Best Tracks of 2013: 85-26

While making this list, I couldn’t help but dwell on how inevitably arbitrary the order of year-end lists are. There are a number of problems facing a music site who wishes to post year-end lists, and the roundup of best songs poses more problems than any other. While albums and labels can be compared by their overall coherence and power, short tracks are often incomparable – you might know your favourite twenty songs of the year, but how do you choose between them? Then there are external pressures: not wanting to list the same tunes as other sites, while not wanting to rock the boat so much that your critical opinion is devalued. More to the point – the songs themselves, even in a niche such as dance music, are so different that it seems an utterly pointless task to put them in any sort of order. Exactly how does one decide if x disco track is better than y techno track, when there are so few (if any) points of comparison: the tracks are not trying to do the same thing, so how can they be compared?

With what criteria do we even judge the quality of a track? There are certain songs I love but aren’t in any way mould-breaking, while others I’m not that fond of but greatly respect as innovative pieces of music. In the world of quasi-objective music criticism a problem becomes clear when there's conflict between the music you like and the music you respect. Ultimately, White Noise has never been a review site which has claimed a strong degree of objectivity, and so when it came down to those final choices, I just listened to both tracks and picked which one I liked more – no rationalisation, no heed paid to the prevailing schools of taste or ‘cool’, just the tracks that made me feel warm inside and set my mind/ pulse racing.

The fact is, the world of journalism, particularly online, relies entirely on readers. And for whatever reason (as the existence of buzzfeed will testify), people prefer reading ranked lists to general selections. Is your eye more drawn to a countdown of the year’s best, 10-1, or to an unordered list of 10 highlights? Most would say the former, and so, while picking the best between Pev, Tessela and Levon Vincent may torture me like some sort of clubland Sophie’s choice, I’m gonna give it my best shot.

The point to be made here, before we embark upon this list, is that all of these tracks are really, really great. The top 25 or so are even mindblowing. They probably don’t represent even a fraction of the great music that came out this year, but they’re certainly all more than worthy of your time. So with the waffle out of the way, let’s get to the tunes.

85: Cuthead – Deep Shadows

84: Orson Wells – Leaving

83: Marquis Hawkes - Get Yo Ass Off My Grass [EP Review]

82: Moomin – Au Bord De La Mer

81: Francis Inferno Orchestra – Take No Time [EP Review]

80: Zomby – Memories [LP Review]

79: Dense & Pika – Colt

78: Laszlo Dancehall – Gave Up [EP Review]

77: DJ Fett Burger & DJ Speckgurtel – Speckbass

76: Huerco S. – Apheleia’s Theme

75: Perseus Traxx – Gorgon

74: Les Level – Fever Baby

73: Joy Orbison – BRTHDTT! [LP Review]

72: Headless Ghost – Basik Fire [EP Review]

71: Pev & Kowton – Raw Code

70: Benjamin Damage – 010x [LP Review]

69: R-Zone – Romijn Ravine [EP Review]

68: Tiger & Woods – Golden Bear

67: Head High – Burning (Keep Calm Mix) [EP Review]

66: Kyle Hall – Crushed [LP Review]

65: Deadboy – Nova [EP Review]

64: Motor City Drum Ensemble – Send A Prayer Pt. 2 [EP Review]

63: Machinedrum – Eyesdontlie [LP Review]

62: Objekt – Agnes Demise [EP Review]

61: Four Tet – For These Times [LP Review]

60: Tuff Sherm – Burglar Loops

59: Jon Hopkins – Breathe This Air [LP Review]

58: Randomer – Bring

57: Lucretio – Want

56: HNNY – Boy

55: Tessela – Horizon [EP Review]

54: MGUN – Mask

53: Innershades – Nina At The Boiler Room [EP Review]

52: Voiski – From White To Red [EP Review]

51: Midland – Drumtrak [EP Review]

50: Trevino – Twelve

 

Since his conversion to the church of 4/4, Trevino’s take-no-prisoners techno has proved a steady source of club-tooled grooves. On Twelve from his latest EP for 3024, he let loose one of his darkest yet, with momentum to spare and a dangerous piano breakdown.

49: D’Marc Cantu – Size & Shape

This weird and wonderful highlight from Cantu’s Alternate Frequency EP was an oddball joy, with an unexpectedly catchy vocal joining jittery drum machines for a unique ride. The track really takes off in the second half as a more melancholic chord sequence joins the fray, sure to spice up any set.

