50. Metronomy – The Look / Everything Goes My Way

49. Canblaster – Clockworks

48. Scuba – Feel It

47. Digitalism – Stratosphere / Blitz

46. Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs – Garden (Joe Goddard Mix)

45. Gil Scott Heron & Jamie XX – The Crutch

44. SBTRKT – Ready Set Loop

43. Tom Vek – A Chore

42. Washed Out – Eyes be Closed

41. Marcelo Plex – Can’t Leave You

40. Death in Vegas – Your Loft, My Acid

39. Drumman – White Tie, Black Hole

38. Jamie XX – Far Nearer (Chris Woodward Mix)

37. Mickey Moonlight – Close to Everything (Martinez Brothers Mix)

36. Black Lips – Family Tree / Modern Art

35. Four Tet – Locked

34. Dels featuring Joe Godard – Trumpalump

33. Machinedrum – Sacred Frequency

32. Midland – Through Motion

31. James Pants – Every Night

30. Icebird – Going and Going and Going

29. Modeselektor – Blue Clouds / Pretentious Friends

28. Spank Rock – Energy / Car Song

27. Sasha – Cut Me Down (Ryan Davis Mix)

26. Roc Marciano – Hoard 90 / Papercuts

25. Wagon Christ – Manalyze This

24. Soul Clap – Lonely C / Fried Chicken

23. Kuedo – Salt Lake Cuts / Vectoral

22. Action Bronson – Shiraz

21. Friendly Fires – Live Those Days Tonight

20. TV on the Radio – Second Song

19. M83 – Midnight City

18. Hudson Mohawke – Thank You

17. Bibio – Pretentious / Anything New

16. Gui Boratto – Stems From Hell / The Drill

15. Mount Kimbie – Carbonated

14. Dominik Eulberg – Die 3 Millionen Musketiere

13. Alias – Wanna Let it Go

12. Com Truise – Flightwave

11. Chemical Brothers – Container Park / Escape 700

10. Todd Terje – Snooze 4 Love

9. Martyn – We Are You In The Future / Viper (Ghost People Edit)

8. The Horrors – Still Life / Moving Further Away

7. Daphni – Ye Ye / Yes, I Know / Ahora

6. Conan Mockasin  – Forver Dolphin Love (Erol Alkan Rework)

5. The Strokes – Machu Picchu / Two Kinds of Happiness

4. Siriusmo – High Together

3. Holy Ghost! – Wait and See / Hold My Breath

2. Julio Bashmore – Battle For Middle You

1. Radiohead – Separator

And the also rans:

Amon Tobin – Journeyman, The Rapture – How Deep is Your Love (Wax Motif & Neoteric Mix), Noir & Haze – Around (Solumun Vox Mix), Mogwai – White Noise, Beastie Boys – OK, Motor City Drum Ensemble – L.O.V.E, Cut Copy – Alisa, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds – AKA… What A Life, Gold Panda – MPB, Kenny Larkin – Glob (Claude VonStroke Mix), 2 Bears – Church (Midland Sunday Service Dub), Battles – Futura, GusGus – Benched, DJ Shadow – I Gotta Rock, Psychemagik – Valley of Paradise, Talib Kweli – Cold Rain, Shabazz Palaces – Are You…Can You…Were You?, Danny Brown – Pac Blood, A1 Bassline – Falsehood, Housemeister – Sommer, Joe Goddard – Gabriel, Oliver Huntemann – Tranquilizer, Onsunlade – Envision (Ame Mix),

So without further a do, here’s the first ‘best of the year’ countdown, my favourite albums of 2011:

20. Kuedo – Severant

A realtively late entrant, tipped off by my friend Michael, this is my favourite of the slew of post-dubstep, Burial-esque records that were doing the round in 2011. I really enjoyed stuff from the likes of Machinedrum, Drumman and Mount Kimbie this year, but Jamie Teasdale’s debut solo album was definitely the most consistently pleasing of the bunch.

19. Alias – Fever Dream

What a nice surprise that Anticon mainstay Alias has moved on from the stagnating world of boom-bap hip hop and tried something new. At first glance the updated sound could be accused of bandwagon jumping, following the success of fellow west coaster Flying Lotus into the more electronic side of things, but ‘Fever Dream’ manages to carve out its own style of psychedelic percussion and sparse synth patterns.

18. Hudson Mohawke – Satin Panthers

The hype that engulfed the release of Rustie’s debut album threatened to overshadow the far better EP from fellow weegie HudMo. While they share a similarly ‘maximal‘ electro sound, ‘Satin Panthers’ is exuberant and day-glo without the all screechy, nose-bleed nonsense that ruins ‘Glass Swords’.

17. Action Bronson – Dr Lecter

A great tip from my workmate Hugh and probably my favourite hip hop album of 2011, in another pretty average year for the genre. The obvious things to say about it are that he sounds rather like GhostFace Killah and has a penchant for rapping about culinary delights, but more than that this record is backed by fine production and the unashamedly golden-age style that I’m a sucker for.

16. The Black Keys – El Camino

I almost feel a bit guilty listing a record that came out in December, but fuck it, I really like The Black Keys. In a year when one of the last bastions of proper, bluesy American rock ‘n’ roll – The White Stripes – quit the game, it’s good to have these guys around making such great records and in such quick succession.

15. Modeselektor – Monkeytown

The duo’s best album to date sees them pull off even bigger and better collaborations than on previous outings, dominating so many different genres with their inimitable style and skill. They really are the masters of a myriad of styles, moving expertly from bass-shuddering hip hop to icy German techno with ease.

14. Icebird – The Abandonned Lullaby

Both DJ Shadow and trip-hop companion RJD2 took to a more organic, acoustic sound with their releases this year, but while Shadow’s new album was another crushing disappointment, RJD2′s hook up with Aaron Livingston bore delicious fruit. Not necessarily an album that jumps out and grabs you, but as with the best of his cannon, ‘The Abandoned Lullaby’ is just a really pleasing, soulful listen from start to finish.

13. Tiger & Woods – Through the Green

Pretty much the defining album of the nu-disco scene, this LP was perhaps released a year or so too late, but still acts as a glorious artefact of the transient genre. It’s simple stuff, but done really well; no better demonstrated than on one of my favourites of 2010 ‘Gin Nation’.

12. Datarock – Music for Synchronisation

Bit of a funny one this, as in typically ostentatious style the tracksuited Norwegians released their latest album on a USB stick, along with music videos, photos and a multitude of bonus tracks. Oddly it didn’t receive a great deal of press, but I happened upon its tracks – which appear to be named after film directors and composers of note – and was instantly caught up.

11. Gui Boratto – III

While Gui’s third album isn’t exactly a groundbreaking leap forward in terms of style, it’s still one of the best collections of dance music this year. He’s managed to carve himsefl out a nice niche in big, deep techy house belters and I applaud him for that; all he needs to do now is get himself back over here so I can thank him via the medium of dance.

10. Chemical Brothers – Hanna OST

Oddly enough I didn’t actually go see the film when it was out earlier in the year, but given my fandom of the Brothers I did pick up the soundtrack. Even without the visual accompaniment this is a fine piece of work, with tracks like ‘Hanna’s Theme’, ‘Container Park’ and ‘Escape 700′ capable of being standalone tracks on any Chems album. When I finally did see the film though, it all fell into place so well that my appreciation – and subsequent chart position – soared.

9. Wagon Christ – Toomorrow

I’ve been pining for another album from Luke Vibert’s Wagon Christ alter ego since 2004, and thankfully ‘Toomorrow’ didn’t disappoint. It picks up from where he left off on ‘Sorry I Make You Lush’ while also taking things a little bit deeper and darker, ploughing a funky furrow through old skool electro with classic samples galore.

8. Com Truise – Galactic Melt

Just like nothing can beat the warm, rich sound of vinyl, the same can be said for the use of analogue synthesisers. Seth Haley’s avid collecting, and more importantly skilled use, of the old melody makers is demonstrated beautifully on his debut album, which for me is the far and away best of the various retro-plundering releases this year.

7. Martyn – Ghost People

As Resident Advisor commented, what happens when a dubstep producer releases a record on a hip hop label? House music of course. This album represents the pinnacle of this year’s confluence between the genres, distilling the best bits of bassline, dubstep, house and rave music into some of the year’s most definitive tracks.

6. The Strokes –Angles

Five years after the distinctly average ‘First Impressions of Earth’, The Strokes appear to have finally moved on. Their garage band aesthetic is still at the heart of this album, but they’ve also sought inspiration elsewhere and tracks like ‘Machu Picchu’ and ‘Two Kinds of Happiness’ are symptomatic of this return to form.

5. Siriusmo – Mozaik

Tracks like ‘High Together’ and ‘Nights Off’ had been firm favourites of mine for a couple of years, so when I saw the reclusive German was bringing out a full length release I had high expectations. Thankfully the filler in-between these classics was well worth the wait. Listen up Boys Noize, Tiga, Felix and co. THIS is how you do electro.

