Paul Woolford - Untitled / Overload

Label: Hotflush

After ruling the roost for the last four years or so, Scuba’s Hotflush imprint has gone rather quiet of late. The label, once known for its on-point dubstep hybrids and later for ushering in the current era of UK house, hasn’t managed to clock any particularly memorable releases in 2013. Leave it to man of the moment Paul Woolford to change this. Alongside an early classic (and another on Hotflush itself), Woolford has been wowing dancers up and down the country recently under his Special Request guise, squashing hardcore and jungle tropes into rugged, techno rollers which set fire to the ‘floor. 

Untitled

For his welcome return to Hotflush, Woolford comes up with his most bipolar release to date: a hook-laden, sunkissed summer anthem that’s already doing the rounds in Ibiza paired with a Special Request-style foray into darkness and compression. Despite the incongruity of these two tracks, Woolford is a man who knows what he’s doing and knocks it out of the park on both counts. It’s easy to see how A-side Untitled has become a crossover success into Ibiza’s ‘dance mainstream’; with piano stabs and an earworm vocal that won’t quit your head for days. Yet unlike the majority of the trending ‘deep house’ schlock, this is a substantial piece on the level of production values: the beat pattern kicks and swings with real heft and just a hint of Woolford’s trademark distortion, buoyed up by thundering bass bounces that'd entice even a geriatric to the dancefloor.

Overload

The blissful A-side’s evil twin shows up in the form of Overload, where chopped vocals sputter out over dissected breaks in a taut technoid soundscape. While Untitled’s anthemic potential should be clear to all; the B-side is sure to be the weapon of choice for the UK’s nocturnal denizens, and could easily be considered as another fine addition to the Special Request catalogue. Woolford’s consummate ability to change faces so dramatically and succeed so thoroughly has to be heard to be believed, making for Hotflush’s most essential release in over a year.

8/10

Best Labels 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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In today’s climate of free downloads and disposable music, it takes more and more commitment to curate a solid label. The labels that White Noise has chosen as the year’s best are the imprints that have put out consistently excellent releases, and those that have continued to eke the best from established producers while keeping an eye out for fresh new talent.

10 – Hinge Finger

Joy Orbison - Ellipsis

Joy Orbison and Will Bankhead’s new label only put out three releases in its first year, but since a couple of those contained two of the year’s very biggest tracks, it’d be a crime to leave the oddly-named label off the list. Quality is the watchword here; gorgeous artwork and top notch mixdowns. The label-heads were similarly discerning with their releases; after Madteo’s analogue jams in Bugler Gold Pt. 1, Joy Orbison’s Ellipsis and Blawan’s His He She & She provided some hefty club tunes that had dancefloors shaking up and down the country.

Essential Releases:

Joy Orbison – Ellipsis

Blawan – His He She & She

9 – Hotflush

Jimmy Edgar – Sex Drive

Scuba’s unpredictable Hotflush imprint continued to run well ahead of the curve in 2012, with a busy release schedule offering a host of excellent releases. Although every cut wasn’t necessarily a winner, Hotflush offered a diverse and impeccably produced set of singles from the likes of Jack Dixon, Guy Andrews and Locked Groove, while stellar LPs came our way courtesy of Jimmy Edgar and Sigha.

Essential Releases:

Guy Andrews – The Wait / Hands In Mine

Jimmy Edgar – Majenta

Jack Dixon – E / Find Shelter

8 - L.I.E.S.

 

Bookworms – African Rhythms

Ron Morelli’s eclectic and uncompromising Long Island Electrical Systems label has been in action since 2010, but this was the year where it broke into the big leagues. The only common factors uniting the label’s diverse output are a taste for the rawest, darkest corners of electronic music, and Morelli has done an expert job sourcing fresh sounds from unknowns and scene stalwarts alike. Aside from the excellent American Noise compilation, special attention should go to great releases from Steve Moore, Bookworms and Legowelt.

Essential Releases:

u-202 – Straightjacket

Bookworms – Love Triangles

Various Artists – American Noise

7 – Aus

 

Bicep ft. Ejeca - You

Will Saul’s excellent Aus imprint had an uncommonly fine year in 2012, offering a series of stellar EPs from some of the House scene’s very best producers, all precision-built for the dancefloor. George Fitzgerald’s Child EP spawned two of the year’s most ubiquitous dance tunes, while Midland produced the typically classy Placement EP. Elsewhere, excellent singles showed that Cottam hasn’t lost any of his edge with another lengthy, epic house tune (Relapse), while Bicep took the focus away from 90s House to conjure one of the year’s very best with the You / Don’t EP.