48: Terekke – Amaze

 

No one does baked quite like L.I.E.S.’ wonderful Terekke. The atmosphere is deep and soupy, the light rustle of percussion and distant synth burbles accompanying a dubbed, ghostly vocal. One for the after-hours.

47: Stingray313 – NKKtwo_2

Detroit’s superb electro-vet DJ Stingray came out on top with this top scifi trip, where slow synth washes counterpoint razor-quick percussion and skittering melodies.

46: Martyn – Oceania [EP Review]

The two house tracks on Martyn’s Newspeak EP were wonderful, but in a year where good ‘bass music’ was in cruelly short supply, Oceania was one of the few miracles. The glittering melodies evoke space-age cities and sunlit superhighways, while the growling bassline and ricocheting percussion will keep feet skipping across the ‘floor.

45: Fuewa – Blhok [EP Review]

Fuewa’s lovely debut EP was an masterful exercise in atmosphere, and nowhere was this clearer than on opener Blhok, where a blissful synth is built over ramshackle percussion and subtle windchimes.

44: Funkinevil – Ignorant (Igno) [EP Review]

Kyle Hall and Funkineven made one of the year’s most striking club tracks in the form of slow-jam Igno, a low-slung roller whose appeal lay in its skeletal structure and gallons of funk.

43: Borrowed Identity – Leave Your Life

The first release on DVS1’s new Mistress imprint was a great success, and the pick of the bunch was this eyes-down roller of the highest calibre. Leave Your Life is a consuming track, taking you deep inside to commune with its heavweight groove.

42: DjRUM – Honey [LP Review]

Until the last minute, Thankyou was going to be the track that represented DjRum’s wonderful Seven Lies album on this list. But it was Honey’s sense of menace which won us over, its vocals beautifully processed, its beats lurching and destructive. DjRum’s attention to structure is also evident in spades, as a dreamy outro makes this more song than track.

41: Stephen Encinas – Disco Illusion

Though it was recorded in 1979, we couldn’t keep this recent reissue of our list. Sultry vocals and cosmic melodies take this disco trip to the next level, the lyrics lifting you into the sky while the unadulterated funk keeps feet rooted to the dancefloor.

40: Raw M.T. – Walkman Is Dead [EP Review]

This track is analog techno at its finest: deep and inviting, made up of few perfectly-tuned elements, cresting at a series of highlights: the final emergence of that threatening acid line, or the penetrating interruption of those metallic snaps. Top notch 5am material.

39: Murat Tepeli – Workinstrugglin

Tepeli’s homage to man’s struggle is an absolute epic, evolving over eleven minutes with precision and feeling, subtle melodies and a simple bassline making for a stark, involving experience. You can be sure this one will still sound great ten years from now.

38: The Field – No. No… [LP Review]

Listen to a clip here

The track whose creation solved Axel Willner’s creative block is a deeply emotive affair, as that plaintive one-word vocal stretches off into an immense, swampy darkness, its humanity stolen as the track reaches its haunting climax.

37: Dark Sky – In Brackets [EP Review]

This softened offering from the reliable Dark Sky was unfairly slept on this year, but it has all the makings of a winner: pretty synth notes play across a stripped, organic beat pattern, while the payoff when the beat clicks back into place after the long, emotional breakdown was one of our favourite musical moments this year.

36: SSOL – Untitled A1

This disco number from Soundstream has all the ingredients of an average disco/house edit: cooing vocals, funky riffs and snapping drums. But there’s something else: a special quality to this edit, whether it’s the energy of those live-sound drums or the smart instrumental editing, which raises SSOL’s cut high above your average filter-disco.

35: L-Vis 1990 – Ballad 4D [EP Review]

Night Slugs label-head L-Vis can be a frustratingly inconsistent producer, but his Ballads EP turned out to be NS’ unexpected highlight of 2013. Ballad 4D was a particular triumph: as submarine bass swipes resonate beneath a stark field of clicks and kicks, it’s an alarming, vital affair.

34: White Material – Put On [EP Review]

Galcher Lustwerk’s Tape 22 EP certainly received a lot of attention this year, but it was his contribution to WM’s collaborative EP that really had us amazed. This wonderfully simple slice of house creates an enveloping atmosphere with just a few elements, Lustwerk’s recognisable vocals adding a sultry atmosphere to the track’s languid bump.

