Best albums of 2007

It's that time of the year again. And 2007 was a grand-cru year..

1. The Field - From Here We Go Sublime
2. Amy Winehouse – Back to Black
3. Burial – Untrue
4. Efdemin – Efdemin
5. M.I.A. – Kala
6. Stephan Bodzin - Liebe ist…
7. Gui Boratto – Chromophobia
8. Typhoon - Tussen licht en lucht
9. Feist - The Reminder
10. Italians Do it Better – Doing it after dark
11. Jay-Z – American Gangster
12. Guy Gerber - Late Bloomers
13. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
14. Christian Fennesz & Ryuichi Sakamoto – Cendre
15. Stars of the Lid - ...And Their Refinement of the Decline
16. Robyn – Robyn
17. Robert Babicz - A Cheerful temper
18. Bjork – Volta
19. Jens Lekman - Night Falls over Kortedala
20. Gus Gus – Forever
21. Radiohead - In Rainbows
22. The Tough Alliance - New Chance
23. Kathy Diamond – Miss Diamond to you too
24. Hot Chip - DJ Kicks
25. Swayzak - Some Other Country
26. Dominik Eulberg - Bionic
27. Modeselektor - Happy Birthday
28. Panta Du Prince - This Bliss
29. Quince – En.Vi.Sion
30. Sorcerer - White Magic
31. Deepchord presents the Coldest Season
32. Pinch – Underwater Dancehall
33. Royksopp - Back to mine
34. MIA – Bittersus
35. Cobblestone Jazz – 23 Seconds
36. Ricardo Villalobos - Fabric 36
37. Joris Voorn – From a deep place
38. Apparat – Walls
39. Daft Punk – Alive
40. Kalabrese - Rumpelzirkus
41. Agnes – Dumble Debuts
42. Cocoon Compilation G
43. Mintzkov - 360 Degrees
44. Gui Boratto – Addicted Vol.2
45. Pole – Steingarten
46. The Tuss - Rushup Edge
47. Professor Genius - Professor Genius
48. Kompakt - Total 8
49. Common - Finding Forever
50. VA - Dirty Space Disco
51. Au Revoir Simone – The Bird of music
52. Damero – Happy in Grey
53. Slam – Human Response
54. Chromatics – In Shining Violence
55. Lopazz- Kook Kook
56. Telefon Tel Aviv - Remixes compiled
57. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - The Assassination of Jesse James OST
58. Dixon - Body Language IV
59. Onur Özer – Kasmir
60. Fairmont - Coloured in Memory
61. Simian Mobile Disco - Attack Decay Sustain
62. Britney Spears – Blackout
63. Deadbeat - Journeyman's annual
64. James Murphy - Fabriclive 36
65. Soulwax - Most of the remixes
66. Thieves Like Us - Play Music For You
67. Thomas Schumacher - Perlen 5
68. VA - DJ Kicks Mixed by Booka Shade
69. Compost Black Label series vol 2
70. New Young Pony Club - Fantastic Playroom
71. Port royal - Afraid to dance
72. Matzak - Life Beginnings
73. Patrick Watson – Close to paradise
74. Dominik Eulberg – Heimische Gefilde
75. Foo Fighters, Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace
76. Murcof - Cosmos
77. Alicia Keys – As I Am
78. The Black dog – Book of Dogma
79. Ewan Pearson - Piece Work
80. Kate Nash - Made of Bricks
81. Soul Jazz Records – Singles 2006-2007
82. Shlomi Aber – State of No one
83. Prefuse 73 – Preparations
84. Martinez – A Chemical Imbalance
85. JPLS – Twilite
86. Boxcutter – Glyphic
87. Chateau Flight – Body Language
88. Kaito – Contact to the spirits
89. Lusine – Podgelism
90. Marcus Intalex – Fabric 35
91. Famous when dead 5
92. Pharoahe Monch – Desire
93. Justice – Cross
94. Theo Parish – Sound Sculptures Vol. 1
95. Andreas Heiszenberger - Ah
96. The Gossip – Standing in the Way of Control
97. Rihanna – Good Girl Gone Bad
98. VA – Boxer 50
99. Air – Pocket Symphony
100. Gudrun Gut – I Put A Record On

Italians Do It Better

Some minimal-fatigue is discernable over here and that's why slowly I got totally into the current rerevival of italo. Some truly great releases are providing the soundtrack to my summer.

