An amalgamation of soothing vocal snippets, polyrhythmic percussion over a four-to-the-floor beat, and an acid line soaring through the middle. It's gentle, celestial, euphoric and ethereal, and gives you a feeling like you're walking off a cliff-edge and onto the air, suspended above the crashing waves below.

#7 - Midnight Hour - Skrillex, Boys Noize, Ty Dolla $ign

Never thought I'd see Skrillex on this list, but here we are and I'm not sorry about it whatsoever. This track soundtracked my summer before it was even released, and has played at most major events I've been to at some point or another. The individual elements seem absurd to combine, but in this weird, hard-to-put-your-finger-on way it works faultlessly. The honey-dipped R&B vocals and piano accompaniment are blasted out by a classic house beat, flurries of chopped up samples and the highlight of a gritty 3-note motif. It's not too serious, and this humour is what sells it; when you're knee deep in a crowd and acting stupid anyway, what else would you want to hear?

#6 - Bias - Floating Points

Floating Points' release on Ninja Tune, 'Crush', has gone down with huge critical success and has featured on numerous album of the year lists. It's been exciting to see both a return to his dark and gritty club roots and have such a complexly crafted set of visuals to accompany the release, building up hype to his live shows. With 'Crush' being quite the electronic-classical masterpiece, the three-note motif that opens this track (as well as the higher octave response) is an unmistakeable reference to Rachmaninoff's 'Prelude in C# Minor', depicting 'Bias' as the raver younger brother of one of the most brilliant pieces of piano music of all time. The rapid breakbeat builds up to a split second silence in the middle of the song, as if the world ceases to exist for just a moment. it's ominous, cavernous, and a brilliant five minutes of brass, beats and synths.

#5 - He - Jai Paul

After a hiatus of several years from one of the most influential artists of recent years, Jai Paul's release of the EP 'Do You Love Her Now / He' certainly had people talking. When your music is leaked before it's been finished, that's a hell of a lot of pressure on what a finished product will be, and yet of course he delivered. 'He' has that same nuance to it that makes his synthesis of styles fuse perfectly into what really can be called unique. Paul's falsetto vocals are heavenly, blending well into the shapeshifting instrumental. Despite some of the darker sounds he uses, it's great to hear something so optimistic with this release, especially after such a long time. Also, shout out for the open statement he put out with the EP; it's an incredible insight into what he went through -  you can read it here. 

#4 - Claustro - Burial

Burial once again reinvents the nostalgic lens through which he beams the sound of rave with this banger. A classic garage two-step is muddied in with distorted, detuned vocals, little trumpet motifs and hearty synth chords, all of course encompassed by that trademark vinyl crackle. He manages to make a club track creepy, while still capable of being the highlight moment of a set, and the degree to which it's upbeat is unusual and exciting. In particular, the final little breakdown at the end with the words 'I've got my eyes on you, tonight, I've got my eyes on you' gives us this little hyped up send off before the track ends. 'Claustro' stands out as certain aspects are so new, different, and unexpected from Bevan, yet it remains utterly and unmistakably Burial.

#3 - TLSL (Stiches) - Lava La Rue

I love this song (shoutout to my trip to New York). As ever, London is teeming with exciting new sounds, and La Rue's NiNE8 Collective is a noteworthy one that's been doing bits this year. In particular, 'TLSL' encapsulates youth, joy, summers, friends, just good vibes all round. The chorus makes you smile every time it comes in, but for such a sunny track it still packs plenty of attitude in her flow. The 4-note syncopated bassline keeps the feel-good tone marching along, cause 'we've gotta keep it positive'; it's optimism in sonic form, and I'm here for it.

#2 - Sunspear - O'Flynn

As mentioned a couple times before in this blog, Aletheia is potentially my favourite album from this year. The variety of sound within the same overarching concepts are very pleasing to the ear, and it placed an anthem like 'Desmond's Empire' in good company. If I look back to which track really stayed consistent in its effect throughout the year, 'Sunspear' takes the cake. It's celebratory, excessive, electrifying and had the best reaction from the Printworks crowd I've ever seen. (EDIT: Saw him the other day at Jazz Café - even better within his own set.) There's nothing like a lull down to silence to be punctuated with a blast like that descending melody, preceded effectively with a filtered loop just beforehand. One is never enough though, and O'Flynn uses the exact same technique a second and third time round. The party never ends with this one, and you can just imagine those South American rhythms fading off into the sunset to their next destination.

#1 - Only Human - KH

I started this blog about a year and a half ago when I saw Four Tet's set at Lost Village and felt the need to record my feelings about it. That was the first time I ever heard 'Only Human', many months before it was officially out under his alias 'KH'. After listening to a rip of it from one of Ben UFO's radio shows, by the time it dropped I was well acquainted, but that in no way stopped it from being the most memorable song of the year. On its own, it's one of Kieran's best takes on a full-force dance floor anthem. Each drop is distinct from the last, and the dirty, pulsating kick that comes in just at the end is a naughty last goodbye. What he's done with the track this year, however, takes it to another level. The clunky march of the beat can be heard practically throughout his entire sets sometimes, always in the background, tantalisingly teasing the track's approach. He usually follows it by mixing in 'Lush' as well, an unbelievable combination that almost creates an entirely new sound. 'Only Human' is everything great about Four Tet in 2019.

