Top of the Class

My top tunes of 2009

Lowtec - Angstrom EP

Long, hypnotic and of uncertain mood.

dOP - Dein Verlangen; The Genius of the Crowd; Change!A Various ep

Basically, last year they could do no wrong. The unassailable charm of the French.


Starkey - Miracles Jamie Vexd remix

Pure synaesthesia, a head banging, bass worrying earworm

Brackles - LHC

Wayward synth action, more bass and a soul diva laments. This and Miracles are the dubstep fruit I've been waiting to get my teeth into.

Pangaea - Memories

Another wailing RNB lament with skippity bass. And I'm off.


Hieroglyphic Being -So much noise to be heard

Oh, baby I like it raw and Jamal delivers as usual.Machine music handed down by the gods.

Hauntologists - EP2

Loping, hermetic excursions

Bodycode -What did you say

It's the Imitation Lover dub that does it-all his distinctive sounds roughened up and leavened with melancholy


Jimi Tenor - Selfish Gene

An ageing bachelor tells it like it is.

Oni Ayhun 03

Techno steeped in the early 90s which neatly sidesteps nostalgia.Don't ask me how they do that.

Omar S

My introduction to him-like Autechre discovering a big button marked JACK.

Winterpracht

Listen to this voice...
Like two people whose paths seem to cross and then they don't...
There is some neutrality here. No, I wouldn't call it neutrality ... but a need to concentrate on each sound, so that every blade of grass would be as important as a flower...
It could be like a break on the radio. Such signals sometimes sound as if they lasted an entire life.
Of future, or past, and outside time...
Listen.

~ Arvo Pärt playing and speaking of "Für Alina" in Arvo Pärt: 24 Preludes for a Fugue

(Kirlian photograph of meadow grasses by Tarrl Lightowler)
(photo and quote from the the fascinating woolgathersome.blogspot)

Winterpracht

Winterpracht

Fm3 - Zheng

Lawrence English & Sawako - Manufacturing Content

Chihei Hatakeyama - Starlight Reflecting on the Surface of the River

Biosphere - Birds Fly by Flapping Their Wings

Jan Jelinek - A Concert for Television

Voices, field recordings, throat singing and drumming from Smithsonian Folkways Tuva Among the Spirits

?

The XX - Space Bass (Jamie XX's mix)


After 5 weeks on holiday, returning to Berlin in mid January feels somewhat like being cast out of Eden. Fortunately, unlike those other postlapsarians, I've been exiled with a decent record collection.
This mix was done on Traktor with edits in Wavelab.

Ice record

A new year, a new decade, the whole of northern Eurasia

locked under ice, and I am moving the to the Nordic lands.

My nervous anticipation of nine-month winters has

prompted me to listen to the songs of experience. Turns

out that winter is indeed eternal, an endless twilit blizzard

punctuated by will-o-the-wisp glimmers of pop-song

comfort. Wrap up warm everyone.

Winter Part I

Waiting for Snow Part I - Peter Benisch

Ice-Pulse - Cocteau Twins

Schnee - Laub

Tokyo Freeze (remix) - Ital Tek

Snowflakes & Frozen Lakes - Pac-Man

Iridescence - Hildur Gudnadottir

Winter Depressie - Estroe

Outside on a Cold Day - Felix

Snow Samba - Shrift

Glacial - Dinky

Winter Thaw - Shigeto

Tears of Happiness - Klimek

L'hiver - Geneviève Toupin

Winter Part II

Peter Venkman Part II - Ben Frost

Ice Record - Katie Paterson

Cutting Ice to Snow - Efterklang

Ice Touch - Masha Era

Winterslow (remix) - Dan Cat

White Winter Hymnal - Fleet Foxes

Winter in Seney - Deepchord presents Echospace

Comme la Neige - Dasha Rush

Icicles & Snowflakes - Inchtime

Snowflakes & Frozen Lakes - Pac-Man

Snowflakes - Max de Wardener

Snow on Snow - Rue Royale

-73°C - Shrubbn!!

Baby it's Cold Outside - A Weather

Eternal Winter - KTL