Best Tracks of 2012: 101-76

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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It's been a big year! We'll end the festivities with a countdown of our favourite tracks of the year. All of these are great tunes, and the order is somewhere between deliberate and arbitrary, so bear that in mind. So many that got cruelly cut out of the list, but I reckon this is a solid roundup of what has been a great year for dance music. Enjoy!

 101 – MikeQ – Let It All Out 2012 feat. Jay Karan

Vogue is back.

100 – Pablo Nouvelle – Be True To Me

One of the few non-Dance tracks on here, irresistibly simple. EP Review.

99 – Four Tet – Lion (Four Tet Remix)

Huge vibes and slick atmospherics from The xx’s mastermind.

98 – Pangaea – Majestic 12

Breakneck darkness from a real master.

97 – Jimmy Edgar – Sex Drive

Just one of many brilliant moments of Edgar’s sleaze-fest.

96 – George Fitzgerald – Child

One of the year’s bounciest, most satisfying House tunes.

95 – Ejeca – Horizon

Massive House tune. It really does sound like ‘dinnertime’.

94 – Goodfoot feat Didz & The Organ Grinder

Utterly intoxicating piano House throwback from one part of CRST.

93 – Fantastic Mr Fox – Yesterday’s Fall feat. Alby Daniels

Strange, bassy, neo-pop from the inimitable Mr Fox. EP Review.

92 – Mista Men – Forget U

Muscular Garage workout from one of the UTTU crew’s very best.

91 – Body Double – Be Strong

(This is the audio for the A-side, What You Need)

Some weird House-pop from the 100% Silk camp.

90 – Jeremih - Fuck U All The Time feat. Natasha Mosley

This track was everywhere this year. Sensual, addictive, and filthy.

89 – Trikk – Jointly

One of the finest examples of the intersection between Techno and Bass. Absolutely kills on the dancefloor. Definitely big things to come from this Portuguese native. EP Review.

88 – The xx – Chained

Although Coexist was nowhere near as good as the band’s debut, this song perfectly encapsulated the powerful vibes of The xx at their best. Album Review.

87 – Maddslinky – Compuphonic

Super-stripped club track from Zed Bias, was doing the business in clubs up and down the country since its September release. EP Review.

86 – Alden Tyrell – Touch the Sky feat. Mike Dunn

Powerful Acid from a real legend coming out of the Clone camp. Top vocals.

85 – October – String Theory

Super-chilled House track from one of the scene’s unsung heroes. Totally unique, works great in the mix too. EP Review.

84 – Fracture feat. Dawn Day Night – Get Busy

Terrifyingly strong DnB / Footwork fusion that sets the floor on fire. Check out Dawn Day Night’s debut EP.

83 – TNGHT – Higher Ground

A bit too much? Definitely. Unbelievably large? Without a doubt.

82 – Shadow Child – 23

A late-December entry, this is not your average House tune. Excellent vocal build-up leads to one of the dirtiest drops this side of the New Year. Essential.

81 – 5kinandbone5 – Reset

Don’t you wish there was a button we could reset? Bassline brilliance from the UTTU camp.

80 – Funkineven & Fatima – Phoneline

Unbelievable genre-defying hybrid feat. Fatima’s gorgeous voice and Funkineven’s slick production, all from one of White Noise’s favourite labels, Eglo.

79 – Bwana – Baby Let Me Finish

Sounds like your average sugar-sweet Bass track until the percussive madness following the drop. Blissful addiction.

78 – Koreless – Lost In Tokyo

One of the Bass scene’s brightest stars only issued one release this year. It was 3 minutes long, and it wasn’t really dance music. Still, undeniably gorgeous so who really cares. EP Review.

77 – Bo Saris – She’s On Fire (Maya Jane Coles Remix)

Unexpected brilliance from one of the scene’s most consistent female producers (not nice that we have to say that, eh?) Twinkling midnight Garage, lush piano and moody vocals.

76 – Elsewhere – Trippin’

 

The darkest of the dark creeping out of your speakers from the Mindset camp. Huge, nasty, a real dancefloor killer. EP Review.

September Roundup 2012

Fact: September has been easily the biggest, best month of dance releases we’ve had all year.

Fact: White Noise has collected the vast majority of them together in a Youtube playlist, for your listening pleasure.

Enjoy.

Tracklist:

Trimbal – Confidence Boost (Harmonimix)

Maddslinky – Compuphonic

Tom Demac – Critical Distance Pt. 2

Dusk + Blackdown – Dasaflex

Bicep – Vision of Love

Krystal Klear – More Attention feat Jenna G

Last Magpie – (Who Knows) Where Love Goes

Bondax – Baby I Got That

T. Williams – Think Of You

Andrew Ashong –Flowers

A Thousand Years – Flying High

Illum Sphere – h808er

Fis – DMT Usher

Recondite – DRGN

Downliners Sekt – Trim / Tab (part one)

The xx – Chained

And a lot of these tracks are included in our resident DJ Moth’s September mix, check it here:

The xx – Coexist

 Label: Young Turks

Few groups in recent music history are such clear examples of the questionable touch of the hype machine as The xx. Their superb self-titled debut seemingly came out of nowhere, ascending the ladder of UK music fame from underground to indie to radio play in a matter of months. The reason for this, thankfully, was the quality of the record, and their acclaim was wholly justified. The LP came out as a startlingly confident and original combination of electronic production and breathy, sensual vocals (courtesy of twin leads Oliver Sims and Romi Madley-Croft), but more than anything it impressed with the cohesion of its vision; a surprisingly complete debut.