4. The Horrors – Skying

I have to admit that this one caught me by surprise towards the end of the year, but has been on heavy rotation ever since. After taking an instant disliking to their first album and watching 15 shambolic, noisy minutes of them at Glastonbury in 2007, I ignored the band until the weight of positive reviews forced me back. I’m glad I gave them a second chance because ’Skying’ is a delight, distilling their fine music taste into songs that recall the highlights of the last 30 years of great British music.

3. Dominik Eulberg – Diorama

Overlooked by most of my favourite music news and review sites, it was instead my mate Barry who put me on to the latest record from the master of organic tech-house. It scores so highly because it is that rarest of things within dance music, an LP that keeps your attention the whole way through. There really isn’t a bad track on it.

2. Radiohead – King of Limbs

Picking up where ‘In Rainbows’ left off, and harking back to the best of ‘Kid A’s electronic experiments, this album saw the band push further into the world of dance music and consequently away from indie rock; to the obvious dismay of many fans. But between the inspired originals and the consistent drip feed of interesting remixes from my favourite underground producers via ’TKOL RMX 1234567′, I’d say Britain’s best modern band have never been more relevant.

1. Holy Ghost! – Holy Ghost!

I haven’t seen this show up in any other best of the year lists, and I’m not sure if that makes me deeply uncool or out there on the cutting edge, but regardless of my standing, this is the one album I came back to the most. This is how all pop music should be; catchy, disco-tinged, soulful and brimming with happiness.

I decided to just list the twenty albums that I really enjoyed all the way through, but there were of course many that had a lot going for them, just maybe not quite enough consistency of quality all the way through. Here’s a wee list of some of those that didn’t quite make it but are worthy of a mention:

TV on the Radio – Nine Types of Light, Mount Kimbie – Carbonated, Machinedrum – Room(s), Dels – GOB, Black Lips – Arabia Mountain, Death in Vegas – Trans-Love Energies, SBTRKT – SBTRKT, Roc Marciano – Greenberg EP, Metronomy – The English Riviera, The Rapture – In the Grace of Your Love, Spank Rock – Everything Is Boring and Everyone Is a Fucking Loser, Moomin – The Story About You, The Revenge – Reekin’structions, Mogwai – Hardcore, Tom Vek – Leizure Seizure, Battles – Gloss Drop, M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, Gil Scott Heron & Jamie XX – We’re New Here, Cut Copy – Zonoscope, Beardyman – I Done A Album, Robag Wruhme – Thora Vukk, Scroobius Pip – Distraction Pieces.

Not forgetting the best compilations and mix CDs of the year:

12. Motor City Drum Ensemble – DJ Kicks

11. Tiefshwarz – Watergate 09

10. Pearson Sound – FabricLive 56

9. M.A.N.D.Y – Body Language Volume Ten

8. Robag Wruhme – Wuppdeckmischmampflow

7. Wolf & Lamb vs. Soul Clap – DJ Kicks

6. Aeroplane – In Flight Entertainment

5. Dixon – Live at Robert Jonson

4. The Twelves – Kitsune Tabloid

3. Ame – Primary Structures

2. Gold Panda – DJ Kicks

1. Prosumer – Panoramabar 03

Crono Project art house featuring work by Os Gêmeos and Blu, Lisbon

Crocodile by Ericailcane, Lisbon

Ericailcane, Os Gêmeos and Blu.

Story about Lisbon’s thriving street art scene.

Peace Wall Mural, Shankhill, Belfast

Peace Wall Flikr Group.

Ben Wilson chewing gum art, The Millenium Bridge, London

Ben Wilson.

Space Invader, Bowery NY

FAILE on the Tony Goldman graffiti wall, Houston and Bowery NY

Obey, Bowery NY

OBEY.

Flaming Cactus installation by the Animus Arts Collective, East Village NY

Animus Arts Collective.

Malark - Urban Fox, Tower Bridge, London

Malark.

Graffiti Truck, Tower Bridge, London

Banksy - Man & Keith Haring Dog, Grange Road, Bermondsey, London

Banksy.

]]> http://pegerteg.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/a-year-of-street-observations/feed/ 0 pegerteg Lisbon 1 Lisbon 2 Lisbon 3 Oslo Peace Wall Ben Wilson Roa Olek Space Invader 2011-12-14_14-57-38_518 Obey NY 2011-01-05_20-04-25_275_Camberwell 2011-11-11_08-39-05_320 Banksy http://pegerteg.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/in-praise-of-fabric-mix-cds/ http://pegerteg.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/in-praise-of-fabric-mix-cds/#comments Wed, 16 Nov 2011 22:57:31 +0000 pegerteg http://pegerteg.wordpress.com/?p=433 ]]> Last week London clubbing institution Fabric celebrated 10 years of its seminal mix CDs. In honour of this milestone – especially when the format is supposedly dying – I thought I’d compile a list of my favourite Fabric and FabricLive mixes from the last decade.

Before I do, it’s probably worth taking a few paragraphs to assess just how important the series of CDs has been. From the expensive metal cases and ever-evolving art work, to the ridiculously cheap monthly subscription service and insistence on keeping the process in-house – and not forgetting the impeccable artist selection process – the reason they’ve made it this far is surely down to the attention to detail and quality control that permeates the organisation. Here’s Fabric Director Keith Reilly to explain the birth of the compilations: “From Fabric’s launch onwards we encountered an almost daily assault from labels and organisations wishing to partner us in producing a mix compilation. Despite being continually, politely told that we were very busy becoming good party organisers, the crescendo of ‘When will you do one? Why don’t you do one? Please will you do one?’ became deafening, eventually triggering my lifelong tendency to do the exact opposite of what was requested of me. So we just got a bit silly and thought: ‘OK, you want one? Try to control this! Here’s one a month.’ We wanted them to fall from the sky like hailstones on the musical philistines that sought to twist what we were doing into any old shape that spelt numbers to them. I wanted to sell them at on our website, which I felt was indicative and reflective of how I saw the product; as licensed rave tapes.”

To commemorate the anniversary Fabric staff have all contributed their favourites here, while some of the artists responsible have shared their thoughts here, but for some really valuable opinions you’ll be wanting to find out which one’s I liked the best; right here:

10. FabricLive 39 – DJ Yoda

It was a toss-up between this and Deadly Avenger’s early entry into the series, but the couple of times I’ve seen Deadly Avenger live he annoyingly played pretty much all the same songs on his CD, so I’ve gone for DJ Yoda. Being a hip hop-based DJ is inevitably a rather limiting pursuit, as with the quality of new hip hop being produced these days you’re forced to constantly plunder the golden age, so I like that Yoda has at least tried to do something a bit different with his entry. He does of course include a few of the best party time hip hop tracks ever – Handsome Boy Modelling School’s ‘Holy Calamity/Bear Witness’, Jurassic 5′s ‘Swing Set’ and Gangstarr’s ‘Just to Get a Rep’ (the latter deftly mixed into the Jean Jacques Perry song it samples) – but also splices them with likes of ’Blister in the Sun’ by The Violent Femmes and less successfully The Coral’s ‘In the Morning’. Of course his trademark humour is on display as well, but unlike on his ‘How to Cut and Paste’ mixes here he just selects some silly songs to maintain levity; Minnie Ripperton’s ‘Lovin You’, DJ Zinc’s ‘Super Sharp Shooter’ and his own ‘Chatterbox’ with Sway.

9. Fabric 30 – Rub-N-Tug

“Were into having a party. Music and having a drink and a good time,” is the quote from Eric Duncan and Thomas Bullock AKA Rub N Tug that accompanies this mix’s description page on the Fabric website, and the mix is all about exactly that. I remember coming across them in Room 3 at about 4am after something a little too minimal was plodding along in the main room and instantly being lifted by their infectious attitude and fun dance music. They’ve managed to distill the fun of their live sets into their mix through quick mixing and inspired track selection, kicking off with the karate chopping ‘The 7 Deadly Strokes’ by Claude VonStroke and bouncing through Jesse Rose disco-bomb ‘Evening Standard’ to the equally upbeat Italo-house epic ‘Atto D’Amour’ from Serge Santiago. The brilliant Satoshie Tomie 3D mix of Slok’s ‘Lonely Child’ works perfectly as a mid-set change of pace, preparing the listener for the final onslaught centered around power-house anthem ‘Discopolis’ by Lifelike and Kris Menace. It’s the kind of song only they could get away with playing at Fabric; but then that’s why this mix is so great.

8. Fabric 28 – Evil Nine

I wasn’t sure whether Evil Nine or Plump DJs deserved to make the list, as both their Fabric CDs are worthy of inclusion, but while the Plumps’ 2003 effort was straight breakbeat throughout, I rather liked Evil Nine’s attempt at applying the breaks aesthetic to house and electro. The resulting mix is one full of tough beats, funky touches and a really relentless groove throughout. The live sounding drum beats and attitude-filled vocal by Ursula Rucker on their remix of Will Saul’s ‘Where Is It’ provide a microcosm of the mix, before successive Riton re-rubs expand on the theme, first of his own ‘Angerman’ and then his stunning rerub of The Mystery Jet’s ‘Boy Who Ran Away’. Things get filthy in the middle with Paul Woolford’s ‘Erotic Discourse’, ‘John’s Addiction’ by John Starlight and ‘The Dogs’ by The Bassbin Twins, then the 2006 zeitgeist is latched onto with the achingly trendy Justice ruination of Franz Ferdinand’s ‘The Fallen’ and the Digitalism mix of Test Icles ‘What’s Your Damage’. Evil Nine appear to have lost their way somewhat in the years since, but back then they were on the top of their game and this confidence was never more evident that on this mix (apart from maybe on their Essential Mix the year before).