So, that's all for this year, again, click here if you'd like to check out some picks from the last ten instead. Playlist link for the above is also here. There's obviously been an unbelievable amount of fantastic music this year, and it was hard to know what really had a sense of the best of the best for me. Special shoutout also to Fixate's remix of 'Ripgroove' also and for the waves it made appearing on Sherelle's Boiler Room set (around 23:53), definitely a moment to remember. Here's to another year of sick tunes. xx

New Tunes | 29/9/19

It's rained pretty much all week (yes I am starting a post talking about the weather once again) which has been a not-so-delightful reminder that summer is over, festival season is done, the glory days have come to a close. I say that, but this winter is already looking to be exciting and fun, and maybe summer is just romanticised in my head to be better when in fact, it's fun season all year round. Speaking of fun, I actually wrote something that wasn't for this blog recently, if you haven't seen it on my social media already, for an online publication Pretend. It was a review of Aphex Twin's Printworks gig, which by the way absolutely blew my mind. The longer it's been the more I reckon it was up there as one of the best live acts I've seen, never experienced anything like it. You can check out the review here, or just keep reading for more nice words. This week, I want to do a list of new discoveries and tunes I like at the moment, I'm just in the mood to talk through what I'm hearing. Enjoy.

#1 - Love Tension - Alternative Version | Soichi Terada

I was led to this 2015 album, 'Sounds from the Far East' after listening to 'Do It Again' a lot . Many of the tracks go off, but I like this one particularly. Terada is apparently best known as the composer of the 'Ape Escape' video game series - very random, but not the first time that video game and club music have been connected in this blog. So, this track, the kick is satisfyingly blunt from the get go, and clashes quite interestingly with the soothing rhythm of the bongos. I love the little syncopated flute-synth motif, and the track as a whole certainly has a style that you could interpret as Japanese, but it isn't necessarily obvious or stereotypical in any way. It's smooth, relaxing, and reminds me of a car driving down a oceanside motorway as the sun sets, real cool.

#2  - First Casualty | Nathan Micay

Hypnotic. That is exactly how I'd describe this track, with the pedal note in a simple rhythm starting from the first second of the track and carrying on right through all seven minutes. It's accompanied by echoing bass patterns, delicate little staccato melodies over the top, and lots of other sound bites and motifs that really give it an almost ASMR feel. The sounds are so crisp, but still maintain a retro simplicity to them. I've read here that Nathan Micay, Canadian born producer now living in Berlin, has an anime obsession and had written a guide to classic anime soundtracks for the website, and in my opinion you can hear that influence in this song. It's very much electronic ambience, but piano passages enter the texture halfway through and ground it in reality to an extent. Also, love the sudden drop to silence and back to full volume again, like a sonic boomerang.

#3 - Parabola | Hammer

This is the title track from the Feel My Bicep classic's most recent EP, and it of course slaps. Upon re-listening I wasn't sure if it would quite make the cut, but the drop at 3:13 is delicious and now I remember why I'm obsessed. It's subtle enough to not get old quickly, and the tempo is steady enough that I can imagine wavey vibes in the club that glide you through the length of the track. It's very much intergalactic, with muted chords underlaying the sharp attacks on the angular melodies above. Overall, it's just never too much, and while it would definitely keep you on your feet on a dance floor, there's nothing too heavy about any part of it. Great stuff from Hammer.

#4 - Burn | Lava La Rue

As I mentioned, 'TLSL' was one of my favourite songs during my NY trip (still getting played every day), and we've now been rewarded with the whole album, which I love. I found it hard to choose a specific track at first, because it more works well as a whole to me, but this is the first one chronologically and stands strong. The lyrics are pretty heavy, and the soca rhythm underneath really drives home her flow. Coming from a woman of colour, the emphasis on having an educated opinion and standing up for what you deserve is solid, relevant and important. Her vocals are soothing and the production quite reminds me of Branko. Really strong release from the founder of NiNE8 Collective, so make sure you do check out the rest of the album as well.

#5 - Aletheia | O'Flynn

No, I'm not over this album yet. Yes, my favourite song from it keeps changing every week. O'Flynn is a genius, and I'm gutted I missed his album tour at Phonox on Friday, but was a bit outpriced once I got round to getting tickets. The way he uses the vocal sample in this immediately generates a sense of euphoria; the first time it comes in, the instrumental dies down to let you hear the purity in their voices, and as it repeats throughout it combines with the rest of the music seamlessly. It's so uplifting, and since he released 'Desmond's Empire' it has been clear that he is good at this kind of genre blend. The rhythms are brilliant, creative, and there's a beat in there that sounds remarkably like the opening of 'Evening Side'. I'm looking forward to hearing how DJ's mix this one into their sets, and for anything he releases in the future. 

