Best Tracks of 2013: 25-1

After yesterday’s ramble on the nature of year-end lists, we’ll keep this one short and to the point. For all that such lists are worth, here are White Noise’s 25 favourite tracks of 2013.

25: The Mole – Lockdown Party (DJ Sprinkles Crossfaderama) [EP Review]

 

DJ Sprinkles had a fantastic year, scoring one of the year’s best mixes as well as a brilliant remix package – and the legendary academic / DJ also found time to knock out one of the year’s very best tracks. If you play this out in a set Sprinkles does the work for you: leaning on the EQs, filters and crossfader, splicing in samples here and there, and on the dancefloors this one brought dancers together like no other.

24: A Made Up Sound – Ahead [EP Review]

AMUS’ unhinged Ahead is an unsettling track. It’s not the lurking threat of the looped vocals or the splintered beats, but rather the track’s utter disregard for dance music convention which makes for such a jarring listen. But from the broken remains of melodic hooks and a 4/4 AMUS builds something brave and new, amazing and perplexing the listener in equal measure.

23: Romare – Hey Now (When I Give You All My Lovin’) [EP Review]

 

At just over two minutes, the closer to Romare’s second EP is by a long way the shortest track on this list, and could easily be considered a jazzy outro to the more substantial meat on the release. Yet something about that Nina Simone sample and the languid piano gives this track an edge, making for a soupy soul number which is more than just an interlude. When the seedy trumpet bursts through the track’s second half the effect is unparalleled, edging us towards the repeat button every time.

22: HNNY – Mys [EP Review]

Scandinavian retroist HNNY doesn’t receive a whole lot of praise in music press. Perhaps his tracks lean too heavily on nostalgia, and here on Mys the beat pattern is more than a little functional. But to disregard him would be to ignore the beautiful simplicity of his music: it may not wear cutting-edge techniques but it has soul in spades. Mys is a glorious track, sensuous vocal cries looped over a thundering bass bounce, perfect for an ear-catching opener or a mid-set slow jam.

21: Innershades – That Girl [EP Review]

Our favourite new producer of 2013 burst out of nowhere on That Girl, a Dancemania-indebted track with menacing synths and a mighty kick-drum. The tracks’ simple structure and rough muscle made it a dancefloor bomb every time, showing just how much can be done with a few perfectly-tuned elements.

20: Chesus – Special [EP Review]

Editing a disco track into a filtered house cut is the oldest trick in the book – but perhaps the reason so many producers give it a shot is because when done well, the blend of euphoric soul and house muscle has an effect like little else. The addictive vocal of Special is honey to the ears, while those glorious strings feel like a spiritual successor to New For U.

19: FCL – It’s You (San Soda’s Panorama Bar Acca Version)

It’s practically just a vocal, yet it’s not surprising that FCL’s It’s You attracted so much attention over the last year. In a year of industrial sounds and lofi aesthetics this track provided a dose of grace and soul, perfect to open a set or mix over more tougher jams.

18: Jessy Lanza – Keep Moving [LP Review]

Jessy Lanza’s debut on Hyperdub was one of the year’s best pop records, and the disco-indebted Keep Moving was an essential highlight. Lanza’s hook’s are urgent and catchy, while the combination of guitar licks, synth stabs and an elastic bassline make for a seductive package indeed.

17: June – Face This (Deep House Mix)

In terms of nostalgic house exercises, this low-slung workout had it all: the looped ‘house’ vocal, the meandering bass bounce, the delectable acid line. House music at its best, pure and simple.

16: Florian Kupfer – Feelin

The relatively unknown Kupfer gave L.I.E.S. its first anthem on Feelin, an addictive vocal sugar-coating lush synthwork, clattering drums and a a meaty bassline.

15: Nils Frahm – Says

 

Since my friend described listening to this track as ‘like discovering a new world in an underwater ice cave using sonar’ I haven’t really been able to think about it any other way. On Frahm’s triumphant Spaces LP, Says stood out for its majesty and subtlety, fragile piano notes accompanying a glistening arpeggio. The track’s slow build is utterly consuming: by the time you get to that late-game key change you’ll already be lost.