33: Anthony Naples – Faceless

Really, any of the tracks from Naples’ ace Ill Still EP could have placed highly on this list. But for us it was Faceless’ curious nostalgia that won us over: sweet yet melancholy, it constructs a strong groove that only strengthens over whirring synths and metronome woodblocks.

32: Dopplereffekt – Gene Silencing [EP Review]

Gerald Donald’s triumphant return to the scene was crystallised on Gene Silencing, a seething slice of electro dripping with menace and scifi trappings, its tunnelling bass hits and glistening arpeggios whisking us away to distant worlds.

31: Red 7 – I Lost My Shoes On Acid

One of the year’s most exciting white labels was an odd combination indeed: classic vocals set over a taut acid workout: even a painfully old-fashioned hip hop verse couldn’t damage its blissful appeal.

30: Mix Mup – After The Job [EP Review]

Mix Mup couldn’t have chosen a better vocal to kick off his brilliant EP on Hinge Finger. Tina Turner’s promise of a ‘nice and rough’ sound is exactly what we’re given, a lumbering bassline and click-clack percussion creating an unsettling yet seductive world. The late entry of a searing synth line is Mix Mup’s victory lap, perfecting the track’s threatening groove.  

29: ∆ ∆ - You [EP Review]

There’s something indescribable about You’s impact. The vocal is loving yet plaintive, the melody hesitant yet catchy, the stripped drum workout groovy yet not explicitly for the dancefloor. It’s hard to pinpoint just what makes this track stand out, but maybe that curious appeal is its real strength. Either way, it’s been heavily played at WNHQ for almost a year now, and that counts for a whole lot.

28: Jon Hopkins – Open Eye Signal [LP Review]

The lead single from Hopkins’ phenomenal Immunity LP was widescreen techno at its most vital. Every sonic element feels alive: breathing, growing, contorting, emphasising Hopkins’ unique ability to make music that sounds huge without sacrificing subtlety or detail.

27: First Choice– Love Thang (Genius Of Time Rework) 

It’s always dangerous to remix a classic, but Aniara staple Genius Of Time struck gold with this fantastic remix of First Choice. Chilled disco roller gives way to stomping house seduction, before a showstopping bassline brings the funk in inimitable style. If you ever wanted a whole party in a song this is it: and it’s exactly the sort of party we’d want to get invited to.

26: Cliff Lothar – Dro Friday [EP Review]

The Hague’s longstanding electro/italo outpost Viewlexx showed they can still pick out new talent like the best of them on this superb EP from the shadowy Cliff Lothar (who’s next up on Skudge White). Dro Friday was our pick of the lot: a creeping house roller whose melodic and atmospheric intricacy would amaze even if it weren’t for the fantastic vocals that lend this club-track a song-like structure and appeal.

 Join us for the countdown of 25-1 tomorrow!

Best of 2013:

* Best Labels of 2013

* Best EPs of 2013
* Best Tracks: 85-26
* Best Tracks: 25-1

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Best of 2013: 11 EPs

It’s normal to round up the year’s best albums and tracks, but here at White Noise we like to pay a little attention to the EP format as well. While lacking the depth of a long-player, an EP can still offer a striking mission statement, and a platform for more than a simple collection of dance tracks. The best EPs work like miniatures, exploring a single idea from several angles or allowing a producer to flex their creative muscles over a series of different styles. Here we’ve collected the EPs that really stood out to us over the year, by either offering something a bit different or showing an artist at the very top of their game.

There were so many excellent releases this year, and the cruel selection process meant that many couldn’t make the list: superb outings from Big Doint, Innershades, Motor City Drum Ensemble and Palms Trax offered some of the year’s best house tunes, while DJ Rashad, Call Super, and White Material returned with a vengeance on a series of ace records. The EPs on the list gave us just a little bit more, and while some came out almost a year ago, the following vinyls are still on regular repeat here at White Noise HQ.

If you want to read more, click on the title of any release to read the full WN review.

11: Mix Mup – After The Job [Hinge Finger]

After The Job

Mix Mup broke away from Kassem Mosse’s shadow on this fantastic outing for Will Bankhead and Joy O’s Hinge Finger, plying a pitch-perfect brand of lofi house and techno. Doomed and Copa Jams were menacing rollers with a strong undercurrent of funk, while closer Bungalow was a radical left-turn into glistening beatless territory. It was on the title track, however, where Mix Mup really hit the mark, a warped collision of Tina Turner, clicking percussion and an unholy bassline.

