Airport

User - Instra:mental - Resolution 653 (2011, NonPlus+)

An awesome electro track from a group you wouldn’t expect: drum ‘n’ bass/autonomic legends Instra:mental. Their whole latest album saw them take an unexpected genre leap over into electro (of sorts), but it somehow really works.

Ladyflash (Simian Mobile Disco Mix) - The Go! Team - Step and Repeat EP (2006, Memphis Industries)

After searching for years, I finally found this EP lying around in the second-hand section of my local record store. And as much as I’m a fan of The Go! Team, it was really just to get a rip of the Simian Mobile Disco mix of Ladyflash, one of my all time favourite remixes. It’s a track I regularly use in my sets, always to a great reaction (what can I say, people seem to dig a spoken countdown to the drop), but it got to the point where the audio quality of the 128kbps mp3 file, which was all I could find, was just offending my senses. But finally here it is, in all its high-quality, bleepy goodness.

Hatred - Gesaffelstein - Conspiracy Pt. 1 (2011, Turbo)

French DJ and electro producer Gesaffelstein has started kicking up a lot of hype recently, with a number of bangin’ remixes to his name, and a recent signing to Tiga’s Turbo records. His latest opus just dropped today, the Conspiracy Pt. 1 EP, which includes this off the hook electro banger Hatred. Turn this one up nice and loud for your neighbours.

Into The Night (Nicolas Jaar Remix) - Azari & III - Scion A/V Remix: Into the Night (Scion Audio/Visual, 2010)

Both Azari & III and Nicolas Jaar have been doing some incredible stuff for quite a while now, sometimes the hype really is deserved. Jaar’s debut album is one of my favourite this year so far, and Azari & III are dropping their’s very soon, of which I am very excited about. But in the mean time, check out this super-cool remix of their track Into The Night, given a chilled re-working the way only Nicolas Jaar can.

The Look - Metronomy - The English Riviera (2011, Because Music)

Had this on repeat all day. Metronomy’s first album didn’t really do it for me, but The English Riviera is really hitting all the right buttons.

Embody - SebastiAn - Total (2011, Ed Banger)

The awesome lead single for SebastiAn’s long awaited, soon to be released debut album Total, due out late May. Judging by his previous singles and EPs, I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole album turns out to be just as great as this track.

It’s shaping up to be a big year for Ed Banger, they’ve also got Justice’s second LP coming out very soon. And that, along with imminent releases from the likes of MSTRKRFT and Digitalism, is making it look like 2011 will be the year electro makes a serious comeback.

Also, make sure to check out Embody’s music video, directed by Ed Banger’s visual magician So Me. Definitely on the shortlist for best music video of the year.

Ur Soul and Mine - Gil-Scott Heron & Jamie xx - We’re New Here (2011, XL / Young Turks)

Jamie xx takes Gil-Scott Heron’s darkly poetic Your Soul and Mine, juxtaposes it brilliantly with a sample of Rui Da Silva’s dreamily effervescent club classic Touch Me, and ties it all together with his unique post-dubstep beats, to form this awesome track Ur Soul and Mine.

Ego - Burial, Four Tet & Thom Yorke - Ego / Mirror (Text, 2011)

It Could Be Sweet - Portishead - Dummy (1994, Go!)

Paris (Aeroplane Remix) - Friendly Fires - Paris (2008, XL)

Still one of my favourite remixes ever. They can be a little hit-and-miss, but when they get it right, Aeroplane are spot on. And calling this a remix is a little bit of an understatement, they basically re-recorded the whole thing, complete with new vocals by Au Revoir Simone.

NYC - Burial - Street Halo (2011, Hyperdub)

After listening through Burial’s new single for a couple of weeks now, this B-side is the track that I keep going back to. With NYC he pulls back the tempo considerably compared to his other work, an unexpected but ingenious move that opens up the soundscape for the beautifully warped vocal line swirling in and out of the ethereal aural fog he creates so well, but also managing to showcase his subtle, incisive beats in a completely different way.

Polynomial-C - Aphex Twin - Xylem Tube EP (1992, R&S)

Trawling through Aphex Twin’s massive discography is never dull, but for all the genius tracks he’s made, there is a lot of slightly more mediocre material. Thankfully this is one of the former, an awesome track from one of the first singles he ever put out.

8 - Instra:mental - Resolution 653 (2011, Nonplus+ Records)

After emerging more than two decades ago as one of the most innovative and influential genres that electronic music has seen, the last few years saw drum & bass hit a wall. Sure, every now and again you’d get a producer who’d do something slightly different or new, but as a whole, drum & bass has been lying creatively stagnant for the best part of a decade. However, recently there’s been a major uprising in the ranks, from a sub-genre branding itself as Autonomic.

It began as a reaction to the trend for modern drum & bass to just push the tempo faster and faster, at times verging on ridiculous, but still somehow not really going anywhere at all. This is where autonomic steps in; it deliberately bucks this trend and self-imposes a ‘speed limit’. This slower tempo opens up the music and gives it some welcome breathing space, a chance to present some more subtle production— many of the tracks are quite stripped down, sometimes with only a few chords thrown in for decoration over the twitchy percussion lines. It’s a relatively young scene, only properly getting underway in the last year or two, but it’s already flourishing, even seeing many producers from other genres hop on the wagon and try their hand, such as dubstep legends Skream and Distance.

Like most new scenes, autonomic began as threads woven together by groups of like-minded individuals and teams, with no definite ‘beginning’. However, there is name that really stands out above the rest regarding the scene’s inception and spread, the English duo Instra:mental. Their 2010 FabricLive 50 mix with dBridge was the first substantial release of the genre, and the first time someone had properly stuck a label on the fledgling drum & bass offshoot. Their label, NonPlus+, has been without a doubt the most notable, active and supportive of the sub-genre. And you simply couldn’t find any autonomic mix that doesn’t feature at least one Instra:mental track.

So what’s the deal with their newly released debut artist album, Resolution 653? You couldn’t classify it as autonomic. For the most part, it doesn’t even stray anywhere near the whole drum & bass coalition. No, it would appear Instra:mental weren’t content with reinventing and invigorating just one genre, and they’ve decided to have a go at a genre that has also recently been facing accusations of creative stagnation: electro.

It’s not really as massive a leap as you’d think. The duo’s drum & bass roots are very apparent, with many distinctly drum & bassy synths and effects spread throughout the album. The strong techno influence apparent in their usual autonomic works is just as clear here too, lending the album a slightly dystopian feel when coupled with the characteristically retro-futuristic drum & bass synth sounds. There are even a few spaced-out tracks, such as Arc, that sound almost exactly like their autonomic tracks, just at a 130bpm speed. But somehow, most of these tracks seem to have even more sense of drive at this slower, electro speed then they did in the higher speed brackets. By using twitchy, driven drum & bass influenced percussion and bass lines, each track is propelled by what seems like an almost urgent sense of momentum. And in many ways, it’s some of the most club-friendly music they’ve created for a long time.

It’s still definitely electro, but Instra:mental approach the genre with a different perspective, with an aim to create something fresh and new, just as they did for drum & bass. And I’d be inclined to say they succeed, with Resolution 653 they end up making what sounds like it could easily become a whole new offshoot of the electro genre, just as they created what is now almost surely the future of drum & bass with autonomic. But even without any genre-changing speculation, it’s a damn fine electro album, one that will only gets better with time.