14: Roly Porter – Cloud [LP Review]

The grand opening to Roly Porter’s cosmic exploration was a powerful force: vocals looped beyond humanity, alloyed to a stammering beat pattern and the glacial movement of string figures beyond.

13: Paul Woolford – Untitled [EP Review]

Paul Woolford owned this year. Under his Special Request guise he released the hardcore revival’s most brilliant record, and then on this one-off for Hotflush he issued a worthy successor to 2006's smash Erotic Discourse. The honeyed vocals and anthemic piano line might prove cheesy in other contexts, but married to Woolford’s brawny drums they’re just perfect. One of the few Ibiza anthems that genuinely deserved play beyond the island’s borders.

12: Murat Tepeli – Forever (Prosumer’s Hold Me Touch Me Remix)

 

Everything came together perfectly on Prosumer’s remix of long-time collaborator Murat Tepeli. The piano line is positively venomous, while the soaring vocal and tight beat patterns open the door to the dark side of euphoria.

11: Pev – Livity [EP Review]

If there’s one producer who released more great tracks than any other this year, Pev was he. Across two collaborative EPs and a solo outing, the Bristolian was on finer form than ever, and the combination of the manic, queasy bassline and those jangling keys on Livity is utterly unforgettable.

10: Floorplan – Never Grow Old [LP Review]

The relationship between religion and dance music in Robert Hood’s music is the subject of frequent discourse, partly of its rarity – yet he’s on to something: the ability of the two to allow a person to transcend the physical, to make a group unite and rejoice, is a striking similarity. Nowhere is Hood more likely to make you believe than on Never Grow Old, an Aretha-sampling beast stitching that achingly soulful vocal onto an adamantine 4/4 skeleton.

9: Special Request – Mindwash [LP Review]

Paul Woolford’s attitude towards jungle and hardcore is striking because of his ability to modernise these sounds rather than just ape them. Mindwash is an unhinged trip whose maniacal bassline never sits still, sounding remarkably current even over a field of breaks ripped right out of a 90s textbook.

8: Damiano von Erckert – Hollywood [LP Review]

 

The ava label-head’s debut solo album was a glorious journey through the sounds of the past, and it was his pitch-perfect disco number that got us most excited. Perhaps Hollywood could have been made fifteen years ago, but it sounds as brilliant now as it would have back then. Georgia Anne Muldrow gives a phenomenal vocal performance over Erckert’s production dripping with funk: a utterly timeless collaboration.

7: Levon Vincent - ???

Levon took us back with this one: never had he sounded so urgent and floor-focused, conjuring the year’s most distinctive bassline and treating it with his gritty warehouse stylings and a game-changing synth to close.

6: DJ Rashad – Let It Go [EP Review]

Rashad ascended to footwork royalty this year thanks to a series of country- and genre-spanning releases, but even on his ace album he couldn’t quite top Let It Go. The vulnerability on display is almost unheard of in juke’s macho culture, as delicate strings falter under a desperate vocal plea. Yet even when he gets all emotional, Rashad never forgets his roots, and the stammering breaks added a vital urgency to the heart-tugging vocal cuts.

5: Omar S – The Shit Baby [LP Review]

Another year, and Detroit’s unstoppable Omar S still plays no one’s game but his own. This grammatically-challenged cut was as simple as Omar gets: the percussion is all groove: skipping snares, a solid kick and a descending bassline. But the inclusion of D. Taylor’s improvised piano takes this track into the stratosphere, offering a euphoric lead sure to get the crowd beaming as well as dancing.

4: Sophie – Bipp [EP Review]

I can make you feel better! The kind of track that makes a dance journalist use an exclamation mark is rare indeed, but it’s impossible to not get excited listening to Sophie’s second excellent release. Bipp is a breed of inverted pop, its saccharine vocal tied unexpectedly to pops, fizzes and jittery, drumless synths. On paper it sounds terrible, but a single listen would reassure any listener: Bipp is one of the year’s most brilliant, bizarre tracks, and is absolutely impossible to stop listening to.