10: Martyn – Newspeak [Dolly Dubs]

Oceania

Martyn proved why he’s still one of the best in the game with this expert three-tracker, with glistening bass music backed by two retro-house bumpers on the b-side. Oceania was a beautiful trip, but it was on the low-slung grooves of Newspeak and What Is Room 101 that Martyn really got his jack on. It’s rare to get an EP where every tune is a highlight, but you can trust a producer like Martyn to really nail it.

9: Laurel Halo – Behind The Green Door [Hyperdub]

Throw

Hyperdub’s Laurel Halo was responsible for two of the year’s best releases: this EP and her Chance Of Rain album, and it’s a credit to her remarkable talent that the two couldn’t have been more different. While the LP saw Halo toying with icy, autumnal textures, Green Door was a masterclass in machine-fed funk, from Throw’s beautiful piano to Sexmission’s suffocated techno.

8: Visionist – Snakes [Leisure System]

Snakebite

Logos may have secured the year’s best grime album, but this year’s 12” crown belongs to Visionist. The restless producer let out a slew of lethal productions across the year, but it was on Snakes for Leisure System that he conjured a high-def psychedelia which sounded like nothing else.

7: June – Don’t Be Seen With Me [June]

Face This (Deep House Mix)

We’d be the first to admit that there’s a lot of hardware-driven retro house going round, but none hit that sweet spot of past and future like June did this year. Don’t Be Seen With Me was a masterclass in mood, offsetting glistening melodies with taut drum machine workouts and the occasional foray into acid and new age territory.

6: Romare – Love Songs Part 1 [Black Acre]

Taste Of Honey (From The City)

After topping this list last year, Romare once again scored a winner on his second EP for Black Acre. His collage of samples and genres is executed with a fascinating socio-historical bent, making Love Songs a feast for the mind as well as the feet.

5: Levon Vincent – Rainstorm II [Novel Sound]

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After a blistering mix for Fabric, Mr Vincent returned to our decks on the superb NS08, where he plied his unique brand of warehouse stomp. Rainstorm saw a return of the untreated synths we loved in Impressions... and Man or Mistress, while the gargantuan ??? saw Vincent aim squarely for the dancefloor, all thanks to the year’s most distinctive bassline.

4: Dopplereffekt – Tetrahymena [Leisure System]

Gene Silencing

Leisure System’s second coup of the year was beckoning Gerald Donald back into the dance game, where he issued an update of his singular scifi funk under the storied Dopplereffekt moniker. Doppler’s hi-def electro has never sounded better than on the propulsive Tetrahymena, or in the tunnelling bassline that reinforced Gene Silencing’s slo-mo menace.

3: Tessela – Nancy’s Pantry [R&S]

Horizon

Not content with issuing what might be the year’s best single, Tessela took to R&S in the Autumn to expand his staccato experiments with breakbeat dynamics. This is techno at its most visceral, from the searing test tones of Nancy’s Pantry to the giddy abandon of the rave-indebted Horizon. Tessela’s palette couldn’t be more current or more vital, even allowing for patience in the simmering threat of Gateway.

2: Anthony Naples – Ill Still [Rubadub]

Faceless

P O T, El Portal, Moscato: Anthony Naples released a lot of brilliant music this year, but for us it was Ill Still that had them all beat. Taking a smoother approach than on other releases, Naples allowed his melodies to shine on these addictive grooves, and all three were superb in their own right. The simplicity of these tracks was addictive: the whirring synthline and straightforward drum programming of Ill Still, or the ghosted vocals and shimmering melodic haze of Faceless: both made for two of our most played tracks. On I Don’t See Them Naples turned a little psychedelic with effortless style, a throaty bassline complimenting a sifting soup of synths and atmospheric detail.

1: A Made Up Sound – Ahead / Endgame [A Made Up Sound]

Ahead

Perhaps more a single than an EP, Dave Huisman’s staggeringly strange single was undoubtedly the most futuristic music we heard all year. Ahead throws dance convention out of the window: no comfortable beat pattern, no melodic hooks to latch onto. Huismans takes a stuttered beat pattern and guts it, splicing in jagged funk samples and splintering percussion. It’s wildly unpredictable and jarringly, brilliantly broken, and we wanted to keep returning just to see if we could manage to make some sort of sense of it all.

