Best Albums of 2015

 12. Grant – The Acrobat [The Lauren Bacall]

The Awful Truth

An unknown artist on an unknown label was responsible for one of the year’s most mesmerising deep house LPs. Grant’s sound is decidedly subdued yet his production talents should not be underestimated. Grainy rhythms and swooning pads are everywhere yet this is no standard house-by-numbers – flashes of warehouse techno, sublime ambience and snarling acid are teased into a single slinky package. Like the striking photo on its cover, these tracks are rich moments of suspended animation: joy, movement, and grace.

11. Sven Atterton – The Cove [Omega Supreme]

The Cove

Omega Supreme and People’s Potential Unlimited have spent the last few years issuing the very best of modern funk, and nothing came better than Sven Atterton’s early 2015 debut The Cove. An outstanding musicality stalks through these sun-drenched jams, played out through sinuous keyboard solos, hazy pads and languid basswork. Absolute killer for the summer chill.

10. Palmbomen II – Palmbomen II [Beats In Space]

 

Mary Louise Lefante

"As a Dutch transplant to LA, Hugo is clearly a sun-worshipper, a fact abundantly clear in his colourful, saturated take on club music. The sun blazes through a thick haze over these tracks, which corral burbling house, dew-eyed new age melodies and the occasional foray into gurgling acid into a memorable, mesmeric package… It’s a winner, an album that invites you to wander through an alien landscape guided by a warm, comforting hand. It’s a walk you’ll want to take time and again.”

Read the full review here

9. Linkwood – Expressions [Firecracker]

Off Kilter (No Midi Mix)

“It’s been four years since the last Linkwood emission, and six since his debut LP, and you can hear how slowly these tracks have matured, offering a richness and attention to detail uncommon in the fast-paced dance scene, particularly when it comes to albums. Whether you come for the gorgeous ambient meditations, the compelling club cuts or the whole opulent package, Expressions is an album you’re not going to want to leave anytime soon.”

Read the full review here

8. Lifted – 1 [PAN]

Bell Slide

“Lifted’s debut is the rare album which feels purely next-level, like music beamed from an idealised future. The sound that the group have created is like an unstable chemical: constantly mutating, joyously effervescent. So few artists who chart fresh electronic terrain manage to do so with such lightness and joy in their sound. Because Lifted do, you won’t just follow them willingly – you’ll do it with a broad smile on your face.”

Read the full review here

7. Domenique Dumont – Comme Ca [Antinote]

L’esprit de l’Escalier

“These aren’t really tracks or cuts, they’re songs, addictive and hummable, but with a fine producer at the helm, who has a light touch but never lets things get too sugary… a curious and winning package from yet another great Antinote discovery, as if they needed another feather in their cap.”

Read the full review here

6. DJ Sotofett – Drippin’ For A Tripp [Honest Jon’s]

 

  

Drippin For 97 Mix

Honest Jon’s struck gold this year, offering us the broadest exploration of DJ Sotofett’s demented musical world yet. Here the inimitable producer teams up with an array of collaborators but takes his own tools along for the ride – birdsong, reggae rhythms and acres of post-euphoric ambience. It was a tripp that took us from future-afrobeat to humid house via beatless excursions poised impossibly between prog and Balearic. Absolutely essential for fans of the Sex Tags crew.

5. Project Pablo – I Want To Believe [1080p]

 

 
Sky Lounge

“The beats crunch and shuffle, lush pads drift like smoke, and the basslines are summoned straight from a 70s funk record. Then there’s the rising melody, hitting the perfect balance between hope and introspection. With this first track, Project Pablo hits a wondrous note which he sustains across the album without a single misstep… Listening to I Want To Believe, faces seem happier, objects prettier, and all those pesky problems seem like they might just work out okay, after all.”

Read the full review here

4. Dwig – From Here To There [Dwig]

Different Days

“It’s immediately accessible yet generous to the attentive listener, excelling in the mesmeric capabilities of the genre while pushing a varied, refreshing palette. If there’s any upside to the fact that this graceful album is unlikely to sell out or chart on critics’ lists at the end of the year, it’s that those few listeners who caught it and engaged will forge a more intimate relationship with this music, unhindered by hype or popularity. For theirs is an album of rare substance and beauty, something to treasure for them and them alone.”

Read the full review here

3. J Albert – Dance Slow [Exotic Dance]

Love Delivered

It’s a shame that J Albert’s stunning debut came out on such a limited cassette run, because this is music that demands to be heard. Deftly weaving between starry-eyed house and ruff analog exploits, Dance Slow is a twilit masterclass in 4/4 dance.

Read the full review here

2. Floating Points – Elenaia [Pluto]

Silhouettes (I, II & III)

After six years of stunning singles, we were expected big things from Floating Points’ debut. Yet Sam Shepherd’s long-awaited debut album, the fruit of five years’ work, wasn’t what anyone expected. Slow, slight, strangely ineffable, Elaenia makes you come to it. But when you do, and give this music time and attention, a world of sumptuous detail reveals itself, with a lifetime of emotions and influences ever-shifting across its dappled surface. This is a record of a subtlety and mastery that only Floating Points could achieve. We’ve rarely been so happy to be wrong.

1. DJ Richard – Grind [Dial]

Nighthawk

“DJs will find some great club tracks if they choose to skim it for parts, but that would be to miss the holistic effect of the album. This is narrative techno, and in typical artistic form, the narrative of conflict draws us inexorably towards reconciliation. This is heard on Vampire Dub, a confection of twinkling synth work, gauzy keys that leave behind calming jet-trails, and bubbling mechanical accents. Here the feelings of displacement are left behind, resolution can be found in a composition which is nakedly beautiful. This is the deserved conclusion to a great artistic accomplishment; a dance album with no fat, no misfires, every tune essential, surprising and rewarding. We hear darkness and conflict resolved through artistic expression, and we find peace.”