1. Italians Do It Better Labelsampler - After Dark

Thanks to slm I'm completely into the sounds of Mike Simonetti's label. Pitchfork was all over it and damn rightly so! Not one single bad track on this compilation. Pure cosmic bliss.

2. Studio - Yearbook 1


The afrobeat version of The Field? Trans Am in the disco? Life's a beach!

3. Kathy Diamond - Miss Diamond to You Too
4. Sally Shapiro - Disco Romance



It even gets better when innocent girls are singing over those brumming basslines!! Maurice Fulton produced Kathy Diamond's record and that's of course not a bad thing.

5. Professor Genius - s/t

Like somebody says it on his myspace: it's half italo, half aquarium. Perfect record to drive to sunny landscapes in the south of ehm, Italy.

6. Prins Tomas Presents Cosmo Galactic Prism

The name speaks for itself: splendid overview that goes from The Mole, Matias Aguayo to ehm, Carlos Hernandez. Space is the place!

7. The future looks bright with debut albums of Glass Candy and Chromatics coming up

Check them in space.

Download here a wonderful 'THISISNOTADISCO'mix and see how the best sounds of now get incorporated into one nice mix.
1. Hatchback - White Diamond
2. Lindstrom & Solade - Let's Practice (Wade Nicholls Dub)
3. Frank Helby - Tuislangboogie
4. Indeep - Last Night A DJ Saved My Life (Mirage Remix)
5. Ilija Rudman - UMMA
6. Faze Action - Stratus Energy
7. Emperor Machine - Who You?
8. Prince - Controversy
9. Front 242 - Circular Motion (The Delicate Genius Edit)
10. Zombi - Sapphire
11. Efdemin - La Ratafia
12. Pantha Du Prince - Saturn Strobe
13. Polmo Polpo - Requiem For A Fox
14. The Field - Over The Ice
15. Gui Boratto - Beautiful Life

Robert Babicz - A Cheerful Temper

Robert Babicz defines the sound of Berlin in 2007. Ok, that’s a bit of an overstatement, but when I heard his splendid ‘Milo’s Groove’ played out loud on an afterparty at 7 PM (‘Don’t forget to go home’ IS an understatement in Berlin…) everything made sense. People going crazy, shouting, dancing, drinking and feeling the music. ‘Milo’s groove’ is minimal of the highest quality and ‘A Cheerful Temper’ delivers the goods completely. Enough (deep)house influences to avoid a too dry record and enough repetition to get you into the stratosphere. 2007 is already now a brilliant year.

Also really digging:
- Björk - Volta
- Agnes - Dumbles Debuts
- Hot Chip - DJ Kicks
- Royksopp - Back To Mine
- Feist - The Reminder
- Get Physical - 5 years of...
- Telefon Tel Aviv - Remixes compiled
- Wighnomy Bros. and Robag Whrume - Remiks Potpourri II

James Holden – 4 hours set in Watergate. Set of the year.

After a splendid warm-up of Zander VT (Bpitch latest star) and freaking out on the waterside along Baby Ford’s minimal, at 4 o'clock he was finally there. James Holden. Ready for a 4 hours set. And it was just perfect. It’s the sixth time that I saw him and only now he gave me everything that I always expected to hear from him.

Watergate seemed to be made for Holden, who kicked of perfectly with Paul Kalkbrenner’s latest ‘Altes Kamüffel’ and went then from old-skool trance to minimal and a lot of his own productions (‘The Idiot!’, his remix for Four Tet!). This was not the freaky-electronics Holden, but a true housemeister. Pure brilliance. Was so tired that I didn’t manage to hear Carl Craig on Sunday-afternoon 3PM (!) in the garden of Panoramabar, but Holden satisfied my need for Berlin beats. What a night...

Watch out for Artificial Latvamäki

This Finnish producer started his career with 'Mänty' on Trapez LTD. Riley Reinhold liked the track so much that he put it on his yearly Triple R presents... compilation. For two minutes it was nicely blended in between Burnski and Oliver Hacke but I didn't pay too much attention to it. Shame on me!

