Airport

Homezone - Digitalism - Idealism (2007, Astralwerks / Kitsuné / Virgin)

I wonder if these guys are ever going to release another LP, I really hope they do. Their 2007 debut Idealistic is such an awesome album, but they seem to have just been touring with it ever since. The German duo are playing at Sydney’s Luna Park for New Years Eve, and they put on an awesome live show, so if you like this go and check it out. I’m definitely considering flying down to see them.

Idealism full of quality electro goodness, but if I had to choose a favourite track it’s probably this one, Homezone. Short, rough and fun, it’s a killer track. 

Phantom (Pt. I & II) - Justice - ✝ (2007, Ed Banger)

No matter what you say about them, there’s no doubting this album was an absolute game-changer. Ever since its release, countless bands have tried to emulate Justice’s trademark rough French electro sound, to varying degrees of success. But this was the original, and a super-awesome LP at that.

Though It’s one of those rare albums for me where I love just about every track (I’m still not sure about DVNO), I’d have to say Phantom is my favourite. Split into two tracks on the album, it takes a sample from Goblin’s Tenebre, and then transforms it with the sort of electro goodness that the French duo are revered for. I hope their 2011 sophomore can live up to the very high standard they’ve set for themselves.

Location recording from Kuramae Subway Station, Tokyo, Japan / Glance - Scuba / Bad Hands (Drums Only) - Surgeon / Giro (Exium Remix) - Marco Bernardi / Forbidden - Instra:mental

As featured on Fabric 53 - Surgeon (2010, Fabric)

Surgeon is making his way over to Australia later next month, playing at Brisbane’s Step Inn on the 21st, Melbourne’s Roxanne Parlour on the 22nd and Sydney’s Forum on the 23rd. Definitely one to go and check out, he’s an awesome DJ and his recent Fabric 53 compilation, recorded in Tokyo’s Kuramae subway station, earned him some very complimentary reviews. There’s a very good one up on Resident Advisor if you want to find out more about him or the album.

I’ve put up the first five tracks as they are mixed on the album to demonstrate his style of DJing. He doesn’t just mix one track into the another, by the fourth minute of the album there are at least three tracks going at the same time. And that’s the way he DJs, true to his namesake, “cutting and piecing together tracks into a larger whole so expertly that you hardly think about the parts.”

Walking This Dumb (Live) - How to Dress Well - Love Remains (2010, Lefse)

How to Dress Well is to R&B as dubstep is to hip-hop. You can definitely hear the influence of the latter in the music, but there is no way you could classify it as such.

Halfway through last year, How to Dress Well appeared with his first EP, The Eternal Love. Seven more EPs were posted on the project’s blog in the months to follow, all featuring a distinct murky, blown-out, lo-fi sound. How to Dress Well turned out to be the project of Tom Krell, a philosophy student who splits his time between Brooklyn ad Cologne in Germany. Following a steady build up of online hype, he released his debut LP, Love Remains, a few days ago, largely featuring touched up and remastered versions of the tracks on his previous online EPs.

And it’s really not quite like anything I’ve heard before. Returning to the simile I started with, listening to it for the first time was kind of like the first time I heard Burial’s Untrue back in 2008. I’d never really heard anything like it before, but the album instantly became a favourite of mine, and I spent the next few months trying to find more music like it. Which never really happened. And I guess the same may be true about How to Dress Well. I can find other lo-fi electronica tracks, I can easily find more contemporary R&B, but I’m not sure I’ll ever find anything that combines them quite as he does. But there is no doubting this album is going to be one I’ll have on repeat for a very long time.

Who Am I (Feat. Hubert Tubbs) - Peace Orchestra - Peace Orchestra (1999, G-Stone)

Peace Orchestra is the solo project of Peter Kruder, part of the duo Kruder & Dorfmeister. Although they’re still operating now, the duo hit their heyday in the mid to late 90’s, releasing a number of successful downtempo dub remixes of pop, hip-hop and drum and bass tracks. They also released an installment in the renowned DJ-Kicks series in 1996.

The debut Peace Orchestra album didn’t receive quite the attention it deserved, despite pulling some very good reviews. It’s a shame, as this album is one of the most lovingly crafted and cohesive trip-hop albums you can find. Who Am I is easily Peace Orchestra’s most well-known track, being one of the main tracks in both the film and soundtrack for the Animatrix. And the fame is quite deserved, it’s a beautiful, if somewhat melancholy track.

Valley Girl (Feat. Moon Unit Zappa) - Frank Zappa - Ship Arriving Too Late To Save A Drowning Witch (1982, Barking Pumpkin)

What can I say about this track? Quite possibly the best piece of music ever. By the way, Moon Unit is Frank’s Daughter.

You Gonna Want Me - Tiga - Sexor (2006, Different)

Tiga’s solo work has always caused a bit of a stir. He owns and runs the highly respected Turbo records, and his remixes are some of the best around, with some highlights including his Na Na Na Na Na remix of Tomas Andersson’s Washing Up, his 1-2-3-4 remix of Fever Ray’s Triangle Walks, and his recent re-workings of Boys Noize and The xx.

So when he released his debut Sexor in 2006, a lot of critics and listeners were a bit stumped. I think they were expecting something more serious and ‘authentic’, but were instead presented with an album of, quite often tongue-in-cheek, 80’s tinged electro house. But when you are not looking for something else, it’s some really quality music.