3: Tessela – Hackney Parrot [EP Review]

If this was a list of the year’s ‘biggest’ tracks, Hackney Parrot would have no competition for the top spot. There are few tunes that make dancers stop in their tracks, but time and again Hackney Parrot destroyed dancefloors, its monstrous drop driving dancers into a frenzy. The stuttering breaks, the syrup-thick synth notes, that abrupt vocal hook: the ‘parrot is pure gold, and it’s going to be tough for Tessela to top.

2: Oneohtrix Point Never – Chrome Country

When I first heard this track I was walking through an airport. The infinite escalators, miles of plate glass and silenced urgency of travellers made for a stunning mental music video, and the song evoked a reverie of the essential beauty of human interaction even in our involved, over-stimulated age. Coming at the end of Daniel Lopatin’s brilliant new album, Chrome Country is a hymn for the digital age, its synthetic choirs frayed by electronic processing, its blissful strings and keys sometimes drowned by a swooning ambient wash. The track’s conclusion introduces a majestic organ – never before has Lopatin’s music sounded so optimistic, so downright heavenly. But we’re right there with him.

1: Palms Trax – Equation [EP Review]

At its best, house music is very simple. Granted, there are many producers who toy with complex rhythmic and melodic structures to great effect, but the old adage ‘gotta have house music’ was extolling something accessible, something universal. Palms Trax’ Equation wears its influences on its sleeve: eschewing the current lofi trend for the polished new-age sound of the Burrell Brothers and Nu Groove. Yet Equation easily transcends its retro trappings: its perfect counterpoint of soaring synths and rolling bassline inviting everyone, young and old, cool and lame, to get on the ‘floor and throw some shapes. No track in 2013 made us want to get up and dance as much as Equation, and for that simple reason, it tops our list.

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]

???

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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Will Hardcore Ever Die? Techno's Resurrection of the Breakbeat

Hardcore will never die – we’ve all heard the old adage. Except over the last ten years, hardcore did kind of die. The breakbeat, once supreme champion of dancefloor percussion, just wasn’t cool anymore. Meanwhile all the genres that worshipped at the altar of these chopped funk breaks: drum’n’bass, jungle and hardcore, began to stagnate, left to the die-hards with their perma-gurns as the school of the new millennium turned to grime, garage and dubstep, or indeed back to the worthy institutions of house and techno. The use of breakbeats within hip hop has a long history and continues to bear fruit, but it’s only recently that the percussive style has seen a re-emergence in the dance sphere.

For years the breakbeat scenes haven’t seen much in the way of progress, the last notable exception being DnB’s Autonomic phase spearheaded by the likes of Instra:Mental and dBridge. Yet listen closely and the winds are changing: there has been a sharp increase in the use of breakbeats in modern dance music in 2013, whether they appear as retro ornaments or something altogether newer: conventional drum loops twisted, distorted and recontextualised into fresh shapes. While others have charted the re-emergence of new forms of drum and bass, this article will explore the practitioners who are recontextualising breakbeats at slower tempos, in techno and beyond. 

Paul Woolford - Mindwash

One of the men at the heart of this revival (and the inspiration for this article) is none other than man of the moment Paul Woolford, who is currently attracting all the right attention with the rugged productions of his Special Request moniker. With a name that references (perhaps even mourns) the pirate radio stations that birthed his sound, Woolford’s Special Request tracks are ferocious club monsters, where familiar breaks are squashed into tough technoid forms, glorifying hollow, compressed kicks and elastic breakbeat loops. Yet Woolford’s compositions are not just throwback. On each of his celebrated white label releases (along with an ace recent EP for Houndstooth), he adds a distinct flavour to the gritty soundcraft, keeping it personal and modern. For example, while the superb Mindwash may give way to a tear-streaked breakdown of breathy vocals and eternal synths in pure 90s style, it has at its core the restless pursuit of a maniacally sinuous melodic line which would only be heard this decade.