7. Fabric 09 – Slam

2003 was a great year for dance music, something which was reflected in the quality of Fabric mixes released at the time; none more so than Slam‘s rightful early entry into the hall of fame. Of all the times Orde and Stuart have tried to convert their club sets to CD, this is probably the one that best captures their inimitable sound and style. Running an eye over the track list there’s not necessarily anything that sticks out – bar the inclusion of the classic ‘one more tune’, Underground Resistance’s ‘Inspiration’ – but that’s what’s always so good about their sets; they weave something amazing out of thing’s you’ve missed. Starting out with the chunky house of  Octave One’s remix of John Thomas’ ‘Working Nights’ and Spincycle’s  rework OCB’s ‘Synchronisity’, Slam are in their bassline-centric Soma element. Envoy provide a melodic interlude with their ‘Night Moves‘ before the first of a few key Slam remixes shape the mix, first of Ladytron’s ‘Seventeen’ and later on ‘D Clash’ by Bryan Zentz. By this point it’s time to switch to the deeper and darker side of things with the hypnotizing Marco Carola mix of Sven Vath’s ‘Steel’ and the banging Hades mix of Redhead’s ‘Riddles’ taking the mix to it’s cresendo. Outside of the Arches, Slam seem to be the most at home with Fabric’s powerful sound system and switched on crowd; this mix is the best possible recreation of that winning combination.

6. Fabric 20 – John Digweed

A bit of a surprise to me at the time as I couldn’t remember a line-up with him on it, but nonetheless a Fabric mix that will  always be something Diggers has over his friend Sasha. While his inclusion may have been a bit out of left field, his contribution is definitely one of the finest. This mix seems to mark  his shedding of the prog house tag he had lumbered himself with during the couple of years either side of the millennium, reinstating him as one of the finest house DJs this country has produced. There’s nothing particularly flashy about who he is or what he does, but the man knows how pick the best tracks and build a great set out of them, working the tempo up through a first half of solid tech-house before rewarding the listener with a couple of fine dub mixes of Martin Solveig’s ‘Rocking Music’ and SLAM’s ‘Lie to Me’, before unleashing Wink’s interpretation of ‘Better World’ by Infusion. As much as I revere and respect the Fabric mixes by M.A.N.D.Y, Tiefshwarz, Steve Bug, DJ T, etc; John Digweed’s trumps them all by remembering that there’s still room for some melody and movement within tech-house.

5. FabricLive 16 – Adam Freeland

I’ve always been a fan of Freeland’s work, whether it be the output of his Marine Parade label, the couple of times I’ve seen him live or through the variety of mixes he’s put together over the years. His Fabric comp stands out among these as possibly the best demonstration of his approach to putting together a set and skill at seamlessly mixing through different genres. Claiming the title for probably the best opening track on any of the back catalogue – Black Rebel Motorcyle Club’s ‘Love Burns’ – he then works it nicely into a first quarter of Brighton breaks courtesy of him and his protégés Evil Nine. The mix is admittedly heavy on his own productions, but coming out just a year after his fine debut album ‘Now & Them’, he was arguably at his and this style of music’s peak. The way house (M.A.N.D.Y’s ‘Word’s Don’t Come Easy’), techno (LFO’s ‘Freak’) and breaks (Evil Nine’s mix of ‘Reign’ by Unkle) are blended towards the end of the mix is a joy to hear; although I never quite agreed with the D’n'B stylings of ‘Mind Killer’ to finish.

4. FabricLive 33 – Spank Rock

Party mixes really don’t come much more pleasing than this. The opening combination of Curtis Blow’s ‘The Breaks’ and ‘Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above’ by CSS reveals a formula which is used to great effect throughout this electro tour de force. Working the freshest electro stylings from the bleeding edge of cool – where Spank Rock ply their trade – into a selection of classic dance-floor favourites is a textbook fun-time mixing method. The selections speak for themselves really: Yello’s ‘Bostich’ and ‘Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight’ followed by Daft Punk’s ‘Technologic’ and ‘A Bit Patchy’ by Switch, then the guilty pleasure mid-section of Mylo’s ‘Drop the Pressure’ into ‘Owner of a Lonely Heart’ by Yes and finally Simian Mobile Disco’s ‘Hustler’ sandwiched in between Tangerine Dream’s ‘Love on a Real Train’ and The Romantics’ ‘Talking in Your Sleep’. Next time you want to look cool at a house party, whilst still keeping people entertained, this CD is the way to go.

3. FabricLive 01 – James Lavelle

The original and still one of the best. He may not be able to mix very well live and by most accounts seems to be a bit of a prick, but you’ve got to credit MoWax and Unkle founder James Lavelle with the ability to pick good music. It’s good that The Psychonauts’ (who probably mixed the thing) best song ‘Circles‘ gets an early showing, and the fact that it’s mixed into one of my favourite tracks ever – ‘Organ Donor’ by DJ Shadow – means I’m sucked in immediately. However, the fact that he continues the dark and funky vibe with overlooked Chem’s gem ‘Piku‘ and the superb Plump DJs mix of Orbital’s ‘Funny Break’ ascends the mix to classic status. Lavelle’s inclination and ability to seamlessly mix hip hop, breakbeat and house was demonstrated again on the couple of comps he did for Global Underground, but never as well as with the riches 2001 had to offer. The atmospheric breaks of Unkle cohort Richard File’s ‘Kick a Hole’ via his Forme moniker work their way into the ubiquitous ‘La La Land’ from Green Velvet and FC Kahuna’s pummeling ‘Mindset to Cycle’. The mix then goes admirably deep for several tracks before finishing with the apocalyptically powerful ‘Healer’ by Buckwacka! and ket anthem ‘Everything in its Right Place’ by Radiohead.

2. Fabric 13 – Michael Mayer

I have to admit that I dismissed this mix the first time I heard it and argued with a friend that it should take precedence over other mixes in the scramble to stick music on after a night out. When he won out and I gave it a proper listen the penny finally dropped, and from the moment the hypnotic Piano Mix of Westbam’s ‘Old School Baby’ came on I was hooked. The Kompakt boss – through his DJ sets and label output – has always managed to brilliantly bridge the gap between melody and minimalism and that’s what really shines through on his Fabric mix. It’s a perfect snapshot of what made 2003 such an interesting period in dance music, mixing through modern classics like Villalobos’ ‘Easy Lee’ and the Jackson Midnight Fuck mix of M83′s ‘Run into Flowers‘. Crucially though, this mix is German through and through, sandwiched between different remixes of Heiko Voss’ ‘I Think About You’ and mixed with a sheen of stereotypical precision, it seems to almost herald the recent rise of the country as the centre of dance music.

1. FabricLive 09 – Jacques Le Cont

Not only the best Fabric mix, but one of the greatest mix CDs ever compiled (although the same could be said for any of the top 5), it defines for me exactly what funky house should stand for. Super-producer Jaques Le Cont (real name Stuart David Price, but also know as Les Rythmes Digitales, Man With Guitar, Pour Homme, Thin White Duke or the brains behind Zoot Woman) responded to the burgeoning electro-clash scene with a track selection and mixing technique that showed the fledgling genre just how fleeting it was. Between Erol Alkan’s Trash nights and 2ManyDJs Radio Soulwax mixes, eclectic genre-mashing was already all the rage, but neither did it with the class of Le Cont, moving from Tom Tom Club’s original of ‘Wordy Rappinghood’ to ‘Abracadabra’ by the Steve Miller Band via Chicken Lips and Crazy P with such panache that it’s now hard to hear those songs without anticipating the next. Of course the pinnacle of this mixing without boundaries comes with the inclusion of Strauss’ ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’ – a seemingly unmixable piece of music already synonymous with 2001: A Space Odessy – and the balls to follow it with ‘Sweet Dreams’ by Eurythmics. It was always the first CD on at afterparty’s during my time at university and remains one of the single best party mixes I can think of. Embarrassingly I’ve never seen JLC play live, but I’m almost reticent to take the opportunity as I fear he could never live up to the hype in which I hold his productions.

