Moiré – Never Sleep

Label: Werk Discs

Although his latest album RIP was a more introspective affair, London producer Actress is still primarily associated with the tough, deconstructed workouts that marked the beginning of his career. Despite carving out an utterly original sound for himself: rough, dirty, analogue rollers that confound as often as they amaze, Darren Cunningham has cultivated a group of like-minded producers on his Werk label, where the likes of Lukid, Lone and Zomby have helped him plumb the depths of the UK dance scene’s inverted image. For 2013 Cunningham has found himself a new partner in crime, Moiré (on whom information is very scarce), whose mutilated, fractured sounds fit the Werk aesthetic like a glove.

Lose It

Details on the producer may be scant, but the moniker’s reference to the Moiré Effect gives us a hint on what to expect: “an interference pattern created…when two grids are overlaid at an angle” (see the cover/ video for an example). Here on the insomnia-inspired Never Sleep the listener is subjected to sudden sonic trickery and aggressive beat patterns, resulting in a disorientating aural illusion that lives up to the producer’s name. These four tracks are all rough edges and hissing atmospherics, sounds at their most potent on opener Lose It, where Moiré enlists the help of Lessons and vocalist Heidi Vogel. Here a monstrous kick thumps into view with a mutated bassline carving a powerful course through Vogel’s perfectly anaesthetised vocals and a host of atmospheric ticks; buzz-saws, whistles and relentless hi-hats all help to place the listener right in the middle of a trippy, deeply threatening soundscape.

On the next track DRUGS Moiré hits harder: an ominous bass and cavernous hand-claps give way to a brief synth-led respite before that all-consuming bassline returns to drag you right back down into the deep. The pattern recurs; a brighter set of emotive Detroit synth pads shine through the murk but can never quite arrest the track’s unstoppable forward drive. Moiré’s final addition is the digital-only Into, which conjures a deep atmosphere that is admittedly more conventionally than his first two takes. A collage of inverted diva cries, dubbed out beats and a deep ambient wash introduce the tune, until a propulsive bass line later enters the fray to take track into moody deep house territory. It’s another impressive offering, but doesn’t quite achieve the heights of originality that can be found on the A-side.

Into

The final piece of the puzzle is Cunningham’s own rework of Lose It, which undeniably rules the B-side of the release. With a generous helping of analogue hiss and distorting the original’s vocals into mere melodic accents, the Werk Discs boss crushes the original’s bass into a three-note refrain that anchors the distorted effects. The end result is a techno roller in typical Actress style, fashioned from warped chrome and making up with power what it lacks in progression across its 9-minute runtime. Never Sleep is a seductive package indeed, and a tough mission statement for a newcomer with a powerful voice. With his three original tracks, Moiré lays his sonic elements on the table and proceeds to distort, mutilate and destroy them before piecing it all back together, and while the result may not be clean or pleasant, it’s certainly powerful, interesting and, despite the layers of filth that seem to coat each sound, incredibly refreshing.

7.5/10

15 Best Albums of 2012

Year End Coverage

* Best Albums of 2012

* Best EPs of 2012

* Best Labels of 2012

* Best Breakthrough Artists of 2012

* Best Tracks of 2012 - 101-76
* Best Tracks of 2012 - 75-51
* Best Tracks of 2012 - 50-26
* Best Tracks of 2012 - 25-1

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So many great albums come out in a year, and it’s all too easy to be listening to one thing and feel sure that nothing else could possibly beat it. That is, until you start listening to the next record. On White Noise’s year-end roundup, we pay special homage to those albums which challenged the way you think about music while still delivering quality tunes, those that stretched their concepts a little bit further than the dancefloor. More than anything, these are albums with real longevity- that we’re still listening to months after the hype died down.

As a treat, I've included White Noise's 5 Best Non-Dance Albums at the bottom of the post.

Just missed out: 

Austin Cesear - Cruise Forever

Flying Lotus - Until The Quiet Comes

Daphni - Jiaolong

Session Victim - The Haunted House of House

  

15 - Gerry Read – Jummy [Fourth Wave]

 

Let's Make It Deeper

With the UK House scene becoming ever more densely populated, Read's unique lofi approach stood out from the crowd on his great debut LP. Rough DIY beats and syrupy textures lent the record a hazy feel that stood as a loud statement against the over-polished productions of so many scenesters.

14 - Darling Farah – Body [Civil]

Body

2012 was an uncommonly fine year for Techno albums, which often stood out for their precision and propulsive drive. What Farah really nailed on his debut LP, as well as these things, was atmosphere. The music of Body felt like a contingent world surrounding the listener, and his minimal approach to layering meant that every sound really counted.

13 - Holy Other – Held [Tri Angle]

 

Held

The publicity-shy Holy Other made good on the promise of 2011's With U EP by expanding his sonic palette and increasingly the emotive scope of his sounds. Drenched in moody atmospherics, his crunchy Hip Hop beats and soaring synths spoke of an emotional desolation rarely conjured on electronic records.