Now Ellen Allien spotted his talent and included 'It is now not either' in her mix-cd for Fabric. 'It is now not either' is one of the stand-out tracks on this cd. It is techno like it should be: Joris Voorn meets Booka Shade, hypnotic drive without having to use trance-strings, old skool feeling while still sounding fresh.
Then I checked his two very very solid tunes on Belgian Curle Records (which is a label from Gent which is building up a nice forward-looking catalogue with artists like Efdemin, Reynold and this Latvamäki). 'Se Tuli Aavikolta' (Curle 004) is also a small masterpiece, building up over 11 minutes and going deep, down and dirty.

His new song "Tämä Tuli Järvestä" is coming out on the new Cocoon compilation. James Holden loves him. I love him. This is one of THE most promising producers around. No reason to not check out his myspace he?

NEWS

I just see that this blog is featured in the promosheets of N.E.W.S. Nice incentive to continue blogging!

Attack of the clones: Stephan Bodzin - Liebe Ist...

This is probably the album that everybody had expected from Nathan Fake and James Holden before everybody noticed that they were actually Boards of Canada fans in disguise. Basically all Bodzin's songs are a blatant ripoff/variation of the James Holden Remix of The sky is pink, which is ehm, a good thing! If every copycat would make his songs as hypnotic as titeltrack 'Liebe Ist..' we wouldn't even need the originals anymore. Great!

Also very very very good 12inches from
- Jesse Somfay - Jewelsweet Groove (STUNNING!! And it comes with a big Kiki remix)
- Jona - Smart Cats vs Dumb Dogs (Belgium conquers Get Physical)
- Gui Gerber - Bellydancer (believe the hype!)

And just heard that Agoria will play back to back with Oxia on Pukkelpop this year. Sounds like proper mayhem to my ears!

Houston we have again a monster! Mathew Jonson remixes Joel Mull

Jonson delivers again an epic monster with his 'Tiger' remix for Joel Mull's 'Begun the End Has'. This tiger eats you alive in 12 minutes time. And before you ask: yes, it is as good as for instance a 'Return of the Zombie Bikers'. And you know what that means...

Max Beckmann - Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam, 6 april - 19 augustus 2007

Ga dat zien! Ga dat zien! Circus Beckman opent zijn deuren...

Ik denk dat Beckman 100 jaar later wel into minimal zou zijn. Een Loco-Dice fan. Misschien wel een Villalosbol. Beckman ontvluchtte in Amsterdam de oorlog door veel naar de schouwburg, het circus en - vooral - naar donkere jazzclubs te gaan. Beckman hield van acrobaten, van mensen die leefden van hun eigen creativiteit, van mensen wiens leven zich afspeelde in de spotlights. Beckman hield van de maskerade van mensen die zich een andere rol aanmeten. Een beetje zoals Beckman zelf...

DIAL Hamburg - Efdemin

I'm quite lucky with being a Hamburg resident now as DIAL seems to go through a creative boost. I could go to Gui Boratto's liveact somewhere else in the city yesterdaynight, but I was hoping I'd be able see him later this year somewhere (10days please!), something which was probably not going to happen with this labelnight in U&G.

Arrived there around 1.30 to see the last half hour of Lawrence. Was not really in the mood for his warm and slow house and was already thinking of going to Boratto, when Pantha Du Prince started his hypnoctic live-act. 'This Bliss' is not a brilliant or surprising record, but it's nonetheless a strong record. Pantha Du Prince proved that by showing the best bits and pieces out of it. Great! Carsten Jost made a very nice Plaid-hommage with the spacey 'Atlantis' 12", and finished the night of with old house. But the highlight of the night was Efdemin, who went for a harder, more minimal set on which I couldn't stop dancing.

With his self-titled debut (check definitely tracks like 'Stately, Yes' or 'Acid bells') Efdemin joins the The Field, Boratto, and Eulberg in making interstellar techno anno 2007. Efdemin is a resident in Panoramamabar in Berlin, but to label him as 'minimal' is way too limited. On 'Efdemin' he goes from minimal to techno to deephouse, but always with the renowned melodic/melancholic DIAL-touch. Efdemin makes basically techno for Twin Peaks. Everything is warm and fluffy on the outside, but inside there's something dirty. Again highly recommended...

The Field - From Here We Go Sublime

En? Wat vinden we ervan?
Pitchfork geeft een negen en is laaiend enthousiast. Beweringen als "despite its nods to house and techno, Sublime is really an extension of the best ambient electronics of the last decade or so, especially Gas, a project of Wolfgang" gaan wel ver, maar 'Over the ice', 'Every Day', 'Silent', 'Mobilia' en 'The Deal' komen wel dicht in de buurt. Maar het klinkt wel HEEL erg als Kaito natuurlijk.