Read the full review here

***

What we listened to when we couldn’t bear to hear another synth:

You can’t always listen to electronic music. Well, we can’t. Every so often you need some nice acoustic earthiness to soothe those throbbing ears. 2015 was a rich year outside of electronic music, with Kendrick Lamar pulling an astonishingly ambitious jazzfunkhiphopsoul album off to perfection that’s still got us reeling. Young Thug picked up a lot of the excess hip hop weight with an endless slew of tunes baring his half-crazed flow and stark trap production.

Meanwhile Beach House kept doing exactly what we want them to with two new albums of dreamy, nostalgic pop, D'Angelo returned after 14 years with an RnB masterclass and Sufjan Stevens bared everything on the supremely affecting Carrie & Lowell. Finally, White Noise patron saint Joanna Newsom made a welcome return after five years with the satisfyingly dense and complex Divers, packed with allusions, esoteric instrumentation and heart-rending melodies.

***

That’s all for the best albums of 2015. Come back next week for a roundup of the best tracks of the year.

Guest Mix

Fresh guest mix from WN resident Moth, here serving up a whole party in 90 minutes, from sultry summer slow jams to raucous rave and techno via footwork, salsa and acid. So many of our favourites in here we've lost count.

Exclusively on White Noise, here's the tracklist:

Linkwood Family – Miles Away

Pender Street Steppers – The Glass City

Ishmael – Time & Time Again

Hidden Spheres – Waiting

Mosey – Tuff Times

D-Ribeiro – Down You Will Get

Cool Peepl – Free

Damiano von Erckert – We Flow 

Harvey Sutherland – Bermuda

Matthew Herbert – Earthenware

Obas Nenor – Change Got To Come

La Pesada – Cumbia y Tambo (En La Lluvia)

Paradise’s Deep Groove – I Love

Adesse Versions – Pride

Todd Terry – Bounce To The Beat

TXC – Dream Is Alive

Luca Lozano & DJ Fett Burger – Telegronn

Luca Lozano & Mr. Ho – Dripbox

Henrik Bergqvist – Caballo Blanco

Paxton Fettel – Lift Off

Foreign – B1

Paranoid London – Lovin U (Ahh Shit)

AFX – VBS.Redlof.B

Jessy Lanza, DJ Spinn & Taso – You Never Show Your Love

Linkwood - Expressions

Label: Firecracker Recordings

Edinburgh’s Linkwood is a producer’s producer. He takes his sweet time with each release, and whether he sets his mind to emotive beatless pieces, bristling analog house or smoky Detroit joints (like his sterling debut Miles Away), his productions are always right on the money. There’s an uncommon richness to Linkwood’s sound, especially heard on the right system, and here on sophomore LP Expressions he offers a wealth of goodness for detailed listeners and cherry-picking DJs alike.

The album kicks off with two fathoms-deep beatless pieces, Sonrise a bucolic concoction of soothing strings, Outside In a more uncertain, but equally impressive, piece of sound design whose melodies roll like clouds and break like thunder, underlined by pattering rain. There’s also an abstraction and experimentation we’ve not heard from Linkwood before, from Coral’s microcosm of chittering melodies to Sigma 3’s filtering rhythms, via the dreamy Reef Walking¸ which rolls and breaks like jungle that’s had its mechanical insides replaced by mist.

Whether these more exploratory tunes are a draw or not will be down to individual taste, but the fidelity and care put into these sounds throughout is beyond reproach. This is an artist who deeply cares about the minutiae of how his music sounds. Besides, there’s plenty of variety on offer, including a few luxurious club numbers. Off Kilter (No Midi Mix) draws on a hazy optimism similar to Lnrdcroy’s excellent debut (which recently saw a vinyl re-release on Linkwood's home imprint, Firecracker), but cast in hi-def with radiant strings and a fleet-footed rhythm that doesn’t skimp on the muscle. Even in his most deliberate dancefloor cuts, the wealth of melody and detail in these tunes is striking. Ignorance Is Bliss (Live Mix) sets a bassline wandering under a gorgeous cloud of synthwork that shifts and coils like water, while the stellar title track Expressions jumps into action with jabbing keys and smoky, funk-referencing synth washes.

It’s been four years since the last Linkwood emission, and six since his debut LP, and you can hear how slowly these tracks have matured, offering a richness and attention to detail uncommon in the fast-paced dance scene, particularly when it comes to albums. Whether you come for the gorgeous ambient meditations, the compelling club cuts or the whole opulent package, Expressions is an album you’re not going to want to leave anytime soon.

7/10

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

December Roundup

The dance world slows down a great deal in December, but that’s not to say that nothing of any value came out last month. So while I prepare White Noise to get up and running in the new year have a listen to some of the best dance releases from last month. Enjoy!

Infinity Ink – Games

George Fitzgerald – Shackled

Seiji – Frustratin

Linkwood – Secret Value

Maceo Plex – Under the Sheets

Throwing Snow – Pyre

Boddika – Up and Dance

Gavin Herlihy – Endless Feeling

Look out for reviews of some of these EPs coming over the next week.

PS #1 – Get that Boddika track for free here.

PS #2 – I know that George Fitzgerald track came out late November but better late than never eh?