That should do it for this week. Lots of new amazing stuff right now! As the sun sets earlier and earlier, I feel like the atmosphere on nights out somehow does too; you're safe in the dark from early on, and there's no danger of it getting light in the morning either. I'm going to see Bonobo's Outlier for the first time at Printworks in a couple of weeks, and the excitement is real for that one, so will probably talk about that when it comes round. Thank you for reading, and check out all the tracks! I'm wondering whether to start doing a small playlist of my recommendations like this and change it every time I post to make listening easier - I'll post a link if I decide to do that.

Musical Anastrophe | New York | 11/9/19

It's undeniable that any piece of music can take someone back to a very specific place, event, time in their life. I remember my Dad telling me when I was really young that a song was hard to listen to now because it brought back so many memories, but it wasn't until I was much older that I understood where he was coming from. Music builds foundations in the mind for memories to scale up from, it cements exact moments of our past into the soul, whether joyful or mournful. I've talked about nostalgia and memory and those kinds of things plenty of times, but something that occurred to me today was that these foundations aren't necessarily set. In fact, it's very much possible for the songs that hold such great significance to us to shift in meaning through our lives. The time a song is created doesn't necessarily hold the all-encompassing basis of the effect it will have, and songs are constantly displaced into points of your life and continue to have new meanings, additional meanings, as they emphatically engorge our emotions as the years pass by.

I want to call it musical anastrophe. If in poetry, you have a recurring line and you come to assume its meaning, just so in music could you come to assume a song's meaning to you, and yet without an alteration of content, suddenly that song's meaning can completely change, just as if the word order of the line has been jumbled up. Maybe it's a reach. The point is, music can stay exactly the same and completely change simultaneously. Electronic music and its reliance on technology means that when it's first released it sounds new and futuristic, as you envisage a world where computers take over more and more, and in twenty years time that's replaced by the idea of it sounds 'retro', and it's the simplicity that resounds to its audience. This obviously doesn't only apply to electronic, but is ultimately a symptom of the progression of styles and mutation of genres.

The core concept of this to me comes from the change within the individual, however. What really got me thinking about this has been my trip to New York, which I'm pretty sure I've told everyone in the world about at this point. As with any trip away, me and my best friend wondered beforehand what songs would turn out to be iconic from it, but it never crossed my mind that they would be old tunes from my life rehashed again. 'Get Free' by Major Lazer has made me emotional for years for a million reasons, but I'd found it quite hard to listen to because it reminds me of a lot of memories with an ex and all that kind of stuff, but it came on my shuffle on the subway at some point, and then we played it at the AirBnB, then in a cab, on the subway again, and it solidified its place as a representative of the trip. Suddenly, I listen to it and my immediate subconscious reaction comes from a totally different place, so much more is associated. That's not to say everything else has gone away, but it becomes a layer in a more detailed painting. Daft Punk's 'One More Time' is timeless anyway, but remained a banner for my early childhood mostly, and now it's a symbol of grid system streets and skyscrapers, intertwined eternally in that friendship. omg. so deep.

There's another side to it from what I experienced going out. All of our nights were fun and hilarious, but mainly as weird little events mapped out and the general buzz of being on holiday. On the Friday, we went to Yaeji's 'Elancia' warehouse party at The 1896 and this was genuinely a mad one. The artwork was so cool before we even bought our tickets, and it was Brooklyn to a tee, this huge abandoned building with portaloos and food stalls, a giant chill room, it genuinely was giving me rave vibes. On that note, they were playing tunes I (ignorantly) never thought I'd hear across the pond. The Prodigy's 'Smack My Bitch Up', Chemical Brother's 'Hey Boy, Hey Girl' and 'Where's Your Head At' by Basement Jaxx all went OFF, mixed into what was mainly heavy techno consistency and offset with pretty varying visuals. Yaeji was having such a sick time, and her b2b style with the rest of the performers (Gardens, Hot 'N Spicy, Papi Juice, The Push, School of Hard Trax, Soul Summit Sublimate) was more peng complimentary vibes rather than pure duality. Anyway, it all came together to permanently change how I thought of those songs and what they meant to me, bringing in a very specific moment in a country I would never have thought I'd associate them with.

So it's all very much old song, new smiles, but there were definitely some new releases that have been big over the course of last week for me too. Lava La Rue's 'TLSL (Stitches)' is wholesome, warm and wonderful, giving me the exact chilled overtones holiday gives me. The little unison bridge with a breath between each word nicely breaks it up and ending with 'we always keep it positive' has been stuck in my head since. O'Flynn released an incredible album with 'Aletheia', up there with my favourites of the year so far, it's so good. So many floor filler bangers, absolute crowd-pleasers, and his fusion of world sounds stays coherent and within the same theme throughout. Even though lots of the tracks were already released, it's just fantastic as a combined body of work. To be honest, I might make a proper post to discuss it in depth, but we'll see. 'Sunspear' has been on repeat since it came out. Lastly, Mahalia released her debut album 'Love and Compromise'! It's really solid, and I'm happy to have a new RnB album to play all the time. The intro track is actually my favourite of the new ones, 'Hide Out', and I just think the Eartha Kitt sample at the beginning is so peng and simple, quickly introducing the title/theme. Hope you guys are having a great week, thanks for reading. xxx