Electronic Rhythmic Music I Liked in 2015
A Top 15 Singles List
Here are 15 (+1) mostly ‘underground’ house/techno/dance-ish tracks I liked in 2015, ranked in some kind of order. I’m not going to try to thematically link them or make the case for why the musical tastes of a random person should convince you of anything. Good enough? Let’s start:
15.
Abrazo
Anthony Naples
Taken from one of 2015's more inscrutable releases — Naples’s mini-album ‘Body Pill’ — Abrazo rests on a string sample that sounds like a refugee from an mid-90s DJ Premier production, with staccato beats that move into 4/4 at the minute mark as a simple synth melody descends. It’s almost more of a sketch than a track, but one I’ve found oddly compulsive.
14.
Situation
Laurel Halo
A sort of techno fever dream, with all the elements — kickdrum pulses, plastic-tub snares, bass wobble, a melody that flickers in and out of existence— refusing to settle into any comfortable pattern. For those reasons, it retains a kind of impenetrable mystery even on the umpteenth listen.
13.
L’Homme Mort
Helena Hauff
If you triggered every pre-packaged Ableton instrument at once, you might get something like this maximalist onslaught of 808 cowbells, snares, handclaps and rimshots from Helena Hauff. As you might expect from the name, there’s a sinister edge, too: a dark, burbling synth line that also holds the thing together, giving this a kind of ‘Pye Corner Audio meets Vitalic’ feel.
12.
Hippies
Gonno
If you can imagine the soundtrack to a molecular biology lab housed in Ibiza, it might sound something like this. Japanese producer Gonno has created an incredibly dense track, teeming with complex interweaving rhythms, synths, filters, blips, buzzes and reversed guitar, that nonetheless manages to convey a laid-back balearic vibe (kudos to Philip Sherburne for bringing it to my attention via his Pitchfork review).
11.
Migrant
Call Super
An enigmatic slice of cosmic exoticism (marimbas, pseudo-birdsong) set apart by the catchy, chugging baseline and layered atmospherics (and, unlike most of Call Super’s output, you could conceivably dance to it).
10.
Jupiter George
Daud
A sumptuous piece of disco-tech, the kind of thing you’d expect to hear playing on the dancefloor of an intergalactic cruise liner, with synth trails and woozy atmospherics floating around a slinky bass-guitar groove.
9.
Blues in Black Ink
Earthen Sea
Expertly realized dub-techno. The clattering, reverb-drenched snares and underwater bass might be par for the genre-course, but it’s that simple, SAW II-esque melody that makes this memorable.
8.
Heart of Stone
The Cyclist
In a year saturated with dirty and decayed dance tunes (perhaps to the point of tedium), one of the original tape-throb practitioners brought back the urgency and heat on his ‘Hot House’ EP. Punctuated by vocal samples of what sounds like a fiery patois sermon, this dark, propulsive cut was the standout.
7.
Tengo
Bwana
The most unabashedly anthemic track on this list, Bwana defies stereotypical Canadian modesty and brings in the major chords, the Orbital-esque atmospheric vocal ‘ooohs’ and, for the last third, handclaps and glittering melodies that move the proceedings towards transcendence. Oh, and it takes place at a stomping 129 BPM.
6.
Favouride
Isolée
For an Isolée release, this seemed to fly under the radar, even though the A-side made good on the press release’s promise of “spatial sound wizardry with shimmering cosmic riffs”. That said, it was the B-side that captured my heart, with processed vocal chants and a melody played on what sounds like a handmade marimba.
5.
Ascension
Wax Stag
An peak-night anthem for a rave held in an ice cream truck, this piece of lovely uplift (with delightful day-glo synth shivers) was inexplicably left off Wax Stag’s charming ‘Night Trek’ album.
4.
Triangle
Fluida
Popping and percolating tick-tock rhythms over deep, dubby bass, vocals processed into slurred unintelligibility, and chiming guitars produce a heady, intoxicating effect. I haven’t been able to find out much about the UK-based Fluida — their most common descriptor online seems to be ‘mysterious’ — but I’ll be eagerly awaiting more.
3.
Orah
John Roberts
Apparently constructed from 12 floppy disks on vintage computing equipment, all you need to know is Roberts manages to weave thumping djembes, Orientalist melodic touches and a plethora of ear-piqueing samples into a cohesive, even mesmerizing tech-concrete whole.
2.
Swim
Nicolas Jaar
If Nicolas Jaar’s going to keep us waiting yet longer for his long-promised followup to 2011’s ‘Space is Only Noise’, he’s at least graced us with a series of fantastic singles with the ‘Nymphs’ series. Swim (from ‘Nymphs III’) might be described as one of the more straightforward of the releases, but it’s also perhaps the most sublime. A shifting, plaintive melody snakes over an initially subdued 4/4 beat that grows more robust over the track’s transporting 13 minutes, with distant, processed vocals that eventually reach the foreground. All this unfolds in that impossibly organic way that only Jaar could pull off.
1.
Insanlar - Kime Ne (Remix)
Ricardo Villalobos
Do I need to say more than ‘Ricardo Villalobos remixing Turkish psychedelia’? If so, just this: the master’s signature subtle, complex drum programming and depth-charge bass, with a frequency-shifted filigree of Eastern guitar and distorted vocals chanting the 17th century poetry of Kul Nesimi.
Bonus Track:
Paracruise Waffles
Calimex Mental Implant Corp
Did Legowelt have an unusually great year, or did I just start paying attention? Not only was his Tondalayo EP terrific (in addition to a bunch of other worthy releases using various aliases) but he also graced us with a flawless stretch of dreamy G-Funk electro as ‘Calimex Mental Implant Corp’ on the ‘El Saber Del Arpavor’ LP (initially released on— what else? — gold cassette). It almost feels wrong to pick one track out, but this slow, stoned sci-fi sleaze should sound great oozing from your speakers as your roll down the Sonoran desert.