Angels

The group cannily bided their time to perfect their sophomore release, with producer Jamie xx going on to create a name for himself in the dance sphere, and it led to questions of where they could go after such a meteoric debut. It is the way with these groups that the audience could have expected either a refinement on the original or a radical departure, and with Coexist, The xx have clearly opted for the former.

Obviously their spare approach to production, where every note counts, cannot be as exciting and refreshing the second time around, but the group have done an admirable job of polishing their sound. The songs on Coexist are even more stripped down and minimal, while the sonics of production wunderkind Jamie Smith are more on show; the drums hit harder and faster, and on Reunion they even herald the return of the steel drums that served Jamie xx so well on last year’s superb Far Nearer single. Coexist feels a great deal smaller and more intimate than their debut, which is both a blessing and a curse. This is mostly due to the closeness and naked vulnerability of the vocals, nowhere more clear than on standout opener Angels. Here Madley-Croft’s faltering voice feels uncomfortably close, emoting with a quiet force that turns fairly average lyrics into a powerful and heartbreaking plea.

Chained

The one thing that seems lost from the group’s debut is the sense of fun and playfulness that occasionally rose its head above the dripping sensuality; the back-and-forth mind games of Basic Space and the less melancholy vibes of pop-centric Islands and Crystallised are nowhere to be found. The tracks here still work, often remarkably well, but as a result the downtrodden nature of the LP can feel like it lacks variation, and the less punchy tunes have a tendency of blurring together on first listen.

There are still more than a handful of spectacular tracks here, but tellingly these are the tunes where the band tries something a little different. Second track Chained is another early highlight; a canned beat clicking with satisfying force under taut bass strumming and a series of the duo’s most infectious earworm vocal refrains. Later Missing starts off as fairly unremarkable; spacious and deeply atmospheric but no different from the majority of the tunes here. Then a sharp drum pattern clicks into place before a heart-in-mouth pause, after which the track returns with searing strings onto an emotional widescreen, a rare unexpected moment on an album which doesn’t quite offer enough of them. And it pays off; the listener is drawn deeply into the narcotic sounds and when Madley-Croft asks ‘are we all we could be’, it feels a profound moment of self-doubt rather than a generic turn of phrase.

 

 Swept Away

None of these tunes really get it wrong, and with repeated spins there’s a lot to like across the short runtime of Coexist. Yet on these moments where the effect is truly spectacular one is forced to ask if the group hasn’t quite risked enough on this sophomore release. Nowhere is this more clear than on stellar penultimate track Swept Away; where the heady mixture of elements is augmented by a detailed percussive field and a forceful 4/4 that drives those icy guitar lines and some of the most impassioned singing found on the record. Why couldn’t we have seen more over experimenting with the formula on Coexist, when the group clearly have the skills to make it work?

Most listeners will find there is a lot to love on Coexist; it’s an immersive and hypnotic concoction that draws you into the sensual, melancholic world of the group. Compared to its predecessor it’s more intimate but ultimately also more limited, as about half of the album seems to keep to a fairly fixed formula. It’s hard to criticize the band that much for offering another 38 minutes of exactly what they do best, because the powerful effect of their sound still stands unrivalled in the contemporary music sphere. Let’s just hope that in the sketches of progress to be found on this LP is the promise for real change in the future.

8/10

Guest Mixes

We've got not two but three guest mixes for you today here at White Noise, so get your listening hats on.

First up is a mix courtesy of our ever-reliable resident, G More. His excellent guest mix spans 20 years of house and garage.

Bump, Flex & Shwang

 

Tracklist:

Meli'sa Morgan - Still In Love With You (Meli'sa's In The House)

NY Stomp - Can You Feel It?

Storm Queen - Look Right Through (MK Don't Talk To Me Vocal Mix)

R.B.M. - The Boy (Ralph's Hard House Mix)

Moné - We Can Make It (The Groove Mix) 

NY Stomp - The NY House Trak

R.B.M. - The Boy (Boy "More" Beats) 

Joy Orbison - Ellipsis

Somore - I Refuse (What You Want) (Industry Standard Mix) 

Terrence Dixon - Return Of The Speaker People (Kausto's Sudden Aphasia Mix) 

Brawther - Spaceman Funk (Deep Club Mix)

If you're done with that and desperate for more, we have a couple of mixes courtesy of _moth on Mixcloud. Both tracklists are excellent, there's a mix of dusty, sunny house and another darker mix for the night hours.

Summertime Mix

Tracklist:

Fatima feat. Floating Points – Cinnamon

Motor City Drum Ensemble – L.O.V.E

Andrés – Drama Around The Corner

Session Victim – Good Intentions

Pépé Bradock – Path Of Most Resistance

Omar S feat. L’Renée – SEX (CGP Remix)

October – String Theory

Claptone – Cream

Anthony Naples – Mad Disrespect

Nitetime – Teddy’s Jam

Huxley – Box Clever

West Norwood Cassette Library – Coming On Strong

Moodymann – Why Do U Feel

Night Time Mix

Tracklist

DJ Shadow – Transmission 2

John Talabot – So Will Be Now

Burial – NYC

Bo Saris – She’s On Fire (Maya Jane Coles Remix)

Dusky – Lost Highway

Maya Jane Coles – What They Say

Kahn – Like We Used To

Akkord – Back & Forth

Burial – Loner

Artifact – Deserted

Dusky – No More

Deadboy – Heartbreaker

DjRum – Turiya

Ramadanman – Don’t Change For Me

The xx – Crystallised (Dark Sky Remix)

The Drop – Looking To The Sky (DjRum Remix)