Essential Releases:

Bicep – You / Don’t

George Fitzgerald – Child

Midland – Placement EP

6 – Hyperdub

Burial – Ashtray Wasp

You’d expect Kode9’s Hyperdub imprint to be losing some momentum by now, but the London-based label has continued to evolve and impress, and 2012 was one of the label’s strongest years to date. Focusing more on albums than singles, Hyperdub played the field with a wide range of successful LPs, from Dean Blunt & Inga Copeland’s career-highlight Black Is Beautiful to Cooly G’s RnB mutations on Playin’ Me to Laurel Halo’s confusing and undeniably impressive Quarantine. And that’s all without mentioning label-legend Burial, who came out with two of his best releases to date to bookend the year.

Essential Releases:

Burial – Kindred / Truant

Dean Blunt & Inga Copeland – Black Is Beautiful

Laurel Halo - Quarantine

5 - Tri Angle

oOoOO – Break Yr Heartt

Tri Angle burst out of the stables with a rare brilliance in 2011, with fantastic releases from Balam Acab, How To Dress Well, and Holy Other among others. It was certainly a hard act to follow, but Robin Carolan has kept the quality material coming, and managed to simultaneously stay true to the label’s eclectic, independent roots. This year saw great sophomore releases from Holy Other and oOoOO, an interesting debut from Hip Hop experimentalist Evian Christ and still managed to come up with one of the year’s very best albums in the form of Vessel’s searing Order of Noise LP.

Essential Releases:

Vessel – Order of Noise

Holy Other – Held

oOoOO – Our Loving Is Hurting Us

4 – Hypercolour

 

George Fitzgerald – Needs You

Hypercolour lost nothing this year by being firmly rooted on the dancefloor. The label continued to put out almost every variation possible of the House sound, continually straining against the boundaries of what we recognise as a generic 4/4 dance tune. The label had an alarming hit-rate of bangers, from Tom Demac’s terrifying Critical Distance Pt. 2 to Mosca’s Eva Mendes, by way of Huxley’s Let It Go and George Fitzgerald’s superb Needs You. Any label that can put out so many huge tunes in one year is more than deserving of a high place on this list.

Essential Releases:

Tom Demac – Critical Distance pt 2

George Fitzgerald – Needs You

Last Magpie – (Who Knows) Where Love Goes

3 – Hessle

Objekt - Cactus

The Hessle imprint, run by three of the UK scene’s biggest names (Pangaea, Pearson Sound and Ben UFO), only matches its extreme eye for idiosyncrasy with its unbelievably consistent quality. The Hessle release schedule wasn’t that full this year, but when almost every release spawned a leftfield knockout that left listeners reeling, there’s no point trying to complain. Pangaea impressed on the label’s longest EP to date with Release, while Objekt, Elgato and Bandshell provided excellent superb releases that neatly sidestep generic sounds whilst remaining dedicated to the floor.

Essential Releases:

Pangaea – Release

Elgato – Zone / Luv Zombie

Objekt – Cactus / Porcupine

2 - 50Weapons

Dark Sky - Shades

With 50Weapons Modeselektor eschew the goofiness of their releases on the Monkeytown imprint to focus on a darker strain of dance music which is even more powerful. This year the label put out an astonishing selection of LPs from most of their roster, unconventional full-lengths came courtesy of Benjamin Damage & Doc Daneeka, Shed, Addison Groove, and Bambounou among others. The range of styles is impressive but Modeselektor never let the quality drop, equally seen in a range of superb EPs from the likes of Dark Sky and A Made Up Sound.

Essential Releases:

Dark Sky – Myriam

Addison Groove – Adventures in Rainbow Country

Benjamin Damage & Doc Daneeka – They!Live

1 - Unknown To The Unknown

Palace - Trust

White Noise’s number one label is also it’s most unconventional. Unknown to the Unknown has a brilliant year that saw the coming of almost 20 releases, with no unifying aesthetic or sound to be found. Nearly all digital, UTTU’s unique brilliance can entirely be put down to the superb taste of curator DJ Haus, who birthed the label from a Youtube channel he started last year. The release schedule’s manic nature is matched only by the songs themselves, which take hyperactive swipes at everything from Electro (DJ Stingray’s unstoppable fururistic productions) to Jungle and Bassline (DJ Q’s All Junglist EP) to classic house (Capracara’s superb Ronin) to bizarre bass hybrids from 5kinandbone5, Checan and Palace. In a year where austere, industrial Techno seized the dance world by force, it’s fitting that one of the labels that shone brightest was one which threw all seriousness out of the window in search of fun tunes and dancefloor killers.