12 - Juju & Jordash – Techno Primitivism [Dekmantel]

Stoplight Loosejam / Diatoms / Backwash 

This Amsterdam-based pair have been a Techno secret for two long, and with this outstanding LP they finally stepped into the limelight. Fusing an embarrassment of genres and styles into a muscular Techno framework, the details and pure grooves on offer throughout this album kept us coming back for more and more.

11 - Andy Stott – Luxury Problems [Modern Love]

 

Numb

Notching up his second superb LP in as many years, Stott returned to his weary industrial House sounds with a fresh eye on Luxuruy Problems. Warping the vocals of his former piano teacher Alison Skidmore into the mix, Stott's detailed atmospheric productions still stand without equal.

10 - Donato Dozzy & Neel – Voices From The Lake [Prologue]

Album Clips

Italian Techno legend Donato Dozzy returned to long-time collaborator Neel to conjure one of the year’s quietest and best surprises. The tracks here work as a continuous whole, always impressing while never insisting, conjuring an organic sonic landscape in which the listener will want to get lost again and again.

9 - Recondite – On Acid [Acid Test]

Tie In

Just when you thought you'd heard everything that could be done with a 303, in came Recondite. These cerebral and meditative tracks are not Acid as you'd expect it, unravelling and building as long constructions which carefully conjure mood and feeling. It was a remarkable thing in itself to hear those pure crystalline notes eked from the famous squelching synthesizer, and this LP was one of the year’s most thoughtful and delicate successes.

8 - Cooly G – Playin Me [Hyperdub]

 

Come Into My Room

After a sporadic series of releases delving into the UK dance tradition, Londoner Cooly G took us by surprise with her exploratory and sensuous debut album. The tracks here feel remarkably free of genre convention, fusing dance tropes with treated acoustic instruments and frequently the producer's own warped vocals. The thrill of structural exploration is matched only by a surprising emotive punch beneath the ghosts of UK Funky drum patterns, resulting in a moody and powerful post-RnB epic.

7 - Dean Blunt and Inga Copeland – Black Is Beautiful [Hyperdub]

 

2

The duo also known as Hype Williams turn out a lot of material, and to date little has stood up to the excellence of their Untitled LP. But here on their Hyperdub debut they've conjured another slice of warped brilliance. You'll recognize the syrupy synths and hollow drum patterns, but with more structural and sonic experimentation and the prominence of Copeland's sensual vocals, these fractured soundscapes start to give way to something confusing, profound, and often beautiful.

6 - LHF – Keepers of the Light [Keysound]

Chamber Of Light

A dance album that clocks in over two hours is almost never a good idea, but shadowy London collective LHF exploded onto the scene with this thrilling and atmospheric collection. Each producer has his own distinctive voice and impressive production chops, crafting an epic homage to London's dance lineage that never tires despite its ambitious runtime.

5 - Actress – RIP [Honest Jon’s]

IWAAD

With his challenging and genre-defying follow up to Splazsh, Actress stepped even further away from convention to serve up a fragmentary narrative of meditations on death. The heavy subject matter did nothing to take away from Actress’ production prowess, and with repeated listens this album opened up like a dream, letting you in, little by little, to his devastating, perplexing, and utterly unique world.

4 - Benjamin Damage & Doc Daneeka – They!Live [50Weapons]

 

No One feat. Abigail Wyles

They!Live won’t turn any heads for radical innovation or experimentalism. It was simply a very, very good dance album. Perfecting the fusion of moodier pieces (greatly helped by the lovely vocals of Abigail Wyles) and nuanced dancefloor bangers, the whole thing just worked perfectly. Each track was impeccably polished, the pair producing a diverse and engaging collection of tracks that amazed just as much on headphones as it did on the dancefloor.

3 - Jimmy Edgar – Majenta [Hotflush]

 

Sex Drive

It would be easy to brush off Majenta. There’s something undeniably filthy about it all; an electro-funk odyssey drenched in sleaze and neon lights. But beneath the 80’s backroom vibes there is one of the most engaging, diverse, and flat-out fun albums that came out all year. Every track sizzles with energy; Edgar’s pairing of razor-sharp IDM beats and big Funk basslines is pulled off without a single error, creating a lurid musical world that we returned to more than any other this year.

2 - Vessel – Order of Noise [Tri Angle]

 

Court of Lions

There was an unusually high quality in the LP debuts put out this year, and a lot of this had to do with the Post-Dubstep search for a new deconstruction, a new fluid melding of genres that defied easy labels. Sebastian Gainsborough’s debut for Tri Angle proudly wore the tropes of Dub, Techno and Ambient on his sleeve but created something utterly unique. Order of Noise is a true journey; enticing and mysterious, dusty and religious. Here is a rare confidence, a complete journey with myriad details to return to, a piece of music that will stay with you long after the final track fades into the distance.

1 - Jam City – Classical Curves [Night Slugs]

How We Relate To The Body

A lot of the albums on this list worked to reconstitute Dance music’s rich past, bringing a range of styles up to date with canny production and new technology. But Jam City’s phenomenal debut album was the record on which these historical tropes truly felt as if they were envisioning a new future for the scene. This polished collection of tunes embodied the ubiquitous conflict of contemporary culture- in turns funky and dark, soft and abrasive, ambient and propulsive. The best albums pull the listener into the producer’s world, and from the first note of Classical Curves we were right there: amongst the blood, the oil and the chrome, and all of the dangerous beauty lurking within.

