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

Best Tracks of 2014: Part 2

Here's our final rundown of the year's very best tracks.

25. DVS1 – Black Russian [Klockworks]

This tight slice of techno is as essentialist as you can get: propulsive forward momentum, a single showstopping synth that builds but never peaks, and the leanest of percussive tweaks to keep you on your toes. Engrossing and devastating.

24. Leon Vynehall – Inside The Deku Tree [3024]

There was so much to love about Vynehall’s Music For The Uninvited release on 3024, but it was this unusual opener really stood out from the bunch, from its Zelda-referencing title to its grand orchestral sweep. Another winner from one of the UK’s brightest stars.

23. Traumprinz – Messed Up Jam [Giegling]

The first cut from Traumprinz’ stellar All The Things EP was melancholy deep house par excellence (you may have noticed that we’re fans of the style here at White Noise). Meditative and moving, Messed Up Jam moves with pitch-perfect reluctance and grace.

22. Daywalker + CF – Supersonic Transport [LIES]

LIES’ best cut of the year came in the form of this galactic stormer, a propulsive journey comprised of an army of synths: twinkling, churning, swooning, stabbing, and an adamantine percussive skeleton.

21. Lnrdcoy – I Met You On BC Ferry [1080p]

The most emotional cut from Lnrdcroy’s sublime Much Less Normal LP was this 8-minute voyage into nostalgia, a skittering 2step beat tied to a hopeful synth line, its tune later echoed by a resonant bassline, the ghost of a melody.

20. Moodymann – Lyk U Use 2 (feat. Andres) [KDJ]

This dream collaboration worked as well as could be expected, albeit at an unusually high tempo. The heartache of Dixon Jr’s lyrics (narrated with his tongue firmly in his cheek – “eight and a half is not enough for you anymore?”) adds a certain melancholy to the buoyant production, with a deep soulful melody and some expertly chopped disco samples towards the close certainly courtesy of Andres.

19. Andy Stott – Faith In Strangers [Modern Love]

The most surprising cut on Andy Stott’s superb new album was its title track. Having chopped, distorted and generally abused the vocals of his ex piano teacher Alison Skidmore, here Stott lets her voice take centre stage, accompanying her pop-referencing melodies with twilit synths, a diving bassline and jittering percussion that never feels anxious. If this is Stott doing pop, we’re eager to hear more.

18. John Roberts – Ausio [Dial]

With his productions becoming increasingly knotty, it was great to hear a proper dancefloor track from Roberts. Ausio is superb for setting the scene: that harrowing bass threatens to break out for the 3 minutes, and when it finally does the track bristles, rather than bursts, into life: a field of searing synths, nervous atmospherics and insectoid chittering. Superbly moody and full without ever feeling crowded, this track showed Roberts back on fine form.

17. Call Super – Acephale II [Houndstooth]

This is one of Call Super's straighter tunes, but it’s a long way from simple. A hammering kick anchors an increasingly frenetic field of crystalline synths that jostle for attention alongside an impressive range of details and effects. Listen closely for the canny use of panning and the genuinely alive feel of the track’s melodic details, each sound individually minute but powerful when put together. There's a trick to Super's best productions: they move with an unhurried pace, a central motif slowly accruing more detail, adorned with more sounds, until the force is just about overwhelming. There’s some kind of alchemy going on in Call Super’s music, and this ‘floor-ready track shows it better than any other.

16. Pender Street Steppers – Bubble World [Mood Hut]

Another genius oddity from the Vancouver duo takes the titular bubble sounds as its inspiration, cooking up a delightful plate of loose-limbed percussion, warm synth glows and a bassline that’s essentially out for a stroll. Killer mood music.

15. #####.1 - ##### [No ‘Label’]

This ungooglable cut on Rush Hour’s No ‘Label’ didn’t need a name to sell: its perfectly tuned percussion, synthetic choir and crushed melody was utter bliss, taking us into a dreamworld with every listen. The track has since been sourced to Dutch producer Aroy Dee.

14. Vril – Torus XXXII [Forum]

The centrepiece of mysterious Vril’s debut album was this slow-burn techno number, where a subtle play of percussion provides the backdrop to a building, keening synthline, leading to an emotional climax which is more about the build than any sort of payoff.

13. Kassem Mosse – Untitled A3 [Workshop]

Our favourite cut from Mosse’s superb debut LP was an expert construction of articulated percussion, searing synths and that tumbling, showstopping melody like pebbles falling through crystalline water.

12. DJ Richard – Freydis [White Material]

After a busy, hype-fuelled 2013, White Material provided only one EP this year, but it might have been the labels best. On its closer, DJ Richard combined a low-slung rhythm with alarm-like synths, a swooning wash and dramatic cuts to an eerie, inviting string section.