Essential Releases:

Capracara – Ronin

Mista Men – UTTU EP

5kinAndBone5 – Make U Understand / Reset

Jack Dixon – E / Find Shelter

Label: Hotflush

It’s good to know people can turn things around. Although Jack Dixon has been knocking around the scene for a year or so, his releases never really offered enough dance drive to truly hit home. At the same time, the releases of the once-lethal Hotflush haven’t been up to their usual standard (especially those of label-head Scuba, whose former inability to put out a bad record has been quite dramatically turned on its head in 2012). But with his Hotflush debut, Dixon absolutely smashes it, issuing the label's most raw and vital release in months in the form of two gorgeous slices of bassy house.

 

EP Clips

Dixon proves his finger is right on the pulse of the current scene, elegantly fusing the detailed atmospherics of the post-dubstep world with the bounciest of house beats in E, all augmented by a bouncing bassline. Here Dixon cranks up the tension like a pro, all euphoric rising synthlines and a restless soundfield that offers more clever detail the harder you listen. Quite a feat while still remaining a dancefloor knock-out. All that said, the A-side only serves to wet the taste-buds for the scorching highlight that is Find Shelter on the B. The stomping beat is swung wide this time, twinned with an unstoppably catchy synthline. But listen out; the beat is accented by clipped horns and a perfectly jarring locked loop, the vocal is subtly rewound and looped throughout the track, and it’s hard to miss the fantastic false drop, replete with panting breath samples. Find Shelter is that rare track that will dominate the dancefloor while giving the headphone-listener more than enough meat to chew on, and explicitly states that Dixon is truly a force to be reckoned with.

8/10

Beaumont – Never Love Me

Label: Hotflush

After a consistently strong 2011, trend-setting Bass music label Hotflush have taken a rather unexpected turn this year. Beginning with Everywhere, Scuba’s jubilant throwback B-side to his Adrenalin EP last year, Hotflush has been systematically turning back time to focus on the neon sounds of 80s and early 90s electronic music. Scuba confirmed this movement on his inconsistent but worthwhile third LP Personality, and Hotflush are soon to put out Jimmy Edgar’s Majenta LP which focuses on the darker side of 80s vibes. Given this movement, relative newcomer Beaumont, aka Michael Rintoul, seems a perfect candidate for a Hotflush debut. On Beaumont’s debut EP Blush Response last year the Scottish producer showed off an interest in sweeping 80s synths and emotive melodies, re-interpreting the sounds to make something genuinely exciting and deeply atmospheric.

Never Love Me

Although looking backwards fuels a great deal of dance music’s progression, it’s always important that producers re-invent and innovate tropes of the past rather than merely repeating them, otherwise the sound they’re putting out doesn’t bring anything personal or new to the table. On this impressive EP, Beaumont neatly sidesteps this landmine with rich sounds laced through carefully constructed soundfields, eschewing the cheapness of his source material, and draws more than a passing comparison to contemporary Bass music.

The result of all this genre fusion is an inviting combination of dreamy Synth Pop and Bass music, with big 80s synth washes married to crisp drum machines. The sound isn’t exactly new but Beaumont has a certain finesse to his production that sets him ahead of the pack, and ensures he never ends up floundering in retro-worshipping purgatory. Title track Never Love Me is the most instantly engaging of the bunch, with a seriously punchy drum pattern paving the way for big synth growls and a vocal line manipulated to an unrecognisable android refrain. It all comes together later in the track as an almost overwhelming wash of sound without ever losing its distinctive individual elements, showcasing a producer with a deep understanding of the sounds he’s using and why. It also serves well as an opener because you immediately take notice, the big sounds drawing you into a track that’s admirably both technically impressive and surprisingly catchy.

Uptown

The longest cut on offer is Rendez-Vous, another upbeat number where Beaumont builds a real sense of movement with tense synth snippets and a wide array of pacing percussive touches. The building anticipation never actually amounts to an explosion, but that really works to the song’s advantage as a big crescendo would clearly be overkill. Instead the track drives at something more subtle, and as a result the listener notices the details, like the gorgeous breathy vocals looped deep in the mix in the track’s second half.

The other tracks on offer are more ambiguous moodsetters, such as second track Uptown. It’s a brief cut but by no means an interlude, as the two-minute runtime shows off a keen sense of structure and timing, with crystal clear synths adding a lush softness to the hard-edged bass sweeps and knife-sharp beats. The intensely cinematic atmosphere of these tracks is one summoned mostly by contrast between soft and hard, light and dark, displayed with equal skill in Verona Beach’s unstable soundfield. Here tunnelling synths underpin brief vocal snips until the track eventually distends into a taut duelling of synths and beats that never quite sits still.