EDIT Zaterdagavond 31 Maart:

Vergeet het. Net zoals bij zoveel andere memorabele platen, valt het kwartje pas iets later. Het was nog eens heel lang geleden dat ik bijna gedwongen werd om naar een plaat te luisteren. Maar 'From Here We Go Sublime' zuigt je volledig naar zich toe. Verslavende plaat om 's nachts te dolen (maar waarschijnlijk ook om op een zomeravond op het gras te dansen.)

Small culture-shock in the house

OK, the last years I’m getting used to quite a lot of things, since I'm living together with so many people with so many different backgrounds, but today my Italian flatmate announced that from today on we would get the company of a Japanese girl for one week.

Juka is 26; she is a professional classical pianist and ehm, very Japanese. Some confirmed stereotypes of the first day:
- Gadgets: she has a very blitz mobile phone and a sort of mini-personal laptop translator which weighs 200 grams.

- Obedience: she asks us permission for absolutely everything; if she can take a glass to put her toothbrush in and put it in the kitchen (in Japan everybody brushes their teeth in the kitchen I learned today), if she can go to sleep etc..

- Man-woman relationship: Juka was literally staring at me when I was doing the dishes (‘I’ve never seen a man doing the dishes before’) and being stunned that Luca was cooking

- Language: she knew no English nor German when she came to Hamburg, but now her level is up to a hilarious crossing of basic English and Japanese expressions

- General weirdness: she stands up early in the morning to make some predictions about what kind of weather we will have during the day

- General niceness: she really looks like an Wong Kar-Wai actress, and boy, do I like Ang-Lee actresses
- In the weekend she’s going to give a solo-recital in Paris (Lizt and Messian (?) I think); I’m a bit afraid of playing Dominik Eulberg out loud the whole day, thinking her fragile body won’t be able to cope with it, but I’ll ask her opinion before I interview him anyway.

Mistress Barbara - Barcelona (Border Community 15)

Has Border Community ever released anything that was not completely brilliant? OK, BC 10 (Nathan Fake - Silent Night) and BC 11 (Lazy Fat People) were just good, but with this fifteenth release Border Community releases again an instant classic that fits in perfectly between the absolute hightlights of the label (Gazebo, Sky is Pink Rmx, Soopertrack).

You could say that Misstress Barbara has seen the light after her production break in 2005. Last year she released the ehm, slightly progressive, 'K-10' on John Digweed's Bedrock label, but now she delivers two unforgettable houseneotrance monsters that keep me raving on and on. Holden himself gives some 'tools' in the vein of his 'Idiots are winning' debut for the nerds, but it's all about 'Barcelona' and 'Jamais Moi Sans Toi'. What a release...

(PS: Holden is again on a roll with his fantastic 'The Sun Never Sets' remix for Kieran Hebden. Also a must have...)

Junior Boys and Lusine in the remix

Junior Boys surely know how to choose their remixers. Carl Craig delivers again an epic classic with his remix of 'Ľike A Child', while Kode9 gives 'Like a child' a dubstep treatment. Essential purchase! (Phonica)

Boomkat lears us that Kode9 and Jeremy from Junior Boys are apparently already close friends for years. Interessting combo if you ask me, apparantly Kode9 remixed also their 'High Come Down'. Anybody heard this one?

And while you're shopping it's also a good idea to lay your hands on the Podgelism Select Remixes of Lusine on Ghostly International. Robag Whrume's remix of 'The Stop' is one of the better minimal-releases of the last month, while John Tejada, Apparat and Lawrence deliver the goods in their own well-known trademark-style. The LP will contain more remixes of Mathew Dear, Lusine and Cabanne, but I haven't heard that one yet.

Kalabrese

Sorry Gus Gus, Eulberg,Boratto et les autres, but the record that I probably will spin the most the coming months is this one: Rumpelzirkus by Kalabrese. Sounds like Beck on Perlon and believe me, that just sounds GREAT.

Myspace

Yevgeny Zamyatin - We

Since I'm digging a bit more into the authoritarian states in Central Asia I wanted to read 'We' by Yevgeny Zamyatin, who wrote this dystopian novel after the Russian Revolution.