11. Jamie xx – Sleep Sound [Young Turks]

Jamie xx’s tracks may not be the best for getting your groove on, but he certainly has a way with making beautiful music. Sleep Sound’s lush harp melody gives way to a light, shuffling beat for the early hours, with smart, emotive vocal snips. After a gorgeous breakdown the track picks up pace, lush and melodically complex, a joy time and again.

10. Kowton – Glock And Roll [Whities]

This one was a real curveball from Kowton, best known for melting bass and grime tropes into tough techno forms. Here he goes for something prettier, as a delicate chiming melody takes pride of place over a fortified rhythm section and a vocal looped to infinity. It’s a simple construction, but the contrast between fragility and strength helped this one destroy many a ‘floor.

9. Objekt – Ganzfeld [Leisure System]

The release of Objekt’s excellent debut LP Flatland clearly wasn’t enough for TJ Hertz, and he came along to offer us one of the year’s best singles on a split 12” for Leisure System with Dopplereffekt. Ganzfeld is a mind-bender full of sudden shifts and electro flourishes, stuffed with detail but destructive on the dancefloor. You couldn’t ask for more.

8. Barnt – Under His Own Name But Also Sir [Hinge Finger]

The only release this year on Will Bankhead and Joy O’s Hinge Finger imprint was a stunning one-two punch from man of the moment Barnt, both sides of which really deserve a place in this list. While the stark Chappell detonated many a dancefloor, it was on the brilliantly-titled B-side that he struck true gold, militant percussion cutting like knives through the mournful, swooning synthwork: a sound somewhere between danger and religion. One of the year’s most singular, inspired cuts.

7. Caribou – Can’t Do Without You [City Slang]

The first cut from Caribou’s Our Love LP may have been played to death by the time you read this, but there’s a reason for that. It’s a veritable anthem, that tune that brings everyone together on a dancefloor, singing and smiling. It’s no simple production, either: Caribou plays with volume to make the track’s drop all the more effective, it all builds to a veritable fireworks display of melody, while the simple, sincere vocal line is sure to strike a chord with even the most hard-hearted listeners.

6. Dan White – Death Flutes [Forbidden Planet]

This techno space odyssey from Montreal’s Forbidden Planet has been on extremely heavy rotation in White Noise HQ, its slow build of ambience, gurgling acid and steady thud conjuring adventures in a bleak, desolated terrain. That the titular woodwind adds perfectly to the distressed, wistful aesthetic rather than proving a cheesy misstep only reinforces this song’s strength.

5. Efdemin – Parallaxis (Traumprinz’s Over 2 The End Version) [Dial]

Traumprinz has a way of going for big, genuine emotion without ever overdoing it, and reviving sounds that you might belong in the past with flair. He’s unafraid, and that’s part of what makes his music so enchanting. This stunning remix of Efdemin starts off as a subdued house track, its desolate vocal and cinematic synths conjuring a powerful mood. It’s the unexpected addition, just after the three-minute mark and some rave sirens turned melancholy, of a snappy breakbeat that elevates this tune to near-perfection. By the time you get to the burbling chimes that bring the track to a close, your fingers will already be edging towards the repeat button, and you’ll probably be feeling a lot of things you don’t normally feel. Viva Traumprinz.

4. Leon Vynehall – Butterflies [Royal Oak]

Vynehall’s mini-LP was a wonderful collection of tunes, but for us his best single track of the year was this follow up on Clone’s Royal Oak imprint a few months later. It’s an unashamedly upbeat slice of filtered house, with a lush piano line and an introspective vocal just on the right side of cheesy, with a rhythmic backbone tough enough to keep bring even the most reticent to the dance. The word ‘organic’ is thrown around a lot when it comes to Vynehall, and with good reason: his instrumentation has a warm, live feel that sets him apart from contemporaries, and a sincerity that allows euphoric tracks like this one to really take off.

3. Daniël Jacques – End Of My World [Mistress]

This one casts a spell: synths flicker like candlelight, open hi-hats slice through the dust, and that enigmatic vocal line is cooed over and over, seemingly acquiring different meanings with every repetition. When we appear to be heading for a breakdown halfway through, the kick disappears, the vocal echoes off, and, abruptly, the kick returns - gratification is sudden and immediate rather than delayed. That’s what makes this track more than the disco loop it appears to be: a sense of mystery that lingers long after the tune ends.

2. Jack J – Something (On My Mind) [Mood Hut]

Mood Hut’s releases have a way of prioritising vibe over innovation or dancefloor power, and that’s just why we’ve come to love them. The gorgeous B-side of Jack J’s solo EP (he’s one half of Pender Street Steppers) was an absolute masterpiece, rolling on at an unhurried pace, funky bass bumps and a lazy sax line bringing a contemplative mood to the chill. There aren’t really the words for this one: you’ve just got to relax, close your eyes, and listen.