White Noise’s 5 Best Non-Dance Albums

For the hell of it, here are the five albums that have got the most play here at White Noise HQ outside the constraints of the Dance spectrum.

5 - Jessie Ware – Devotion

Sweet Talk

Ware took on a host of talented Dance producers to put out the best thing that happened to Pop all year. Catchy while remaining impeccably produced throughout, Devotion soared above all the competition.

4 - Julia Holter – Ekstasis

 

In The Same Room

How do you follow up an album as universally adored as Tragedy? Holter tackled her sophomore release admirably, crafting a more accessible but just as brilliant album that gave us a lot to chew on. Complex compositions vied with Pop sensibilities, resulting in another slice of brilliance from one of the music world’s most fascinating and unique contemporary voices.

3 - Beach House – Bloom

 

Myth

We’ll be the first to say it: Bloom doesn’t really sound that different from Beach House’s phenomenal third album, Teen Dream. But we didn’t need it to. The Baltimore duo have captured the hearts of many with their gauzy textures, cheap drum machines and Victoria Legrand’s phenomenal honeyed vocals. If they keep putting out albums of this quality and never change an iota, we’ll keep buying them.

2 - Chromatics – Kill For Love

Back From The Grave

Johnny Jewel finally delivered on a follow-up to 2007’s glorious Night Drive with stellar double-album Kill For Love. The return of those 80s synths and Ruth Radelet’s anaesthetized vocals couldn’t hide a new compositional prowess and the killer pop sensibilities that made so many of these tracks absolutely essential.

1 - Kendrick Lamar – Good Kid M.A.A.D City

Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst

Lamar’s surprising and fantastic new album is probably one of the year’s most critically revered releases. But this isn’t a case of the hype machine working at full pelt. Good Kid M.A.A.D City showed a rapper with a rare focus on emotional experience and honesty, a brave move in the face of mainstream Hip Hop’s caricature of thug life. Lamar went a step further, parodying Gangsta Rap by deftly manipulating an array of personas that attempted to show just where Hip Hop went wrong in the evolutionary process. But this wasn't just about the lyrics, a keen ear for production means the tracks never sound less than brilliant, complimenting the layered narrative which you’ll come back to long after the year is out.

April Roundup

I haven’t been hugely on it this month with holidays getting in the way, but we've been spoiled for singles this April, alongside a few fantastic LPs (check out LHF and Actress’ new albums). But that’s not to say I haven't heard loads of great tunes this month, so here’s my pick of the litter.

Kicking off with more upbeat numbers as per usual, we start with Andrés’ instant classic New For U and a few choice Bass and House cuts from stalwarts XXXY and Huxley. Following is some fine Funky from The Town and a couple of choice remixes; Lone’s reworking of Midland’s Placement and Kevin McPhee’s chugging Techno reworking of Sepalcure. Moving off the dancefloor to darker territories is Amen Ra’s spiritual and stunning Akashic Visions. Actress provides atmosphere in spades before Beaumont’s 80s-worshipping synth odyssey Never Love Me. Next is Lungs, an intriguing project by London-based vocalist Py, produced by White Noise favourite George Fitzgerald. Some slow-burn 303 Techno is delivered courtesy of Recondite, then things get moody with Synkro’s drum workout and Vessel’s smacked-out death disco in Standard. oOoOO closes shop with twisted ghostly style with the final cut from his brand new Our Loving Is Killing Us EP. Enjoy!

Tracklist:

Andrés – New For U

Huxley – Box Clever

XXXY – Everything

The Town – The Movement

Midland – Placement (Lone Remix)

Sepalcure – The One (Kevin McPhee Remix)

Amen Ra – Akashic Visions

Actress – IWAAD

Beaumont – Never Love Me

Py – Lungs

Recondite – Tie In

Synkro – Knowledge

Vessel - Standard

oOoOO – NoWayBack

Previous Months:

March 2012

Feburary 2012

January 2012

Playlist #3 – Techno Mix

Well I've got a busy few days coming up so I thought I'd leave you with some nice slow-burn tracks. These aren't all straight-up techno but all have the basic build and payoff structure with great layering we've all come to know and love in techno tracks. I sequenced it so the heavier and more dancey tracks are at the beginning and the lighter, happier and more chilled ones are at the end. So hop in wherever you want, it's all basically techno by way of house, electro, ambient and shoegaze. Enjoy!

Frivolous – Back Into The Deep

Burial & Four Tet – Moth

EQD – 003 A

Actress – Maze

Chaim – Love Rehab

Ulrich Schnauss – On My Own

Pariah – Orpheus

The Field – Everyone's Gotta Learn Sometimes

Lawrence – Forever Anna

Pantha Du Prince – Saturn Strobe

Phaseone – Being With You

Walls – Burnt Sienna

Superpitcher – Joanna