Pev – Aztec Chant

As most of the music that heavily used breakbeats hovered around the 160bpm mark, some of the more interesting re-appropriations of the beats have come from artists who have slowed them down. Livity Sound head-honcho Pev (formerly Peverelist) is one of the UK scene’s leading lights at the moment, honing an utterly unique style of techno which incorporates various elements of the UK’s hardcore and dubstep lineage. Hear on this year’s Aztec Chant how the breakbeat is just one of the track’s percussive components, nestled amidst panning melodics and frayed hi-hats, looping like a broken record until it finally takes centre stage for the track’s final two minutes. Yet it is not just scene stalwarts who are reclaiming the breakbeat: A Sagittariun, one of the country’s more intriguing new techno producers, constructs a moody scifi soundfield on his stylish Eye Against Eye, only for a slo-mo breakbeat to steal the scene, a perfect fit for the slick Detroit atmospherics.

DJ Haus – Cold As Ice

It’s not just individual producers who are looking to reclaim the hardcore sound: certain labels seem particularly intent on pushing the 90s revival. Chief among them is DJ Haus’ inimitable Unknown To The Unknown, who topped our list of 2012’s best labels. Besides a hilarious Youtube channel and bizzare cover-art, DJ Haus has used UTTU to resurrect some of dance music’s less popular genres, from electro to bassline garage. Proving that these old styles have life in them yet, some of UTTU’s breakbeat experiments have been pure gold: one need only look as far as Haus’ own Cold As Ice for an achingly cool lesson in hardcore, replete with a tacky synth breakdown which I wouldn’t have any other way. Elsewhere on the label, Lords Of Midnite’s excellent Drown In Ur Love EP took the breakbeat on a scifi odyssey for its epic analog title jam.

Andy Stott – Up The Box

We’ve seen a clear renewal of interest in the noble breakbeat, with a variety of artists co-opting those breakneck rhythms to their own ends. Yet outside of the dancefloor exists another group of hardcore operators, dealing with decay and disintegration, resulting in what is perhaps the most fascinating material that the breakbeat has to offer today. These artists can be loosely grouped around the experimental Modern Love and PAN imprints, the former’s Andy Stott being a perfect example. The formidable Up The Box, from his ace 2012 album Luxury Problems, is a semi-experimental piece which loops a locked breakbeat, jamming like machinery in a slowly building gale of static noise. After three minutes it drops away, and after a few atmospheric shifts returns with a phenomenal compressed kick in toe, an exhilarating fusion of jungle and techno that combines the tough distortion of each without even a moment’s relief. It may also be worth noting the possibility of Stott’s involvement in Modern Love’s ultra-limited Unknown / Hate project, a purist exercise in pitch-black junglism which yielded uncompromisingly destructive club tracks.

Demdike Stare - Collision

Further into the world of experimentation one comes across Demdike Stare’s recent Testpressing series, also out on Modern Love. Drawing on a profound knowledge of jungle, hardcore and noise, Collision saw the pair at their rawest yet, building four minutes of seething, heatsick noise around a bed of jammed, dysfunctional breakbeats. While Demdike turned jungle to noise, PAN’s Lee Gamble used his superb Diversions 1994-1996 to draw out the ambience of these tracks, dissolving breakbeats in the faded ambience of musical recall, turning the raves of the 90s into the incoherent, mesmerising sequences which now exist only in our memories. In a fitting parallel, a similar trick was pulled off by Anthony Naples on his remix of Special Request’s Mindwash, casting the legend of hardcore beneath the gauze of memory, eroded by time, subject to dissolution and fragmentation. These experimental re-appropriations of breakbeats treat the drum pattern as an artefact of its own time, and through recontextualising the familiar drum loop they pose questions about evolving musical trends and the unreliable nature of memory itself.