1. Floating Points – King Bromeliad [Eglo]

King Bromeliad opens with a recording of Floating Points playing it out at his (sadly closed) home, London venue Plastic People. The sound is tinny, filtered, we can hear the crowd chattering and the speakers rumbling. Then, a switch, and the groove continues in unadulterated form, Floating Points’ immaculate sound design all the more impressive for the contrast (a similar trick was memorably pulled in Slum Village's Dilla-produced anthem The Look Of Love). It’s an example of exactly the kind of ingenious (not to mention meta) touch and real care that Sam Shepherd brings to all of his productions, and the track that follows is, unsurprisingly an utter delight. It's a rich, jazzy house tune that shuffles along at its own pace, sounding a little like the dancier cousin of Myrtle Avenue, the opener to Shepherd's superb Shadows EP. Its elasticated chords are arranged spaciously, building and receding, while thousands of melodic and percussive details bristle beneath the track's surface: it takes a great deal of complexity to come up with something that sounds so effortless.

In any list like these, the top few entries will be ordered almost arbitrarily: what makes the second best track worse than the first? We gave Mr Points the top spot not just for this excellent jam but also for his peerless musical catalogue: each release, however infrequent they may be, refreshing and joyous, while even his older cuts sound as relevant and moving as they did on first release. He might just be the best producer we've got right now.

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Join us for more White Noise reviews and features in 2015, and while you wait you can listen to our resident DJ Moth's mix of some of our favourite techno tracks of the year, embedded below or here on Mixcloud.

Best of 2014:

* Best Albums

* Best Tracks: 50-26

* Best Tracks: 25-1

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

August / September Roundup 2013

September's Hardcore feature has led to hitherto unknown levels of busyness here at White Noise HQ, with the result that August's Roundup was left by the wayside. To solve this sorry state of affairs, we're repeating July's double extravaganza, cramming two months of superb music into a single youtube playlist. As usual, it starts off warm and housey, moves to weirder, technoid territories and finishes with some prime spacey material, including top picks from Forest Swords' AOTY contender Engravings and Andy Stott's unbelievable Tricky remix. Enjoy!

For daily doses of new tunes, make sure to follow White Noise on Facebook and Twitter!

Tracklist:

HNNY - Mys [EP Review]

Damiano von Erckert - Hollywood feat. Georgia Anne Muldrow [LP Review]

Jessy Lanza - Keep Moving [LP Review]

Space Dimension Controller - First Glance [EP Review]

Funkinevil - Ignorant (Igno) [EP Review]

D'Marc Cantu - Size & Shape 

Funkineven - The Joker

Leon Vynehall - Step Or Stone (Breath Or Bone) [EP Review]

Frank B - Chain Of Fools (Lumigraph's 909 Assassination Remix)

Shed - Fluid 67 [EP Review]

Call Super - Informer [EP Review]

Innershades - Nina At The Boiler Room [EP review]

Trevino - Twelve

CVNT - Feminine Destruction

De Sluwe Vos - OG Anthem

Jeremih - F U All The Time (Kowton Refix)

Etch - Hybrid [EP Review]

Visionist - Poison [EP Review]

Pev & Kowton - Vapours [EP Review]

Machinedrum - Gunshotta [LP Review]

Tricky - Valentine (Andy Stott Remix)

Forest Swords - An Hour [LP Review]

And the perennial 'one that wasn't on Youtube':

A Sagittariun - Clusters

Pev & Kowton - End Point / Vapours

Label: Livity Sound

Livity Sound are on a mission. The Bristol-based imprint, comprised of Pev, Kowton and Asusu are a label, a live show, and a dangerously talented set of DJs. The team’s streetwise techno mutations are critically aware of dance’s history, particularly the axis of jungle and grime, yet with each release they push indefatigably forward, their sounds unique and enthralling at each turn. Ahead of the release of a Livity Sound compilation in October (where many of these tunes will be available digitally for the first time), Pev & Kowton issue the final statement of Livity Sound’s first movement, a worthy follow-up to their superb Raw Code single which opened the year.

End Point / Vapours

As with both Pev’s solo productions and his collaborations, these are not straightforward bangers. Livity’s sound is subtle and dense, trading in spare, delicate arrangement, re-orientating the bass-wise meditations of early DMZ within techno structures. End Point is almost calm – a minimalist marvel comprised of high-frequency melodics, agitated hi-hats and emotive, scifi synthwork. The elements come together alchemically, sweeping the listener away to alien territories while retaining that pulsing club core. B-side Vapours is just as impressive, where a humid bed of eerie ambience builds to a showstopping conga rhythm. Once these drum patterns take hold they don’t relent, adorned only be laser stabs and menacing junglist atmospherics. The release comes as a victory lap for Livity Sound: stimulating both the mind and the body, a further mesmerising taste of two of the UK's boldest, most vital producers.

8/10