Tiga’s a really funny guy. Just listen to his podcast, along with being full of awesome music, it makes me laugh out loud every time (but sadly hasn’t been updated for a few months). Or watch the videos he released to promote the release of Ciao! (as inthemix put it, “no-one acts like a dick as perfectly as this guy”). And I think that a lot of critics kind of didn’t get that a lot of his work has this tongue-in-cheek aspect to it.

However, there are quite a few singles that have received almost universal acclaim despite this, like Pleasure From The Bass, Louder Than A Bomb and Mind Dimension. You Gonna Want Me is one of them. A cover of altern8’s acid house classic, and featuring Jake Shears from the Scissor Sisters, as well as Tiga himself on the vocals, its a banging electro track that shows how good Tiga really is at producing music.

Fade Away Sessions (Feat. Consequence) - ASC - Nothing is Certain (2010, NonPlus+)

Over dubstep now that it’s gone all mid-range wobble? Missing all the weird electronic IDM and stuff from the late 90’s? If you agreed with either or both of those statements, introduce yourself to autonomic.

Autonomic is an emerging post drum and bass genre, formed as a reaction to the widespread trend of the “faster-faster-FASTER pile-up of interchangeable tracks on the dance floor” in a lot of current D&B. Instead of ridiculous tempos and beats like a machine gun, autonomic sets itself a ‘speed-limit’, allowing for a much broader perspective of sound. It sounds a lot like dubstep did in the beginning, with artists such as Burial, Kode9 and Digital Mystikz, and this is a large influence to the sound, but it also melds in aspects of techno and IDM, and often has a more drum and bassy edge.

dBridge and Instra:mental’s FabricLive 50, released earlier this year, was one of the first major releases to champion the genre, and the two are at the forefront of the autonomic sound. ASC is one of the other pillars of the new genre. Following eleven years of steady drum and bass production, ASC’s involvement with the drum and bass mutation seemed to come a bit out of the blue, but as Max Bacharach puts it:

All the ingredients [were] basically there (tempo infidelity, sonic depth, Baywatch pianos—you name it). The only thing that’s radically different nowadays is the percussion. Gone are the galloping Amens of 2009’s The Astral Traveller (and much of his best work prior to that), replaced by the inimitable Lego-step reductionism of the duo responsible for the whole post-D&B New Wave: Instra:mental.

ASC’s latest LP Nothing is Certain dropped a few days ago. Though I think it’ll take me a bit longer to quite get my head around the whole album, Fade Away Sessions, featuring another autonomic heavyweight Consequence, immediately jumped out at me. I don’t think I could describe this awesome track better than Max does, “shoegazy New Age mysticism a la Boards of Canada”.

Red Lights - Delphic - Acolyte (2010, Polydor / Dangerbird)

This is one of those songs that I have a permanent memory attached to, every time I hear it, it brings back their absolutely euphoric set at this year’s Splendour in the Grass. Their music translated perfectly into a live performance, and if anything was even better than the album version. It’s up there with the all-time best live performances I’ve seen, the only thing that would have made it better would have been a bigger crowd. It seems not many splendour-goers really knew who they were, the friends I dragged along didn’t. But they were more than won over by the end of the set. Really, this song reminds me of the whole weekend at Splendour, and I miss it. But I’m really glad I was at what turned out to be the most awesome festival Australia has seen.

Sixtyten - Boards of Canada - Live @ ATP (2001)

I’ve been getting back into Boards of Canada in a big way recently, and a few days ago I came across unofficial recording of their set from All Tomorrow’s Parties in 2001. Even though they aren’t a band best suited to a live performance, I really wish I could have seen them once. Despite the myriad of loops, samples and effects they use to construct their music, they pull off a live performance very well. This track, Sixtyten, is one of the highlights of the set. Originally from their seminal debut Music Has The Right To Children, here they present a deliciously atmospheric live version of the studio original.

Teenage Crime (Radio Edit) - Adrian Lux - Teenage Crime EP (2010, Axtone)

I heard this track a few days ago on Triple J, and had to find out what it was. I loved its combination of top-notch house and a really cool indie-pop sound. As Adrian Lux says on his website, he aims to “bridge the gap between head-rush house and the kind of cutting-edge pop that seems to only come from Sweden.” The young Swedish producer has only released a couple of tracks, but is already building a name for himself, garnering support from big names like the Swedish House Mafia, Axwell and Pete Tong. At the moment he’s hard at work on his debut LP, and judging by this single it’s definitely a release to keep an eye (or ear) out for.

The Alcoholic - Röyksopp - Senior (2010, PIAS / Wall of Sound / EMI)

Röyksopp’s first album, Melody AM, is a seminal chill-out album, considered by many to be one of the best. They ended up taking a little stylistic detour with their next few releases, especially with the decidedly pop influenced (but completely awesome) Junior, which they released to widespread acclaim last year. However, Senior sees them back on form with another downtempo album, one that could well challenge Melody AM as their best.

Senior is meant to be the antithesis to Junior. They recorded both albums at the same time, but where the duo describe Junior as having a “spring feel”, Senior is meant to have more of an “autumn mood”. It’s a return to their chill-out roots, but their sound has definitely evolved from Melody AM. Be sure to also check out the awesome Tricky Two and their current single The Drug.

Carbonated - Mount Kimbie - Crooks & Lovers (2010, Hotflush)

A perfect track for a laid-back Sunday afternoon.