Endgame is straighter but by no means simple: a crushed melody split open across an epileptic beat pattern, eventually allowed to morph into sputtering warehouse techno for a searing finale. It’s difficult, perplexing music, and perhaps not aimed explicitly for the dancefloor: but no record left us more dazzled this year.

Best of 2013:

* Best Labels of 2013

* Best EPs of 2013
* Best Tracks: 85-26
* Best Tracks: 25-1

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October Roundup 2013

It always seems to be autumn when the best tunes all start to come out at once. October's yield has been bountiful, and here WN collects the best of the best new releases. Kicking off with our favourite jam of the month, Palms Trax's pitch-perfect Equation, this playlist will take you through blistering euphoria and deeper house meditations, analogue experiments and icy electro, locked-machinery techno and vocal-fed experimental abstraction. It's all here, so why wait? Enjoy!

Tracklist:

Palms Trax - Equation [EP Review]

R-Zone - Rebecca In The Hall [EP Review]

Crystal & S. Koshi - Break The Dawn

Greymatter & KRL - A World Without Love

Doc Daneeka - Walk On In feat. Ratcatcher

Borrowed Identity - Leave Your Life

Raw M.T. - Walkman Is Dead
Marquis Hawkes - Get Yo Ass Off My Grass

SE62 - True Force

Owiny Sigoma Band - Nyiduonge Drums

Lumigraph - Yacht Cruiser

Dopplereffekt - Gene Silencing [EP Review]

Randomer - Bring

Joe - Slope

Objekt - Agnes Demise

Special Request - Soundboy Killer [LP Review]

Tessela - Horizon [EP Review]

DJ Rashad - Every Day Of My Life feat. DJ Phil

Dense & Pika - Colt

Mala - Como Como (Theo Parrish Remix)

Roly Porter - Cloud

And here are a few of our other monthly picks that couldn't be found on Youtube:

Simoncino - Tape I (EP Review) [Second clip]

Alden Tyrell - Somehouse (Single Review) [First Clip]

Tuff Sherm - Followfarming

Til next month, enjoy the tunes!

Dopplereffekt - Tetrahymena

Label: Leisure System

Few Detroit producers can be said to have created a sound as singular as Gerald Donald. An electro pioneer who has experimented relentlessly over his 18 years on the scene, Donald was instrumental in developing the frosty funk which now informs the electro and techno worlds; both under his own aliases such as Arpanet, Japanese Telecom and Z Therapy (to name a few), and in mysterious collaborative projects, notably with the late James Stinson as the scene-defining, auto-mythologising duo Drexciya.

Though little can match the powerful influence of the deep-sea dwellers, Donald’s shadowy Dopplereffekt project has yielded consistently challenging results over the years, most recently on the bleak Calubi Mau Space LP on Warp. That was six years ago, and after a half-decade out in the cold, Donald has brought Dopplereffekt seething back into motion on Berlin's Leisure System imprint. The least surprising thing about this release is how forward-thinking it still sounds, how dangerous and sensual Donald's sounds can feel at their very best. The results are unanimous, Tetrahymena provides some of the strongest electroid mutations you’re likely to hear all year.

Tetrahymena

Over three short tracks Dopplereffekt announce their return with savage bite, returning to the dancefloor with a suite of evocative retro-futurism, effortlessly blending notes of sacred technology with frosty, immersive dystopian atmospheres. The title track is upfront, its cool synth textures fed out over ricocheting drum patterns and insectoid chattering. The seething melodics turn the choral samples profane, adding thematic nuance to an otherwise hammering slice of blank-faced momentum. Next the ominously-titled Gene Silencing is more patiently paced, yet in terms of atmospheric power it can’t be beat. Here driving bass hits are chrome-plated with regular scifi clicks, punctuating the glistening arpeggio which runs the track’s course.

Closer Zygote is a subtler beast, as threatening futurist textures simmer under a bank of sounds drawn from the interior workings of some great machine. In this landscape the human is but a ghostly presence, traced by the disembodied vocals that punctuate the soundscape. It’s stirring material, bringing a stunning EP to a close which not only boasts Donald’s sonic mastery, but also his impressive aptitude for narrative flair.

8/10