Best Tracks of 2015 - Part 2

Following on from part one, here are some fantastic tunes that just missed out on the top spots. Running down from #40-21.

40. Jack J – Thirstin’ [Future Times]

While it may not be edged with the same melancholy as last year’s anthem, Jack J’s Future Times outing had all the ingredients for summer killer: effortlessly lazy vibes, an irresistible groove, milky keys and a catchy vocal line.

39. Unknown Artist – A Jazz Thing [Uniile]

While it may not be worth the extortionate prices currently on discogs, new label Uniile delivered the finest anonymous release of the year from a young French artist. All four tracks are fire, but the undisputed highlight is this low-slung jazzy number which strolls by with a seedy sax and a heaving reggae bassline.

38. Florian Kupfer – Discotag [WT Records]

The best thing Kupfer’s put out since Feelin, this slice of techno is both spare and raucous. A funky vocal struts out over a tunnelling acid workout to destructive effect.

37. The Galleria feat. Jessy Lanza – Mezzanine [Environ]

Alongside her solo work, Jessy Lanza put out a stunning series of guest vocalist spots in 2015, most notably with legend Morgan Geist on freestyle project The Galleria. Lanza’s voice flexes with pure-pop allure atop Geist’s titanium electro skeleton. This is how pop music should sound.

36. Porn Sword Tobacco – Kristallisering [Aniara]

PST made his name on a series of experimental/ IDM albums in the late 2000’s, but the past couple of years his sound has been refined and reborn on Kontra-Musik and with the trendy SVN crew. Kristallisering is one of his most appealing cuts to date, a breezy piano riff fluttering over a taut electro snap, a composition of air and joy.

35. Rita Furstenhof – Hadron Collider [Optimo Music]

This one seems to have flown under everyone’s radars. Out in September on JD Twitch’s reliable Glaswegian outpost, this is electro at its soaring zenith, with a cheeky malfunctioning breakdown and an unashamedly epic synth motif.

34. Matthew Herbert – Earthenware [Concrete Music]

Herbert may have put out an album this year, but our favourite cut of his in 2015 was this melodic house tune buried on a V/A release from Parisian clubnight Concrete. A sawtooth bassline and bright keys give way to a genuinely moving breakdown, fusing jazz and house as only Herbert can.

33. Hodge – I Don’t Recognise You Lately [Hemlock]

Any number of Hodge’s excellent techno/grime hybrids could have made our 2015 list, but it was this oddly subdued cut that ultimately impressed us most. By dialling down the energy Hodge makes the listener focus on the little things: that haunting glockenspiel melody, garbled voices and washes of static, a spare rhythm and near-constant bass pressure.

32. Paranoid London - Lovin U (Ahh Shit) With DJ Genesis [Paranoid London]

The debut album from this all-analog crew was as uncompromising as acid gets, yet firmly floor-focused. One tough-as-nails throwback acid workout. One ethereal synth melody. One fiery diva vocal. Built up, broken down. What more could you ask for?

31. Hunee – Rare Happiness [Rush Hour]

Deep at the heart of Hunee’s lush debut on Rush Hour was this aptly-titled gem, which wriggles infectiously around a clipped vocal, textured percussion and a re/de-tuning synthline. Pure bliss.

30. Asusu – Serra [Impasse]

Once the Livity Sound newcomer, Asusu has marked out a real unique spot of late. Nowhere was this more clear than on his first step outside the Livity stable with Serra, a masterclass on the tone, timbre and propulsion of rhythm.

29. Mosey – Tuff Times [Future Times]

Some dance tracks tug at your heartstrings in a way that you can’t even explain. This is certainly the case with Tuff Times, a relaxed house outing from newcomer Mosey. The rhythm is simple, as is the new-age melody, leaving just an eccentric bassline that hops through the frequencies to guide us each through our own tuff times.

28. Damiano von Erckert – We Flow ft. Amalia [ava.]

The centrepiece of Damiano’s sophomore album was this breezy cut of joy, with jazzy keys perfectly accompanying Amalia’s effortless vocal performance.

27. Aurora Halal – Shapeshifter [Mutual Dreaming]

Aurora Halal went through quite a stylistic shift from her first to her second EP, yet the new sound fits her like a glove. This is slinky Detroit techno par excellence, all twinkling keys, pacing percussion and an all-important sense of mystery.

26. Sparky – Signals [Numbers]

After delivering a lost anthem in 2013, Sparky’s new material this year was just as powerful. Translating pop-grade melodies to an electro format, Signals is unashamedly huge, with an unstoppable bassline and a cornea-searing melody.

25. Luca Lozano & Mr. Ho – Dripbox [Crème Organization]

Luca Lozano has been responsible for a number of heavyweight tunes this year, and our favourite was this pitch-black collaboration with Mr. Ho. A storming kick underpins two duelling grime-inflected melodies that’ll detonate the dancefloor.