I was very tempted to make this a top 20 and could have easily filled it with firm favourites, but I thought this number fitted the occasion and forced me to be ruthless with my selections. Looking at my list it’s clearly indicative of my impatience with the more minimal mixes in the Fabric series and my general distaste for the drum’n'bass and dubstep side of the FabricLive series. Having said that there are still some mixes I left off that I feel are definitely worthy of a quick mention. My attendance at the club overwhelmingly falls on the Saturday night house and techno sessions, so I jumped upon mixes by people like Ivan Smagghe, Andrew Weatherall, Matthew Dear, Claude VonStroke and Damian Lazarus; all of which were very fine pieces of work but haven’t quite garnered the repeat listens of the above. The very fact that Fabric managed to get John Peel to compile a mix stands as a testament to the series, even if I found the CD itself as sporadic and difficult as his radio show. Other artists with more Late Night Tales-esque mixes that also merit inclusion are Death in Vegas, Cut Copy and the wonderfully danceable one from LCD Soundsystem front man and drummer James Murphy and Pat Mahoney. You may have also noticed the absence of any mixes past the 40 mark. To a certain degree they do seem to be running out of really great DJs to cover, but some of the young guns have turned in noteworthy comps; I’m thinking Pearson Sound, Filthy Dukes, the Visionquest boys and of course Optimo. Anyway, a big thanks to Fabric and the DJs I’ve listed and here’s to another decade at the top of the game.

Modeselektor in full day-glo flow

Aside from these opportunities I’ve also been consuming a fair bit of music recently and thought it was about time I share some of the things I’ve liked and disliked.

Let’s start with Dave Clarke‘s rightful entry into the Fabric complication catalogue. As the Paris The Black Fu chants on the Kenny Larking remix of the Marc Romboy song of the same name, this mix is dark n lovely. Dave ploughs his pummeling techno furrow with the quick-mixing panache he brings to his live sets, continually upping the ante every few tracks with an ever more devastating riff or bassline, before descending into some sinister industrial electro to finish. A similarly long-overdue Fabric mix was that of Kieran Hebden AKA Four Tet. I was really looking forward to this one given the standout year he had in 2010, but for me the mix was far to ethereal and never really got going like I hoped it would. The field recording of what is presumably club corridor noises provides a nice intro, but to have them break up the mix more than once just takes all the momentum out of things; I’m also getting pretty tired of his penchant for shitty two-step garage as well.

Another disappointment, although this time sadly less surprising, came in the form of the new DJ Shadow album; ‘The Less You Know The Better’. Actually, to be fair, it is a vast improvement on his last effort, which bemused critics and fans alike with its misadventures into hyphy-style hip hop. But, as one suspects may forever be the case, the his latest effort gets nowhere near the timeless classics ‘Entroducing’ and ‘The Private Press’. The new album has a more organic and guitar-driven sound, and on some tracks this works really well – ‘Border Crossing‘ has a great vitriolic riff running through it, ‘Stay the Course’  with Talib Kweli & Posdnuos recalls like the best of his Soulsides days and ‘I Gotta Rock‘ sounds like it would do exactly that live – but alas the rest of the record just sounds a poor impersonation of the good old days. Having said that, from the video below it looks like he’s still got it live and I quite fancy catching him when he comes back to London later in the year.

Probably the biggest pretender to his crown, RJD2, also has a new record out; although this one’s in collaboration with singer-songwriter Aaron Livingston under the Icebird alias. Again, the new album has a less sample-based sound, although rather than plundering the world of rock there are a myriad of bluesy, funky, psychedelic influences evident. Much like previous RJD2 albums, ‘The Abandoned Lullaby’ is nice to stick on of an afternoon pottering round the house; not too intrusive and full of his soulful grooves enhanced with Livingston’s warm vocals.

It seems to have been a pretty anaemic year for good guitar music this year, and to be honest new LPs from Noel Gallagher and long-time Oasis wannabes Kasabian haven’t really improved things. I didn’t even bother seeking out brother Liam’s solo efforts, but I’ve always had a lot more admiration for his elder (even with recent comments), so I gave his ‘High Flying Birds’ a few listens. The opening track is a lovely, sprawling slab of psychedelia, but from there it follows a steady downwards trajectory into the 60s rock nostalgia of late Oasis; aside from maybe the driving, chart-bound ‘What A Life’. After the initial promise of their debut album, Kasabian have always flattered to deceive, with subsequent releases only ever packing in a couple of ever more mainstream hits. ‘Velociraptor!’ doesn’t even really have a satisfactory lead single as far as I’m concerned; ‘Days Are Forgotten’ just doesn’t cut it for me. ‘Switchblade Smiles‘ is a filthy beast of a song, but I’d far prefer to listen to the instrumental version Match of the Day 2 have for their saturday round-up section, and the rest of the record just sounds like they’ve run out of ideas.

One more album getting lots of attention but not quite living up to the hype is the return Anthony Gonzales’ M83 project. Audaciously split over two CDs it’s supposed to pick up where 80s teen-tinged ‘Saturdays=Youth’ left off and be, in his own words, “mainly about dreams, how every one is different, how you dream differently when you’re a kid, a teenager, or an adult.” This broad scope is its downfall though, as a lot of songs try to do too many things at once rather than make the most of the extended format and get the best out of each idea. There are some notable exceptions like the suitably epic ‘Intro’ with Zola Jesus and the powerful ‘Midnight City’.

It’s not all doom and gloom though, because one of my favourite producers Gui Boratto has brought a bit of Brazilian sunshine to counter the long cold winter with his sensibly named third album; ‘III’. While it doesn’t quite have the standout singles of its predecessors – although the leaked EP of ‘The Drill‘ and ‘Stems From Hell‘ provide two of its best cuts – it is still full of his trademark deep basslines and precise synth melodies.  Another electronic album that has cheered me up as the nights draw in is Modeselektor‘s third ‘Monkeytown’. Having now seen it performed live I can attest to Gernot and Sebastian’s showmanship and sonic power, but it works equally well through speakers that aren’t taller than a fully grown man. Definitely their most accomplished work to date, the knack for seamless and complementary collaborations is never better, with Thom Yorke utilised on more than one occasion, alongside Antipop Consortium‘s acerbic rapping on ‘Humanized’ and Busdriver’s hilarious social commentary on ‘Pretentious Friends‘. Funnily enough though my favourite track is still the Flying Lotus-esque instrumental synth-hop opener ‘Blue Clouds’.

There are of course many other electronic music albums doing the rounds that are worthy of a mention, but as is the case whenever I start writing about music, this post is getting dangerously long; so I’ll keep these reviews to a sentence or two each. First up is the brand spanking new one from electro-hop weirdos Spank Rock AKA Naeem Juwan (MC Spank Rock) and producer Alex Epton (XXXChange). The somewhat negatively titled ‘Everything is Boring and Everyone is a Fucking Liar’ is characteristically boisterous and much of it strays a bit too Miami-bass/Major Lazer for my liking, but it’s redeemed with tracks like the pleasantly restrained ‘Car Song’ with Santigold, the acid-stab booty-bounce of ’Cool Shit‘ and surprisingly indie-sounding Boys Noize produced ‘Energy’.

Also very fresh is ‘Ghost People’ from Dutch dubstep don Martyn. Actually, to label him a dub step producer is akin to calling Stephen Fry an actor – both statements are true, but they’ve both branched out significantly over the years – and I just liked the alliteration. Anyway, his follow-up to 2009′s ‘Great Lengths’ is a glorious affair, from the glittering futurism of second track ‘Viper‘ all the way to unashamedly old-skool euphoria of last track ‘We Are You In The Future’. Don’t take my word for it though, Mixmag have very nicely got a stream of the whole shebang up on their Soundcloud.

After a seven-year wait Death in Vegas have finally come in from the cold to make fifth album ’Trans-Love Energies’. Apparently it’s been gestating for quite a few years now, with Richard Fearless saying in a 2008 interview that it came from some re-scored surf films that were shown at The Barbican a few years ago, but needed to be properly mixed. It sounded pretty good to me on first inspection, I particularly liked the I Feel Love-esque vocal by Katie Stelmanis on ‘Your Loft My Acid‘.

It would appear that the good ship Ed Banger has been treading water for some time now, and a couple of recent leaks may well sink the once imperious label from view. First the talented DJ and producer DJ Mehdi tragically tested a plexiglass mezzanine to breaking point and left the label without its best proponent of forward thinking music, then the pivotal release of Justice‘s follow-up album confirmed that the label hasn’t really moved on from the sound that propelled them to the peak of hipster hype back in 2007. The death of Mehdi is of course a great loss to the dance music fraternity, I only saw him once, at the tail end of a Bugged Out! 15th birthday event, but his exuberant style kept me dancing long after my limbs were cooperating. Here’s a mix completed only a few weeks before his death displaying exactly that genre-hopping, party-rocking skill he had, and here’s a tribute mix that Ed Banger go-to-guy Feadz put together. As for ‘Audio, Video, Disco’ by the straggly looking ex-graphic designers Justice, it’s a pretty turgid affair really, as they’ve essentially just grafted some power-rock riffs onto the old formula. The best demonstration of the new sound is ‘Brianvision‘, but the rest of it really exposes a distinct lack of imagination. If you want to hear it for yourself, The NME are streaming it; kind of says it all really.