Tessela – Hackney Parrot

Before this article disintegrates, weighed down by the fragility of its pseudo-philosophical musings, it’s worth drawing attention to how current, how big these modern breakbeat iterations can also sound. On the following playlist you’ll hear a selection of some of the sounds discussed above, but also some genuinely innovative use of the classic drumloop – DJ Rashad’s minor masterpiece, the emotive Let It Go, which dissects breakbeats with the finesse of a surgeon, or Clouds’ ode to the rave thump on the monumental Future 1. Yet at the same time we have Dance’s curious Still, a ghostly slo-jam that leaves the breakbeat wholly intact, or Shed’s nuanced second outing as EQD, which ranks among the producers best work to date. Then there’s Tessela’s phenomenal Hackney Parrot, doubtless one of 2013’s most memorable anthems, guaranteed to get the crowd moving even if the dancers don’t know their breakbeat from their steak frites.

The lasting impression of this survey is the extraordinary versatility of this simple set of drum loops, which twenty years on are still being used and abused in the most fascinating, exhilarating fashions. Not only are artists continuing to insert breakbeats into showstopping underground hits, but the passage of time has permitted an artistic re-appraisal, with producers subjecting the drums to the decay of memory and time in a way which opens entirely new avenues of musical possibility. Will hardcore ever die? It’s up to the artists, but on the strength of the scene’s ability to appropriate and re-integrate artefacts of our musical past in ever-more innovative ways, it looks set to survive for a long while yet.

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Playlist

Tracklist:

DJ Rashad – Let It Go

A Sagittariun – Eye Against Eye

EQD – EQD 002B (04)

Clouds – Future 1
Point G - Braka

Special Request – Broken Dreams
Ramadanman - Don't Change For Me

Pangaea – Razz

Unknown / Hate – Human Resources
Deadboy - Nova

Special Request – Mindwash (Anthony Naples Eternal Mix)
Lowout - LAS

Dance – Still
Simoncino - Happy (DJ Sotofett Slow Jungle Trippin')

If you want more, check out Boomkat's ace series of playlists on 14tracks.

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!

Tessela - Nancy's Pantry

Label: R&S

With the release of this year’s Hackney Parrot, Ed Russell’s Tessela alias went from intriguing newcomer to blazing star in the space of a single release. The song in question rode the crest of the current hardcore revival, capturing all the scene’s euphoria and grit in a single outing, and it still stands as one of the year’s very best singles. It’s certainly a hard act to follow, but Russell’s signing to venerable techno institution R&S boded well, and with Nancy’s Pantry he delivers the perfect follow-up, taking everything which made Hackney Parrot resonate into bold, unpredictable territory.

Nancy's Pantry

The three tracks that make up his new EP are cut from the same cloth: rave synths, crushed technoid drums laid out in staccato patterns, and distorted machine burn. The results are three hardcore / techno workouts that fuse UK music’s past and future with blistering effervescence. Nancy’s Pantry builds with the cluttered percussion wryly indicated by the title, explosively settling into a stop-start roller hewn from chopped breaks and squashed kicks. The drum pattern bursts from the speakers with noisy abandon, giving way to mechanical tones reminiscent of 2562 and, later, glittering chords. Final cut Gateway is just as destructive, whirring patiently over insistent hi-hats and surgical break cuts, as lethal bass hits and the ghosts of divas past ring out over the percussive wasteland.

Horizon

Each cut here is a stunner, lethal in a club context, but it’s on middle tune Horizon where Tessela offers up Parrot’s true successor. The track occupies three distinct movements, each as powerful as the last. Searing rave melodies build to a euphoric fever pitch before dropping away, leaving only a disjointed drum pattern and maniacally looped vocal cuts. Finally after two and a half minutes it lets go, the drums and synths rolling out recklessly, as high-frequency atmospherics do their best to ramp body temperatures even higher. Tessela’s latest is a no-brainer, a wild hat-trick cementing Russell’s position at the forefront of techno’s hardcore revolution.

9/10