24. DJ Richard – Vampire Dub [Dial]

So much of DJ Richard’s superb debut LP could’ve made this list, but final cut Vampire Dub just edged out the competition. A grand slice of deep house in a classic vein, its starry keys and martial stomp soundtracked us gazing mistily at many a sunset.

23. Domenique Dumont – L’Esprit de l’Escalier [Antinote]

Dumont’s lovely debut came out of nowhere, and this breathless appeal is sustained on its catchiest highlight. A mighty range of influences are handled with a light touch, resulting in a buoyant stoner-pop cut with a bridge that won’t quit and a chorus that’ll have you singing along even if you can’t make out the words.

22. Basic House – Cones [Opal Tapes]

The head of Opal Tapes issued a limited cassette at the end of 2014 with the mighty Cones hiding within. A venomous rhythm track with a melody like afterimage from a strobe, it didn’t leave our playlists in 2015 and it’s unlikely to in the year to come.

21. Floating Points – Peroration Six [Pluto]

The restless conclusion to Floating Points’ wonderful Elaenia album, Peroration Six has a whole jazz group building intensity to terminal velocity. You keep expecting it to boil over, something has to give, it’s too heavy – and then the track cuts out, leaving only a deafening silence. A brave and challenging finale to an uncompromising LP.

***

Come back in a few days for the twenty best tunes of the year.

Best Albums of 2015
Best Tracks of 2015 Part 1

Guest Mix: Moth - Night Sketches

We've got a darker-than-black guest mix for you today from Moth with some of our favourite recent techno and electro tunes. This one's for late-night skanking, and we've got the tracklist exclusively here on White Noise.

Tracklist:

Kasra V – Last Order

Dan White – Death Flutes

Khotin – Sorry Sequence

Hodge – I Don’t Recognise You Lately

Surfing – Surfing

Aschof Mal – Untitled

Olerton – Nolact

Basic House – Cones

Asusu – Serra

Pev & Kowton – Raw Code

Luca Lozano – End of Line

Aurora Halal – Just Tell Me

Asusu - Serra

Label: Impasse

The Livity Sound trio has spent a few years at the absolute pinnacle of forward-thinking UK dance music entirely thanks to its three impressive founders. Their sounds are distinct yet unified: Pev a shapeshifter who works percussion like no other, Kowton a maestro of brutal grime-flecked techno. The third member, Asusu, is a little harder to categorise. This is partly because he’s released a lot less material, but also because his musical traits are somewhat subtler. There’s a patience to his sound, even on the most floor-focused material, a stark quality of a man who precision-hones the perfect loops and lets them roll out. This hypnotic quality is accentuated by Asusu’s remarkable attention to detail in his atmospheres. The closer you listen, the more his tracks have to give.

Now Asusu, aka Craig Stennet, steps away from Livity for the first time since he made his name, inaugurating his own Impasse imprint with a rewarding EP. Serra divides the two key aspects of his sound right down the middle, offering a title track that’s the most propulsive he’s made to date next to three impeccably detailed ambient cuts.

Serra is a writhing, flexing slice of techno, its circular rhythms drawn in strict monochrome, with a bold breakdown purpose-built for club drama. Yet even in his most functional work Asusu’s care for finesse is apparent: a track which consists solely of percussion can only work when those sounds are this textured: you can hear wood, metal and rubber, their timbres echoing as a taut, bewitching whole. 

Some may sigh at the prospect of a predominantly techno producer filling an EP with one club track and three ambient offerings, but, unsurprisingly, Asusu is more than up to the task. He achieves the tricky goal of injecting movement and drama into ambient music, as Anglo Skin glistens with misty synth work and crystalline water drops. Angular chords intrude rather than washing in and out, here and on Arrythmia, where they’re laid over insectoid chittering. There’s a suddenness to the compositions that draws comparison to recent Oneohtrix Point Never productions. The EP closes with Low Art, which occupies a similarly shadowy halflight, sketching metallic figures and resonant bass with confidence and a respect for negative space. On Serra Asusu proves himself well beyond the bound of the Livity Trio, a singular producer who seems to care as deeply about the tiny blips as he does the storming kicks.

7.5/10

Read this review in context at Inverted Audio.

January / February Roundup 2015

Two months into the new year and we're getting back into the swing of things here at White Noise HQ. Today we've got a roundup of the top tunes from 2015's first two months, moving from moody deep house to techno via funk, disco and electro. Enjoy!