One record label that’s weathered such storms by making itself synonymous with quality rather than any passing genre fad is the mighty Soma. To celebrate 20 years in the game they’ve released a triple CD set with mixes from Slam and Silicone Soul, as well as a bonus classics comp. They’ve also been putting out remix packages of some of their biggest hits throughout the year, the Pan-Pot mix of Slam’s ‘Lifetime’s below is a particular favourite of mine. Talking of anniversaries, James Priestley and Giles Smith’s London-based after party staple secretsundaze turned 10 this year and they’ve also celebrated with a nice compilation charting their most memorable musical moments.

There are some more superb mixes out there on the interwebz that I feel I must share with you as well. How about a delightfully eclectic set from cosmic disco king Todd Terje (apparently his name’s a pun on cheesy U.S. house maestro Todd Terry; it’s all in the pronunciation according to my Norwegian source) or maybe a slightly back-dated but nonetheless sublime URB podcast mix from rising star Midland? If those don’t float your boat then why not try Hot Chip’s man with the midas touch Joe Goddard and his fine radiomix for DFA? and if you liked that then you should love his reworking of Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs’ ‘Garden’. Another recent discovery that I’d like to share is Daniel Avery AKA Stopmakingme. He makes and plays the kind of dark and dirty house that has put him on bills beside his influences Any Weatherall, Ivan Smagghe and Erol Alkan; this set of sets on his Soundcloud should keep you going for a good few hours. Talking of Erol, he’s back with his BBC6 Music show and is posting the recordings up on his website so you don’t have to tune it at the right time to catch up on his excellent taste and gradually improving DJ patter. One more handy resource I came across recently, courtesy of a Radiohead session for their superb new remix album, is Boiler Room. It calls itself London’s seminal live AV music show, and having a look at some of their recent guests I’m not going to argue.

A few things to look forward to before I leave you. In an interview with the Clubbers Guide to New York James Holden dropped some good news; “Nathan Fake has just finished his album and its mind-blowing, like next level shit! Everyone’s got to go listen to it; do their homework! It’s quite humbling stuff really.” Another golden nugget is from the purveyors of one of last year’s finest records, The Black Keys. Their new album, El Camino, is out on the sixth of December and they’ve got a wonderful video for first single ‘Lonely Boy’ out on the youtubez for your viewing pleasure; as one commenter says “eat your heart out Thom Yorke“. Ninja Tune mixmaster DJ Food has his a new LP ‘The Search Engine’ coming on the 23rd of January; check out his latest contribution to the consistently excellent Solid Steel Radio Show to get a better idea of his greatness. I also just found out that shoegazing, ambient hero Ulrich Schnauss’ new solo album ‘A Long Way To Fall’ is expected next spring, while a joint album with Mark Peters called ‘Underrated Silence’ is coming out on Bureau in February. He’s also just joined Twitter and posted a few mix links. This one is from his appearance at Bestival’s Ambient Forest area and it starts out nice enough, but I’m not so sure how the trance’n'bass mayhem that then ensues would have gone down in a chill out tent. If you thought Trentemoller had got all the remixes and rarities out of his system with his Chronicles album in 2007 then think again because next month he’s releasing  ‘Reworked/Remixed‘; two CDs worth of what it say on the tin. The Roots have got a new concept album out on December 6th; it’s called ‘Undun’ and is “existential re-telling of the short life of Redford Stephens (1974-1999)”. They haven’t given a great deal of information on the deceased, but apparently the album will in reverse chronological order recount the story of this ‘boy on tha corner’ as his life becomes undun. For more details click here and listen to first single ‘Make My’ featuring Big K.I.R.T. here. Finally, the irrepressible Gold Panda (turns out his full name is actually Derwin Panda) has been commissioned to mix the next DJ-Kicks installment; out this weekend. Again, Mixmag have snapped up the chance to stream it in full, while he’s posted an exclusive cut from the mix, ‘An Iceberg Hurled Nothward Through Clouds’ on his on Soundcloud page.

Not quite as exciting as I was hoping

I must have watched more than 40 hours of TV and film going there and back, but there was still a multitude of entertainment on Singapore Airlines’ in-flight database I missed out on. Of the things I did watch, here’s a few mini-reviews for your perusal:

Super 8 – This is exactly the kind of film I designate as a plane movie, one that looks like it has some merit, but has received mixed reviews and never convinced me to part with my money. Turns out it’s actually pretty good though. Yes it’s an overt homage to Spielberg’s 80s greats, but when the opposing summer blockbuster fare consists of Transformers 2 and Pirates of the Caribbean 4, then give me lovingly made nostalgia every time. A good old coming of age, kids against adults, saving the misunderstood alien tale, it does everything it should in a very polished and satisfying way.

Source Code – Now this one I did want to see in the cinema, but for one reason or another didn’t get round to. I’m not the greatest fan of Jake Gyllenhaal, nor did the trailer really make it look like anything more than a flashy Under Seige remake, but several positive reviews compared it to one of my favourite films of last year; Inception. While the comparison isn’t entirely accurate, they are both action thrillers that require and reward  bit of brain engagement from the audience and share a scientifically baffling bit of plot-driving technology. Again, the fun is trying to keep up whilst watching and not to try and over think the mechanics of things afterwards.

Bridesmaids – Definitely a plane movie, but nonetheless on I’m glad I did get the chance to see, rather than just dismissing as I have done most lacklustre Judd Apatow efforts and imitators. This film is rightly Apatow’s biggest grossing film to date though, driven by a brilliant breakthrough performance by the charming Kristen Wiig. The characters are likeable and aside from a few overblown ‘gross-out’ moments, the writing and acting make for a genuinely funny film.

Submarine – As comedies go, this really couldn’t be any more polarised from Bridesmaids, although that’s not to say it’s a bad film. While the IT Crowd’s Chris O’Dowd stars in the former, the latter is the directorial debut of co-star Richard Ayoade. Where Bridesmaids is a big, brash American mainstream comedy, Submarine is a subtle, slightly odd British indie drama, but while it’s not laugh a minute stuff, it is a beguiling little film that is again propelled by an excellent central performance; this time from the young Craig Roberts as the teenage protagonist Oliver Tate.

The Tree of Life – I have a love/hate relationship with Terence Malick, there’s so much to admire in his cinematography and unique approach to film-making, but at the same time there’s a great deal that irritates me in his meandering storytelling and over-bearing symbolism. So it was with some trepidation that I clicked play on his latest opus, not least because the scale of his fifth film seemed destined to be lost on the tiny seat-back screen. But to be honest, I’m glad I didn’t shell out to see it on the big screen, because while he should be applauded for attempting to commit the meaning of life to film, and his inimitable style lends a certain mesmerising grace to proceedings, the project ends up capitalising on all his worst directorial traits. There is a great deal of beauty within the film, both in the natural subjects he loves to shoot and when capturing the emotions of the key characters, but these glorious moments are lost amongst a seemingly unending slog through raising a family in 50s suburban America, solar stock footage and incongruous dinosaurs, Sean Penn wandering around a skyscraper, and those maddeningly vague whispering voice overs.

Surely someone can do a better spoof than this, his work seems so ripe for satire.

Game of Thrones – I took the opportunity to see what all the hype was about and caught the first three episodes of HBO’s latest epic drama series. There are obvious parallels with Lord of the Rings – it’s an adaptation from a book, its set in a fantasy world of warring tribes, it’s got Sean Bean being a gruff, northern warrior – and as with all fantasy settings it took me a while to really take seriously. But once you get past the silly accents, made-up mythologies and gratuitous sex/violence, it becomes clear why the show has garnered so much praise. As with recent big-budget U.S. dramas, the characters are well-developed and the plot expansive, and much like the stateside version of The Killing, after a few episodes I’m now suitably intrigued to keep watching.

The Lightbulb Conspiracy – Finally, an interesting Norwegian documentary all about planned obsolescence. I remember learning about it in craft and design at school, but for those of you not in the know, it basically means the practice of designing products to have a certain lifespan in order to facilitate the need for consumers to buy new versions and thusly keeping the capitalist growth model of continuous consumption going. The programme demonstrates various products that can and have ben engineered to last indefinitely, whilst pointing out their pitfalls for the companies that manufacture them It then asks whether the model is sustainable, especially with increasingly finite resources and he wheels seemingly falling off the growth model of economics, but crucially stops a little short of giving valid alternatives to the existing imperfect system.

This preamble leads me to my own bit of nostalgia, harking back ten years to the dawn of the new millennium and a time when house music reacted to the previous few years of overblown superclub trance and underwhelming tribal/prog. Obviously music only a decade old isn’t held up with quite as much reverence as that made 20 years previous, but I’d argue many of the stand-out tracks produced in and around 2001 stand the test of time far better than the esteemed old-skool anthems; and with this blog I aim to make that case.

As I’ve already mentioned, it was a time following probably the most fertile five years in dance music’s short history. From the middle of the 90s until the end of the century we got through some genuinely seminal albums – think ‘Fat of the Land’, ‘You’ve Come a Long Way Baby’, ‘Homework’, ‘Leftism’ and at a stretch ‘Dubnobasswithmyheadman’ – the sadly forgotten genre of bigbeat created big cross-over hits, paving the way for anthemic trance and chart-bothering French filter-house, not to mention the boom in British clubbing, with superclubs, festivals and brands becoming part of the general consciousness. After the spectacular anti-climax of the millennium, a lengthy hangover ensued, with the commercialisation of trance and house reaching new levels and several of the clubbing brands going bust. These periods are always fertile musically, as a new crop of talent emerges and established producers are forced to go back to basics and concentrate on just making great music again.