Wikipedia:
"We is a futuristic dystopian satire, generally considered to be the grandfather of the genre. It takes the totalitarian and conformative aspects of modern industrial society to an extreme conclusion, depicting a state that believes that free will is the cause of unhappiness, and that citizens' lives should be controlled with mathematical precision based on the system of industrial efficiency created by Frederick Winslow Taylor. Among many other literary innovations, Zamyatin's futuristic vision includes houses, and indeed everything else, made of glass or other transparent materials, so that everyone is constantly visible. Zamyatin was very critical of communism in Russia and his work was repeatedly banned.

George Orwell was familiar with We, having read it in French and reviewed it in 1946; it influenced his Nineteen Eighty-Four. Aldous Huxley reportedly claimed that he did not read We before writing Brave New World, although Orwell himself believed that Huxley was lying".

Print out!

Uebel und Gefährlich

This is without competition one of the best clubs I've ever visited. Last month's programme included for instance(to name but a few)Ame, Henrik Schwarz, Junior Boys, Trentemoller, Tobi Neumann and Kate Wax. Prices are cheap, the dancefloor is large, the crowd is filled with 'experts' who dance hard.. Everything starts very late here (3.30 is peak hour here I think), but that's a general trend.

Besides that the location itself is amazing. The gigantic building used to be the headquarters of the SS in Hamburg during World War II and you're dancing on the fourth floor.

Next stop (am off to Czech Republic again tomorrow): GUS GUS on the 4th of May!

Sounds of the first season

1.The only nu rave you ever need: Gus Gus - Forever
Am raving every single day on this one. Energy! It's all about 'Need in me' and 'Forever'. And oh, it beats the last album ;).





2.The return of Kompakt: Gui Boratto - Chromophobia
A true 'album'. Not that many 'Arquipelagio' a-like highlights on this album (although 'The Blessing' is one of the best minimal-songs of the last two months), but just overall niceness. The last songs on the album prove why Styrofoam is right when he says that Kompakt-kids in Europe are the equivalent of indie-nerds in the States. Besides Gui Boratto, Kompakt distributed the very warm Superpitcher-pastiche of Pantha Du Prince (emotech to the fullest) and released the rather dissappointing debut of Hug. (Apart from the phenomenal 'Tiny Stars' that is...)

3.Following the path you created yourself: Pole - Steingarten (~scape) and Mikkel Metal - Brone and Waith
Pole is the album of the month in the Wire. Just like Mikkel Metal he doesn't really reinvent himself on his latest offering. You know what you can expect from both of them, and both albums are still lovely to drown in. (Now I'm thinking of it: Triple R's Selection 5 is also a typical example of this phenomenon.)

4.Because of/despite the birds? Dominik Eulberg - Heimische Gefilde
First I was amused and then annoyed by Eulberg's spokenword intermezzo's, but if you skip them you have again a solid Eulberg album. OK, the best tracks he released as singles last year ('Gasthof...', 'Harzer Roller') but 'Die Alpenstrandlaufer...' makes you forget about that immediately. Hasn't reached the level of the classic 'Flora and Founa' yet, but maybe that's only a matter of time. Eulberg songs need some time to sink in...


5.Adventures of Bpitch: Damero - Happy in Grey/Paul Kalkbrenner - Der SenatDamero tries to do an 'Orchestra of Bubbles' imitation and comes away with it. In the meantime Paul Kalkbrenner rips up the third Bpitch sampler completely with 'Der Senat',amazing hypnotic neotrance (yes, I plead guilty)! Other good tracks on the yearly Bpitch-collection are made by Fairmont, new kid on the block Larsson and Ellen Allien & Apparat. Ellen Allien is gonna do the next Fabric by the way; looking forward to that.

Honourable mention:-

- Air - Pocket Symphony (best Air since Moon Safari, just a bit better than the Virgin suicides, way better then 10000HZ)
- The Soulsavers - It's Not How Far You Fall, It's The Way You Land: one of my favourite downtempo acts teams up with Mark Lanegan.
- Alex Gopher - Alex Gopher: suprise of the month! French house pioneer returns with a downtempo late night bar disc.

No Thanks
- Klaxons, Bloc Party, LCD Soundsystem, Tracey Thorn, MSTRKFT, Joakim