Tracklist: 

Route 8 - The Sunrise In Her Eyes

DJ Sotofett - Nondo

Hodge - I Don't Recognise You Lately

Romare - Roots

Anthony Naples - Refugio

Sven Atterton - Hot Sun

Vakula - Joywind

Project Pablo - Movin' Out

Tiger & Woods - Don't Try To Stop Me

Linkwood - Expressions

Denis Sulta - Saturday Nite

Dan Shake ft. Rennie Foster - Traders II

Dude Energy - Renee Running

Arttu - Evvy Steps

Hysterics - HTRX9

DJ Overdose - Master Control

Asusu - Serra

Basic House - Cones

Levon Vincent - E1 Black Arm w_Wolf

DJ Paypal - I'm Ready

...and there's always one which we can't find on youtube:

I.A. Bericochea - W4

Livity Sound - Livity Sound

Label: Livity Sound

It’s not easy for a label to gain prominence in today’s saturated market, particularly when a new imprint seems to spring up every fortnight. Bristol’s Livity Sound stands as a masterful example in how to run things: a small group of artists (the ouput seems restricted to the three label-heads) who offer different slants on a brave, singular sound – if the music’s good enough, that’s all you need. Yet the Livity crew go one further: the trio are the brightest bastion of a ‘local scene’ in the UK, and over the last few years they’ve been bringing their town’s soundsystem tradition blazing into the future over a series of disarmingly consistent, club-tooled singles.

The three brains behind the operation are Bristol veteran Pev, rising star Kowton and relative newcomer Asusu, and together these players have worked to re-set the bass-wise meditations of early DMZ in taut techno moulds, resulting in what is unanimously some of the most vital dance music currently being produced. For the label’s first collaborative album the Livity Crew’s limited editions are compiled over nearly two hours of breathtaking sound, making for one of the year’s most essential releases.

As Kowton once stated in interview, there’s nothing superfluous about the Livity sound. The tracks are largely exercises in rhythm, purpose-built for the dancefloor, yet the most surprising aspect of the Livity Sound LP is just how well it works as an album. Thoughtfully sequenced (the release’s two discs are bookended by the label’s first release, alternate takes on the same track by Kowton and Pev), these percussive workouts turn hypnotic in the home, toying with the idea of function and allowing their intricacies and subtleties space to unfurl and breathe. While for many compilations the sudden availability of high-quality mp3s is the reason for purchase, here it’s just the icing on the cake: this is a work that deserves to be heard as a whole as well as being pulled apart for mixes.

Album Clips

The Livity Sound LP appears like a distant transmission; the group’s sound so fully formed, the individual practitioners so united in their approach. This breeds a sense of otherness which is only strengthened by the glyphs on the cover (which in fact landed Pev in some hot water recently), while evocative track titles such as Remnants, Erosions or End Point call to mind the deterioration of powerful civilisations. This decline is translated musically to the shards of grime, jungle and dubstep which course across the release, gifted new life by rugged techno exoskeletons, transposed to powerful alien territory. In keeping with both the label’s ominous mystique and the fall of British soundsystem tradition, a deep dread occupies some of the release’s most impressive cuts, from the swampy menace of Vapours to the systems breakdown of new cut Surge.

The package, and by extension the label, stand out for the unity of these artists’ visions, yet within the Livity sound each of the trio has a markedly distinct approach. Pev, reliable frontrunner of the UK scene for many a year, trades in tricky percussive mutations, whether going for the jugular on anthemic Kowton collab Raw Code or mesmerising the listener with the ever-mutating strains of Saltwater and Aztec Chant. Later his tracks hit a sustained high note on the second disc’s latter half, End Point’s dystopic scifi terrain proving one standout moment amongst many. Kowton wears grime influences boldly on his sleeve, adorning More Games’ rough drum workout with venomous strings, and taking a muscular approach on the utilitarian Jam 01. His approach may be the most confrontational, but Kowton’s versatility is evident from the off: on his surprisingly spacious mix of Beneath Radar a decayed string sample is stretched out with palpable yearning before an anxious drum pattern batters its way into the mix. Well-represented is the relatively unknown Asusu, whose distinctive application of the Livity sound to 4/4 techno provides many of the release’s standout moments. The force of Velez relies on its stark nature, while the insectoid ambience of penultimate track Too Much Time Has Passed makes for a darkly pensive final sequence.

The Livity Sound crew are masters of percussion, and as a result when they let a melody loose it really counts. Those grime strings of More Games prove an early highlight but there are more surprise moments of colour: the soft insistence of the synthwork on Asusu’s Rendering makes for a tasteful moment of polish poised against Livity’s otherwise raw sounds, while the jangling chords which interrupt Livity’s maniacally sinuous bassline make for – if forced to pick one – the LP’s most memorable moment.

Livity Sound’s output to date has been incredibly impressive, but when packaged together it’s enchanting and utterly consuming. The unerring consistency of the tracks – there’s barely a single dud to be found in 18 songs of six-plus minutes – stands as testament to the coherent vision and staggering talent of these three producers. With the inclusion of some forthcoming releases which are just as promising, this is more than a victory lap for the collective, it’s a mission statement. In the dance realm, there’s very little that’s more exciting than hearing a group of artists at the top of their game, thinking as one, and Livity Sound is most likely the best example of this that you’ll hear all year.

9/10