Genres were blurred and sets swung from things like the undeniably funky Timo Maas remix of Fatboy Slim’s ‘Star 69′, to the tech-trance of Mainframe – ‘Mainframe’ and on to the driving techno of ‘Belgian Resistance’ by Sharpside. It was a time when nights like Bugged Out!, Back to Basics and Fabric thrived on this backlash and desire to strip away the excess of the last few years and just focus on really good club music. I was barely old enough to get into the few clubs that were playing this kind of music at the time, but armed with a shoddy fake ID and as much facial hair as I could muster, me and a few mates would go along to long-gone Edinburgh institutions like Sublime at Wilkie House, Do This Do That at the Honeycomb, Progression at the Liquid Rooms, Dogma at Studio 24 and Serotonin at The Venue. 2001 was also my first year of festivals, following a techno-education in the Slam tent at T in the Park with a trip to Creamfields later in the summer. I remember the Bugged Out! tent being the place to be – as it always is – with Futureshock kicking things off, Darren Emerson sounding imperious later in the day (the sound cut out for five minutes and when it kicked back in he dropped ‘Blue Monday’; the first time I’d ever heard it played out), Bugged Out stalwart Justin Robertson played it tough and chunky, X-Press 2 rinsed ‘Muzikizum’ and ‘Smoke Machine‘ and the Chemical Brothers played a deliciously dark and twisted DJ set; starting with the ubiquitous ‘It Began in Afrika‘ way before its release the next year.

Before I get too deep into reminiscence though, here are some more examples of the music that made those nights so memorable:

What seemed so prevalent at the time was the ease at which producers were churning out tracks that had both  driving rhythms and solid basslines – as well as big breakdowns and memorable riffs – but without resorting to the cheese that had ruined trance’s reputation. I’m thinking of things like ‘Sputnik’ by Pete Heller’s Stylus Trouble moniker, early Timo Maas-terpiece ‘Ubik’, or X-Press 2′s mighty ‘Muzikizum’; which all sound just as fresh now as they did ten years ago.

This seemed to be the period that progressive house shed the dull, repetitive albatross around its neck and become tech house, with tracks like Futureshock’s production pinnacle ‘Sparc’, the epic Nalin & Kane vocal mix of Steve Lawler prog-plodder ‘Rise In’ and the James Holden-produced tech-trancer ‘First Light’ by Okengi Clinic.

As I’ve previously bemoaned on this blog, the word funky has been tarnished by unimaginative middle-aged men and unscrupulous record executives, but back then it was still possible to make genuinely credible house music that was full of funk. Prime examples come in the form of Fatboy Slim’s beastly remix of Mike & Charlie’s ‘I Get Live’ (and of course the aforementioned mix of ‘Star 69′), Love Tatoo’s percussion work-out ‘Drop Some Drums’ and UBU’s ‘Pixels’; the latter two featuring particularly memorable vocal samples just before the drop.

The deeper side of house was also well served, with some of my favourite summertime house music coming from that daisy age. Ashley Beedle’s beautifully sun-kissed remix of ‘Swollen’ by Bent and the King Unique mix of Baz’s ‘Believers’ are both made for outdoor parties, while the combination of Sasha and Darren Emerson on the aptly named ‘Scorchio’ was only going to end well. I haven’t even got space to mention Silicone Soul’s ‘Right On’ or ‘Free at Last’ by Simon.

Many of these  make up my 8tracks mix of the year in question, but one of the main protagonists of the time – King Unique – has also put an excellent 2001 set up on his Soundcloud as well. Pete Tong released a couple of garishly packaged but credibly complied compilations at the time – Essential Mix and Twisted Beats – while Danny Tenaglia put his hand to an excellent comp for Back to Basics.

Finally, as a fitting end to this post, the early noughties provided three of the very finest end of the night selections ever. All of these bring back memories of sweaty 3am moments – often at The Arches in Glasgow – when the lights have gone up and everyone’s pleading for ‘one more tune’. Arches regular Funk D’Void has never bettered the brilliance of ‘Diabla’, likewise Sander Kleinenberg with early production gem ‘My Lexicon’ – previously heard on the precursor to all this wonderful music; Sasha’s seminal Global Underground Ibiza – and not forgetting the most beautiful thing to come out of Detroit; ‘Inspiration’ by the legendary Underground Resistance.

With all the biggest jumps, longest jibs, wince-inducing stacks, silliest skits and gnarliest lines of last season committed to tape, then meticulously edited and lovingly synced with songs, the big guns start teasing with clips that start us thinking about where to take our next winter adventure, rather than which beach to go to or what to stick on the barbie. I’ve long since come to terms with my addiction – as well as the fact that I’ll never be good enough to emulate any of the feats displayed – so I’m happy to spend some summer downtime marvelling at the bombastic spectacle that is ski movie trailer season. Here are a few of my favourites so far:

First up is the long-awaited film dedicated to my favourite free-skier (after Shane McConkey, RIP), Seth Morrison. ‘The Ordinary Skier’ traces his journey from the middle class suburbs of Chicago, to the Colorado Rockies, and into the underground ski-bum subculture that would eventually become Freeskiing; or so says the blurb. Very much of the old school mould, Morrision lets his skiing do the talking – all hucking hundred foot cliffs and straight-lining narrow gullies – while the plaudits roll in from his peers.

Another skier deserving of his own film is Tanner Hall. In a far shorter space of time he’s racked up just as impressive a CV as anyone in the sport. He won seven golds and four silvers at the Winter X Games – twice coming back from career-threatening injuries in 2005 and 2009 – he set up Armada Skis in 2002 and part owns snowcat ski hill Retallack in British Columbia with Seth Morrison. It’s this mountain that his movie is named after, with the action covering his return to skiing after two years out from the tibial plateau fractures and ACL tears in both knees he suffered after overshooting a jump at Stevens Pass in Washington. I met him briefly in New Zealand, and contrary to his slightly bratty image of old, he actually seems like a really decent guy after all he’s been through, so its nice to see him enjoying huge backcountry jumps, seemingly endless pillow lines and epic tree skiing again.

One of Tanner’s champions in the past, if you’re looking for the cream of the new school crop, then Poor Boyz Productions‘ are consistently your go-to guys. Their latest effort is called ‘The Grand Bizarre’ and features the likes of Bobby Brown (not that one, this one), Nick Martini, Dane Tudor, Sammy Carlson and Simon Dumont in his incredible Red Bull cubed pipe. Expect lots of style progression, urban aerobatics  and immature hi-jinks in-between.

Consistently my favourite ski movie producers, the mighty Matchstick Productions, look like they may have blown away the competition again though; and with such a simple concept. The infamous La Niña weather system was particularly harsh and heavy last year, bringing record snowfalls across the Rockies and coastal ranges of North America, so MSP stayed at home and simply recorded the incredible footage of the world’s best skiers getting lost in the deepest power ever seen. The secret of a good trailer is choosing a big, powerful song and classily editing your best bits in time. They’ve nailed it on both points here; Manchester Orchestra’s ‘Virgin’ being a fitting choice for the scenes.

Talking of good music, Level 1 had me from the start by picking a nifty remix of Caribou‘s ‘Sun’ to accompany their ‘After Dark’ trailer. The first minute of fittingly after dark footage works perfectly with the intro and the rest of the film doesn’t look to shoddy either – anything with a triple backflip has me hooked (1 minute 14 secs) – with lots of lesser known skiers proving their worth.

The other big production house that can be relied on for a good annual release is Teton Gravity Research. This year’s offering, ‘One For The Road’, and as the intro suggests it’s all about the journey. To be fair to them, it does get about a bit, spanning the record-breaking season in Jackson Hole, Japan’s powder mecca Hokkaido, Iceland’s urban side, the unexploered Macedonia and Montenegro, pillow lines at Baldface Lodge, first descents in Pemberton, BC, and of course the obligatory trip to Alaska. The music and voiceover are a bit tiresome, but the trailer is worth a look if only for the blood-curdling sound and vision of Ian McIntosh’s massive fall at 1 minute 20 secs (he’s recovering well apparently).

In addition to these favourites, there’s also a whole lot of other ski movies due for release this autumn that deserve a mention. French Company PVS‘s new one ‘Animus‘ is all very stylised, energetic and nu-skool - but nonetheless impressive looking - while the 8th movie from Norway’s Field Productions – ‘Being There’ - takes a less frenetic and more epic approach, full of beautiful Scandinavian vistas and tight skiing from the likes of Jon Olsson, Henrik Windstedt and Tom Wallish.