This knack for atmosphere is only enhanced on digital-only closer Adrift, a mellower take where the listener only has skittering snares to anchor them amidst sweeping oceanic synths. The track is surprisingly worthy for a digital addition, taking you on a real journey through the hazy neon streets this EP continually evokes. Time and again on Never Love Me Beaumont rewards the dedicated listener with luxurious details and rich, atmospheric sounds, while simultaneously conjuring a great power of movement in his tracks. It may take a few listens to get your head round but this collection of tracks is definitely worth your time, and while the 80s sound is a little ubiquitous at the moment Beaumont does it better than any other producer I’ve heard.

7.5/10

Scuba – Personality

Label: Hotflush

Hotflush label-head Paul Rose has moved from cerebral Dubstep pioneer to a ‘Big Name In Dance Music’ pretty swiftly over the last year or so, and so a lot of things have changed. Alongside his outspoken tweeting and expert label management he’s been charting a musical shift to parallel that of his own position in the dance sphere. Last year’s singles Loss (as SCB) and Adrenalin signalled a stark move away from the dark, heady sound of Scuba past and a clear stride towards the bombastic, ‘Big Club Music’ that we hear now in Personality. Change is always welcome, especially from a producer so established and talented, so the problems that this album potentially poses are less of not being experimental enough, and more of limiting excess and holding an album together coherently.

Scuba hinted at this monumental shift in last month’s single release of Hope, a balls-out House stomper that essentially beats the listener around the face with huge beats and roaring synths, even adding a deadpan, cliché-bating monologue to make the 90s club-referencing complete. It’s a track entirely devoid of subtleties, but when something is so expertly constructed and enjoyable to listen to, detail isn’t a big worry. The track, like much of this album, is clearly indebted to the upbeat, faintly tasteless club sounds of the late 90s, but as Rustie proved with last year’s phenomenal Glass Swords, re-appropriation of ‘uncool’ genres can be a killer tool.

On Personality, Scuba offers up big, muscular sounds that tend towards the sunny daze of the album cover but occasionally descend into colder, more mechanical territory. In a similar fashion, there are big Dance tunes and more chilled out tracks, with little in the way of a middle ground, and within each half there are successes and failures. For example, there are a few tunes that tread a broad, upbeat path, with bright 80s synths conjuring images of Miami in the sunshine. First track Ignition Key is a good example, following an extended (and kind of depressing) spoken-word intro with big, sharp chords and snappy percussion. Vocals are injected with style, carefully treading a line between a retro feel and contemporary filters. Out of any of Scuba’s earlier material it most recalls Adrenalin B-side Everywhere’s sun-bleached disco workout, and although it lacks the latter’s sense of tension it’s a good entrance point for such a big, fun album. Rose triumphs towards the close of the album in the same vein with standout track NE1BUTU, which builds with sharp, heavy beats and dreamy sun-drenched chords into the drop (‘never seen you break it down like this’) which is pure bliss with bright House chords, proving that even when Scuba goes all out he can still get it so right. Elsewhere these shiny tracks can wear a little thin, such as in July which starts promisingly with a bouncing bassline and iridescent synth stabs but then doesn’t really go anywhere.

This is the problem with Personality’s weaker tracks, they feel a little undercooked, as if the track’s second half is just left to repeat the first. For example while amongst the harder Techno-inflected numbers Underbelly is a subtle and muscular slow-burner and Cognitive Dissonance is an impressively moody exercise taking in Autonomic-style DnB with style, these tracks are accompanied by Action, a disappointingly thin slice of Dub Techno, and Gekko, a messy and overlong shifter that has no real sense of movement or progress.

Apart from the pure and sunny glory of NE1BUTU, Personality’s best moments are when Rose doesn’t choose quite so clearly between light and dark. Dsy Chn is an early highlight, an intriguing track with hefty beats and a perfectly-implemented array of clipped vocal samples scattered throughout the tune, particularly the male voice emerging and receding around halfway through the song, played perfectly against the ebb and flow of the instrumentation. Final track If U Want is another choice cut, with a simple bassline drawing a crowd of emotive chords and voices into the mix before it dissolves into a backmasked version of Rose’s introductory monologue.

As the track comes to a close, it’s hard to really know what to make about Personality as a whole, and that’s because it never quite comes together as an LP. The album jumps quite radically in both style and quality from track to track, and whilst they are all of a very high production quality, not all of the cuts on offer have enough substance to keep you listening. It’s encouraging to see a producer trying something so new, and there are some great songs here as well as a lot of fun, big-room killers, but some may miss the rewarded repeated listens and subtleties of Triangulations or A Mutual Antipathy. It’s clear that Scuba is capable of very great things and isn’t constrained by a specific genre or tone, so I’m happy to enjoy some of the tunes on here and see what he does next.

7.5/10