To quote the namesake of one of my favourite songs, “so here we are”…
500 (and 1) albums/EPs/mixtapes later and I am ready to call it quits for 2013 with regards to this blogging malarkey, as far as digesting new music goes anyway. I will be indulging in the customary End Of Year posts later in the month once I’ve got the infernal build-up to Christmas week out of the way; is it just me or does anyone else feel like all this enforced commercial jollity is infuriatingly visited upon us that little bit earlier every year? I wouldn’t normally complain, but if we live in a world where Kelly Clarkson can come out with an admittedly-rather-good Christmas album the Monday before Halloween, then all I can do is feel a twinge of despair at how aggressive the corporate Yuletide agenda has become. But hey, at least I’ll get over a week off from work at the office once Christmas Eve rolls around…
In the meantime though, courtesy of Mixcloud and Spotify, may I present the last in the 2013 series:
01) Haunted // Beyoncé >> Seemingly in-keeping with the tone of Christmas in the vein of last-minute gift-giving, Mrs Carter recently dropped her fifth album on iTunes with nary a sign of a teaser campaign online or on the airwaves (though her announcing 2014 tour dates and myriad sightings of video shoots had fans guessing for some time); the result musically probably stands up as her most grandstandingly assured yet, BEYONCÉ leaning more towards adult-contemporary R&B and ominous electronics than it does to radio-friendly pop smashes.
02) Hiders // Burial >> Another late-comer to the fourth-quarter fold is the latest EP from Will Bevan, London’s most reclusive electronic music producer and whose Rival Dealer reps as his most purely uplifting release to date. Which isn’t to say that his customarily dusty beats and industrial soundscapes aren’t as menacing as previously, but that they are here prone to bursts of salient hope in the sound design that consequentially offer up some of the most conventionally euphoric work of Bevan’s career.
03) Virginal II // Tim Hecker >> Having finally encountered something of a breakthrough with his critically-lauded sixth album Ravedeath, 1972 a couple of years ago, this Canadian ambient droner returns with Virgins, an album that brings his loops into more operatic, confrontational spheres with its incorporation of live instruments recorded within confined studio spaces. The result is an often-masterful exercise in epically claustrophobic sound design, with more than a dash of Gothic religion thrown into the mix.
04) Nightcrawler // Patrick Cowley >> Often compared with Giorgio Moroder as one of the early pioneers of electronic dance music (and cited by Pet Shop Boys and New Order as being a heavy influence on their respective outputs), Cowley’s profile enjoyed something of a modest renaissance this year with the release of School Daze, a compilation of unreleased electronic instrumentals he recorded between 1973 and until his death in 1982, some of which were used in gay porn films from that era. And yes, it’s very often as gorgeously sleazy as that sounds.
05) Nameless // Gesaffelstein >> But one of the bright, young, European things that helped Kanye furrow rap music’s brow with the acidic-electro distortions of Yeezus earlier this year, French techno producer Mike Lévy did well to release his debut full-length album Aleph shortly thereafter. Two years in the making, it certainly has the kind of galvanizing scope and laser-sharp focus that would have turned West’s head in particular towards itself, sounding like a more austere companion to Kavinsky‘s OutRun.
06) Remember (Epic Moment Mix) // Nina Kraviz + Luke Hess >> Having turned dance-heads around last year with the release of her beyond-sultry eponymous debut LP, Russian DJ Kraviz decided to do a victory lap this year with the release of her latest EP, Mr Jones. Needless to say, those that were fond of her penchant for disembodied vocal loops married with strictly-for-early-hours beat signatures (think house music for the bedroom) will find much to enjoy here, particularly on this sexy collaboration with fellow DJ Hess.
07) Love Inc. // Booka Shade >> Spoiling you with the sultry house grooves now, this time courtesy of German duo Arno and Walter and the lead single from their fifth studio album, Eve. Despite celebrating over eleven years on the international dance music scene and helping to establish German house as one of its more eminently fruitful sub-genres, this fifth album sees the duo clearly still fueled with enough ideas to keep their particular brand of beatsmithery going.
08) Feelin // DJ Rashad featuring Spinn and Taso >> Having established himself as one of the godfathers of Chicago’s footwork dance music scene, Rashad’s debut album Double Cup, released on über-hip London label Hyperdub, finds the producer solidifying his ethos into something that certainly reps as being available for mass consumption but never loses sight of its propulsively-urban roots, as this opening track’s soulful-yet-fraught-danceworthiness testifies.
09) Eternal Mode // Ikonika >> Since she made her prodigious start in dance music with her brand of IDM-laced dubstep five years ago, Sara Abdel-Hamid has had to endure the typical patronising plaudits of being a “female DJ who can perform and compose just as good as her male counterparts”; truth be told, one listen to her sophomore album Aerotropolis ought to silence such back-handed compliments and finally give the musician her dues, seeing as its laden with some of the most intelligently-crafted electronic music of the year.
10) An Open Heart // Bright Light Bright Light >> Remember the high-energy pop music boom of the early-mid 1990s and how effusive and clever it all was? Rod Thomas does, and despite the disappointingly lukewarm reception to his Make Me Believe In Hope album last year, he’s done well to keep himself busy on Del Marquis‘ similarly-themed music project Slow Knights and still have the time to release his own In Your Care EP, which retains pretty much all of the yester-decade production flourishes and emotionally adroit lyrics that have become the man’s raison d’être.
11) I Blame Myself // Sky Ferreira >> And finally to close us out, we have The Best Pop Song Of The Year. Sky Ferreira’s career as a pop starlet is one more famous for its never-was status that actual bona fide credentials, tempered with enough label interference to make her debut album Night Time, My Time‘s appearance this year something of a lovely surprise. Of course, one listen to the album’s grunge-pop stylings reveals an alienated, jaded figure, not least in this strident, self-effacingly tragic tome that bounces giddily along synth lines cribbed from Madonna’s “Borderline” whilst simultaneously admonishing both Ferreira and the unnamed subject of her ill-focused furore for her “reputation”.
And that’s it for the monthly blog series, everyone. As I said earlier, keep ’em peeled for some end of year stuff. But in the meantime, if you’d really like to do something special this Christmas, you could donate at least your time to read further on this Kickstarter project.
Merry Christmas, xxxo
dibdersbooth 