As much as I’m committed to the cause of protecting the environment, incessant green-wash in documentaries has started to annoy me over the last few years, so I wasn’t sure when I heard about the idea of an eco-ski movie. The fact that the six-minute trailer for The Sherpas’ ‘All.I.Can’ is sound-tracked by Pendulum and starts with exactly the kind of wistful images that clog up these overly guilt-inducing docs didn’t fill me with confidence, but eventually Mark Abma, Eric Hjorleifson and Mike Douglas started shredding some BIG mountain lines and things picked up. People who live their lives in the great outdoors are on the frontline of the ill-effects of man-made pollution and the fact that this doesn’t seem to be badgering you with grim statistics, instead displaying the best of the mountains and the playground they present, is a refreshing way to get the message across.

A few good-looking trailers for ski movies from less illustrious producers now. First up is ‘That’s Fine’ from the Voleurz family of skiers, snowboarders and skaters; it’s being released for free on their site on November 21 and for that price it’s well worth a watch. Also going up for free online is ‘Nothing Else Matters’ from Legs of Steel. Shot by Andre Nutini, it features British talent Paddy Graham amongst others and also includes never-before-seen tricks like Bene Mayr’s first forward double misty 1080 and an incredible looking finale featuring loads of skiers going off three overlapping jumps at the same time. A last scrappy looking entry comes from East Coast studio Meathead Films, who have got their latest selection of ‘Prime Cuts’ up for grabs in trailer form. Cut across backcountry Vermont, New Hampshire and Quebec as well as slicing and dicing urban terrain in Portland, Boston, Quebec City and their hometown of Burlington, this snippet from Syracuse to Boston gives you a good flavour of the nonsense they get up to; it’s all about the spelunking.

Finally, if your favourite bits in Warren Miller films are the adventure segments, then this one’s for you. Sweetgrass Productions’ ‘Solitaire’ charts the team’s two years travelling the snowiest bits of Argentina, Chile, Peru and Bolivia. Rather than being all face-shots and corked 720′s, the uncharted beauty of the terrain abounds and if you can cope with the earthy intro and local voiceover, then there’s some incredible shots later on in the teaser film.

Central Park

Coney Island

Brooklyn Squirrel

As much as I’d like to join my fellow journalists in some righteous hand-wringing over the phone hacking scandal and demise of The News of the World, there’s nothing I can say that hasn’t been better said by The Guardian – particularly good examples here, here and here. Also, while the toppling of a terrible publication and exposure of morally abhorrent practices is real progress, I suspect that much like the first NOTW phone-hacking trial, scapegoats will be hung out to dry and the dodgy practices and dodgier papers will rumble on. The table below from the Information Commissioner gives a good idea of the scale of the problem, and even thought the organisation I work for has an excellent ethical code and high standards of journalism, in full disclosure we were bought up by the Daily Mail Group, so a full rant might seem a tad hypocritical. 

On to more pleasant matters though, and an update from my last post on good telly. As you may or may not have seen, the excellent The Shadow Line finished and has now been replaced by the next in the Beeb’s New Drama season; The Hour. Based on the inception of the titular current events show in the 1950s, it stars Dominic West as the dashing host, up against Ben Wishaw’s razor-sharp reporter, with Romola Garai’s struggling producer keeping them from coming to blows. A couple of episodes in and it’s already got me as gripped as The Shadow Line and is fast living up to its hype as the British Mad Men. Sticking with drama, Channel 4 have signed up the US version of The Killing. I had previously been recommended the Danish original by a colleague, but missed its airing on BBC Four, so I was a bit sceptical when I found myself watching the feature-length first episode of the remake a few weeks ago. It all looked very polished, the story was sufficiently intriguing to keep me watching, but a few episodes in and I still don’t feel particularly gripped by the plight of the characters and the plot doesn’t have half as much cliffhanger-y intrigue as it seems to think it does.

The Hour is Nigh

Away from the serious stuff, there have been some lols to be found if you look hard enough. A couple of tips from some friends recently back from across the pond are well worth a look. Tuesday nights on Channel 5 offshoot 5Star are where and when you can find US import Archer, an animated spy-spoof surrounding the exploits of the suave but incredibly self-centred spy Sterling Archer; a breath of fresh air in comparison to the increasingly stale efforts of Matt Groening and Seth McFarlane. Also on Tuesday nights, but over on BBC3, is Angry Boys, the latest mockumentary from Summer Heights High creator Chris Lilley. While it’s not quite as funny as his last series, some of his new characters – like faux-gansta rapper S.Mouse, prison officer Gran and uber-pushy mum Jen Okazaki – all continue to push the comedic limits. Another Australian show that I came across recently was Wilfred. My interest was initially drawn to a very odd advert on American TV, which I then mentioned to a friend, who informed me of the Aussie original series. The premise remains the same in each - we follow Adam, his girlfriend Sarah and the eponymous Wilfred, so far so normal, but the nonsense stems from the fact that Adam sees the dog as a man in a dog suit who talks to him – but I implore you avoid the Elijah Wood-fronted US remake and search for the first series online somewhere.

Away from the idiot box, there are any number of wonderful things going on to arouse your ears. Lets start with hip hop, and courtesy of my workmate Hugh I’ve been introduced to the brilliance of Action Bronson, described to me as “looking like a GamesWorkshop employee, but sounding like Ghostface Killah”. On his new album ‘Dr Lecter’ he spits about his three favourite things – fine food, good women and fat blunts – all backed by a nice soulful New York sound. While the style definitely takes liberally from Ghostface and the Wu Tang Clan, the man himself liked Bronsolini’s work so much he teamed up with him for the track ‘Meteor Hammer’, which you can download here.Sticking with the Clan, they’ve got a new record out, and while it’s not vintage material, there are still a few prime cuts on ‘Legendary Weapons’ worth looking out.

In stark contrast to the Wu-Corp. commercial juggernaut are Shabazz Places, a mysteriously promotion shy Seattle-based collective producing weird and often wonderful off-kilter hip hop. Their new album ‘Black Up’ is challenging at times, but rewards like ‘Are You…Can You…Were You‘ are well worth your time. A couple of other things to look forward to on the hip hop front come in the form of my two favourite US trip-hoppers; DJ Shadow and RJD2. The former’s forthcoming album, ‘The Less You Know The Better’, is becoming less and less of a hot prospect with every new teaser single I hear from it; here’s hoping the full record doesn’t continue the great man’s downward trajectory. Hopefully RJD2 will be able to avert a similar decline by teaming up with vocalist Aaron Livingston to from Icebird. The duo will apparently “utilise the psychedelic soul for which the Philly music scene has long been known” on their debut LP ‘The Abandoned Lullaby’ in October.

Another, more eyebrow-rasing collaboration is between blues-rock superstar Jack White and hitherto barely known Detroit rapper Black Milk. White contacted Milk (I like how that sounds) after seeing one of his videos and asked him if he’s like to record some tracks with him at his Third Man studios in Nashville. Read the full story and hear the music they made here. Ending with the beatsier side of hip hop, I’m throughly looking forward to the new EP from Weegie synth-glitch pioneer Hudson Mohawke, ‘Satin Panthers’. If bold lead single ‘Thunder Bay’ is anything to go by, it should be even more entertaining than 2009′s ‘Butter’.

I would normally put Anticon beatmaster Alias in the hip hop section, but going on what the first single from his new album sounds like, I’m going to use him to segway into a new genre paragraph. ‘Wanna Let It Go’ is the teaser track from the forthcoming ‘Fever Dream’ and sounds like he’s moving towards the Joy Orbison/Mount Kimbie end of the spectrum; see what you think and download it for free here. Talking of Mount Kimbie, the Peckham-based post-dubstep duo recently released the excellent EP ‘Carbonated’ – the title track being a particularly soothing number - but this time the hype has shifted from them onto the next big thing; SBTRKT. The masked crusader has been doing the rounds now for a while, but the release of his eponymous debut album has got people talking, especially since he’s made it quite commercially accessible. This means fans of his clubbier previous releases may be disappointed with some of the vocal numbers, but tracks like ‘Ready Set Loop’ prove he still knows where the dance floor is.

Another homegrown talent peeking his head above the parapet is Midland. Following in the footsteps of cohorts Ramadanman/Pearson Sound and Julio Bashmore, he’s stepped up this year with releases ‘Bring Joy’ and ‘Through Motion’; the latter being a firm favourite of mine recently. Not British, but well worth a mention is the debut full-length album from Ghostly International signature Com Truise. ’Galactic Melt’ is chock full of the analogue synths he collects, harking back to all the best bits of electro from the last 30 years; ‘Flightwave‘ is particularly drenched in retro-bliss. Whilst we’re overseas it would be remiss of me not to mention the third album from everyone’s favourite Brazilian architect-turned-house-producer Gui Boratto. The aptly titled ‘III’ is out in September on Kompakt and if ‘The Drill’ is anything to go by it should be another beauty.

Just in time for the summer re-boot loopy disco duo Tiger & Woods have released their debut album; ‘Through the Green’. If you’ve been enjoying their output for a wee while now then there will be plenty you already know and love, plus a few fine noobs along the way. As trailed here several months ago, french knob twiddler Anthony Gonzales AKA M83 is back with his sixth album ‘Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming’, of which he says: “I think it is a reflection of my 30 years of being a human being. It’s a compilation of all my previous music together. It’s a retrospective of myself.” You can download the potent first single ‘Midnight City’ here (watch out for the sax solo) and the full record will be out in October. Another album coming to fruition soon is the latest from The Rapture. It’s called ‘In the Grace of Your Love’, it’s out at the start of September on DFA and the lead single is  ‘How Deep is Your Love‘; an intriguingly different melancholic-piano-disco grower.

There have been a couple of updates of favourite songs from last year which are worth mentioning. Firstly the dubbed-out Dennis Bovell version of Steve Mason‘s ‘The Letter’ - one of many highlights from the album reversioning ‘Ghosts Outside’ - and secondly the updated version of Erol Alkan and Boys Noize‘s ‘Avalanche’, with Jarvis Cocker enlisted to read Leonard Cohen‘s poem of the same name.

I like it when musicians and press people get creative. Too often promo campaigns follow the same well trodden path, so it’s nice to see people grasping the best of new technology and social networking to increase the listener/customer’s involvement. A couple of recent instances I’ve enjoyed include Sasha’s competition to create a new version of his track ‘Cut Me Down’ in order to win a production session at a swanky Ibiza studio. Some of the entries fashioned from the spare parts made available on Soundcloud were genuinely excellent, I particularly like this last 14 worthy effort from Ryan Davis. The much-discussed new app from mash-up pioneers Soulwax has clearly been a labour of love, so hats off to them for putting so much effort into something with so little financial reward. Annoyingly only available on Apple devices, it launched at the start of July containing six hour-long mixes, each following an individual theme and accompanied by bespoke visuals. The brothers Dewaele will add a new hour-long set to the app each week, until users have access to a full days worth of music. Finally, one of the industry’s true innovators, Bjork‘s really gone to town with the packaging of her latest album, Biophilia, making it available as an app that gradually extends into an explorable musical universe, with new constellations (songs) added over time. For a better explanation - courtesy of Sir David Attenborough no less - click here, or just watch the fantastic new Gondry-directed video for Crystalline.

Not content with revolutionising the way people access music, some artists are going out of their way to shift the paradigm of live performance. Electronic musicians have long been criticised for lacklustre stage shows (“I bet he’s just checking his emails”) but while men manipulating machines will never be able to content with the drama of a band in full pomp, the likes of the Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk and Underworld have paved the way for the incredible new tour set up of Ninja Tune-r Amon Tobin. His ISAM album tour has been heaped with praise for the ground-breaking 3D projection system. I can’t begin to explain how it all works, but those have seen it – and I fully intend to when he comes back to London in the autumn – say it’s genuinely game-changing stuff. On a similar tip, Jamie XX has teamed up with visual artist Quayola, for a live AV gig sponsored by Rizlab; sign up for a chance to see it here.

To finish, lets briefly wrap up a few mixes and compilations that have been doing the rounds since I last wrote. M.A.N.D.Y returned to the Body Language mix series that helped make their name, Volume Ten is all you’d expect from the Get Physical stable; muscular, melodic, European house. Sticking with the same label, Heidi‘s Jackathon is unsurprisingly a jackin’ mix of chunky Chicago-influenced house, while over on DJ-Kicks, Motor City Drum Ensemble takes the reigns for the latest installment of the series; here’s an exclusive cut from the comp by the man himself. The last review I wrote was for Jackmaster’s FabricLive mix, hopefully I can bag myself a first listen to the long overdue Fabric comp debut from Four Tet. Finally, an insider tells me good things about the new concept from Desyn Masiello and co. Faciendo is a collaborative effort between Des and a group of like-minded DJ’s – Tom Morgan, Rowdent, balErik, Add2Basket, Lucas Abadi and Dory – pooling resources to host fortnightly radio shows, contribute to a series of multi-genre compilation CDs and working towards establishing a regular club night and festival tent. The first radio mix comes from Masiello and I’ll keep you abreast of further developments.

Just a couple more musical things I need to convey before I go. Firstly a couple of releases on hipster boutique Kitsune – the latest of their ‘Tabloid‘ mix series is being mixed by Rio mix-masters The Twelves and Mark Ronson‘s  rework and release the title track off last year’s ‘Record Collection’ album – and secondly a quick word of gratitude to Radiohead for their continuing selection of some of dance music’s most interesting producers to remix singles off ‘King of Limbs’ – namely Caribou, Nathan Fake, Jaques Green, Pearson Sound, Lone and Four Tet – all available to stream online.

If you can’t be arsed clicking through the multitude of musical links I’ve provided then why not just click here instead for all the best bits squeezed and sequenced into a brand new 8tracks mix.

However, the last six months on the small screen have been rather dissapointing – bar Brooker’s latest How TV Ruined Your Life, Human Planet and Bruce Parry’s trip to the Arctic – forcing me to watch the best the U.S. has to offer; Mad Men and Boardwalk Empire. Attempting to fill the hole left by successive best shows ever The Sopranos and The Wire, these two pretenders have that same great depth of character and plot that comes with being able to spread a series out over 12 episodes; each one feeling like its own separate mini-movie. There is always progression of the overarching narrative, but each episode leaves you feeling satisfied in its own story, rather than the constant cliffhanger-ing of the other great American drama trend created by Lost and its impersenators.

Omar off the Wire, actually, no, Chalky in Boardwalk Empire

The vast amounts of money HBO staked on their latest epic Boardwalk Empire appears to have paid off, with the lavish sets and period detail more than matched by Steve Buscemi’s central performance and the standout acting of those around him like Kelly McDonald’s Margaret Schroder, Michael Pitt’s Jimmy Darmody and Michael Shannon’s Nelson Van Alden. A second series was commissioned after the first episode drew 4.8 milion U.S. viewers, and thankfully the same can also now be said for the other outstanding series of recent years; Mad Men. After protracted negotiations between creator Matthew Weiner and network AMC over its plans to trim the running time for adverts and introduce more product placement, it was confirmed that the show will be back next year. This will be of great relief to anyone glued to series four, as it would have been maddening (pardon the pun) not to have seen how Draper Cooper Sterling Price dealt with the end of the swinging sixties. Mad Men is the perfect example of how good drama can be, lacking the violence of peers and moving at a glacial pace, it instead entertains and involves the viewer by getting the fundamentals spot on; great writing, directing and acting which characters you really care about.

(Who knew the theme tune was by RJD2?)

While British dramas usually only have half the episodes to weave their storylines, we’re certainly not short of talented writers, directors and actors this side of the pond; as demonstrated by the number of Brits that put in star turns and accents for The Wire. In the gap before the above series’ return the BBC appear to have taken the initiative with their New Drama commissions; threatening to keep me inside during these sunny months.

The Shadow Line is the first up, and after only a few episodes has me completely gripped. Comparisons with The Wire are definitely valid, as the show is all about how both sides of the law deal with the same crime, letting the viewer make allegiances with flawed heroes in the both Met and London’s criminal underworld. Again, intricately built characters are the key, whether it be Christopher Eccleston’s unwilling new leader doing ‘one more job’ for his Alzheimers suffering wife, Chiwetel Ejiofor’s possibly crooked amnesiac detective, Stephen Rea’s sinister overlord, or Rafe Spall as the brilliantly maniacal son of the slain boss at the heart of the murder mystery.

Chiwetel Ejiofor, Stephen Rea and Christopher Eccleston

The beeb’s other drama being drawing favourable comparisons is The Hour. Set in around the 1956 launch of the station’s topical news programme of the same name – as opposed to Mad Men’s early 60s advertising agency – it stars Jimmy McNulty, or should I say Dominic West, as well as rising starts Ben Wishaw and Romola Garai and is aparently coming to our screens next month.

Of course it’s not just drama that the Big British Castle is smashing the competition with. Tonight, everyone’s favourite deceptively bumbling documentarian Louis Theroux, visits the Miami mega-jail in the latest of his sporadic films tackling ever more serious subjects. Then on Monday, the brilliant BBC blogger and documentary maker Adam Curtis returns to our screens with his latest through-provoking film All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. So far all we’ve got is a great little trailer and an intriguing Guardian article laying out the premise of human interaction with technology, but if it’s anything like The Century of Self or The Power of Nightmares, then expect a fascinatingly subversive feature.

Another thing making me happier to pay my license fee is a new Stephen Fry vehicle; Planet Word. According to the blurb, he’ll be of exploring linguistic achievements and the development of spoken word skills, presumably in various tenuously justified far-flung locations a la Brian Cox. Following the dreamy doctor’s Wonders of the Universe into space is base-jumper Felix Baumgartner and his incredible journey towards a record-breaking freefall from the edge of space; documented in Space Dive.

There’s some decent programming to be found elsewhere in the channels – on a rare occasion venturing down the freeview menu I found acclaimed U.S. zombie survival show The Walking Dead and silly spy-spoof cartoon Archer on the ususally unwatchable Five USA – but generally it’s Auntie who’s making the best effors at matching the money America’s prepared to throw at quality telly.

* whilst basking in the BBC glow after writing this post I stumbled upon an advert for the return of BBC3 schedule-ruiner Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps; almost enough of a travesty to make me delete this post in anger.