Cassius Select - Crook

Label: Unknown To The Unknown

DJ Haus’ stable of warped, rugged dance music UTTU has a steady hit rate, but they’ve put out so much material recently that it’s been hard to keep track. What is undeniable is the main man’s ability to pick out new talent, here confirmed with the arrival of the impressive Crook EP from Cassius Select, a producer with only a smattering of releases to his name (including a tight split EP with Tuff Sherm).

While UTTU’s early concern with bassline business has given way to a more house-centric approach, the label has never totally departed from the UK bass spectrum, and Crook casts a fresh glance at bass' hardcore origins. Cassius Select references UK dance history in style and mood more than sound – pirate radio and bleary car park raves are welded to this music’s DNA.

Crook doesn’t mess about. All the tracks are under four minutes, their sampled drums and vocals cut up and brutalised largely beyond recognition. This music is inherently mangled, which makes its jagged grooves all the more delicious. Cross Strut starts as a mission statement, a sugary vocal setting the scene before the carpet is pulled out from under us, as the track abruptly gives way to a storming kick and razor snares, a juggled one-two punch vocal deadpanning ‘suck me’ and ‘you suck now' with tongue firmly in cheek.

These tunes sound like they’re crafted from asorted sonic detritus but they don’t skimp on the muscle, while melody is used sparingly but effectively. CROOK is a dark roller, shattering kicks and canned rhythms loosely adorned by clipped vox and brief flashes of filtered synthwork. On the flip Joy Mile’s insistent bass resonance harks openly back to early dubstep, but its still unashamedly weird, its angular rhythms lit only by an incongruous crystalline bell.

Final cut He Ain’t Worth is even more menacing, its paranoid urban opening referencing Grime’s new wave but its surgical beatwork is all jungle sans breaks. The drums roil under a tornado of chopped vocals, a work of collage which is particularly impressive when one considers the artistic process, arranging these tiny sonic clips into an arrangement that coheres with such explosive energy. The Crook EP takes no prisoners, and it’s all the better for it. This music is rough, inventive, and black as pitch.

8/10

Lords Of Midnite - Drown In Ur Love

Label: Unknown To The Unknown

After topping our list of 2012’s best labels, DJ Haus’ Unknown To The Unknown imprint has shown no sign of slowing down in 2013. Within the last seven months the unpredictable imprint has gone from electro to bassline to grime, and now welcomes Lords of Midnite to try a hand in the revived field of sci-fi analog house jams. While the moniker may be new, this producer is no stranger to the style (the catalogue number somewhat spoils the mystery), issuing a trio of powerful house workouts that evoke ultra-modern skylines alongside the ghettos of future past in fine Detroit style.

Drown In Ur Love

Midnite gets the ball rolling with the glittering arpeggios and bristling atmospherics of Drown In Ur Love, soon joined by a thudding kick that guides the listener through the track’s twists and turns. The drum pattern is constructed like a breakbeat, adorned with faded synth washes and distant vocals, building slowly to a sublime retro-futurist bassline that towers over the track’s second half. Each composition has an original, bustling quality which takes the listener on a journey, constantly surrounded by a sifting array of space-age components. Skyscrapers Of Yphsilion is just such an example, bringing ghetto crunk to the year 3000, as Dancemania-esque vocals ride over squealing acid lines and mechanised beat patterns.

Finally We Gonna Ride Tonite deals in bright synth streaks shot through with funk, as a tunnelling bass motif plies the record’s most irresistible groove over a field of dusty drums and smooth melodic slides reminiscent of Underground Resistance. In an age where the past’s visions of the future constitute a key trend in the present, you can trust a label as staunchly leftfield as UTTU to bring something special, which is just what they’ve done on this striking collection.

7/10

Palace – Trust

Label: Unknown To The Unknown

White Noise’s favourite label of 2012, DJ Haus’ eclectic and hyperactive UTTU, have their fingers in a lot of pies. Careening wildly from garage to electro, jungle to grime, the diversity of their output is matched only by the tunes’ astonishing energy. That said, the majority of the best releases from the UTTU camp have recalled the early-2000s bassline garage sound, the meaty sub-bass experiments that recall grime at its dirtiest that can be found on the label’s ace Tales From The Darkside compilation or Palace’s last release, Mandy.

Trust can be seen as a sequel of sorts, refining the sound of the producer’s earlier release while continuing to court the more excitable, leftfield sides of the dancefloor. The original mix is the best cut on here, taking no time to get started over a dusty 2step beat pattern that’s all snappy snares and twitching hi-hats. The centrepiece is an immaculately programmed bassline that scarcely repeats a phrase of its winding melody throughout the track. It’s a perfect example of one of those rare, showstopping elements that can make everyone on the dancefloor stand up and take notice, and the addition of a smattering of fragmenting diva cries only enhances the effect.

Trust

In-house remixes come courtesy of MATRiXMANN and scene stalwarts Mista Men to varying degrees of success. The former clips that monstrous bassline down to its core elements, adding a serrated bassline wobble and punchier beats, but the removal of the original cut’s key element leaves the tune feeling a little hollow, as if the fun’s been taken out of it. Garage duo Mista Men, whose excellent Forget U featured on our Best Tracks of 2012, offer a more impressive take on the tune. Laying down one of their signature 2step rhythms, the bassline is brought down to frequencies that will threaten even the meatiest bass bins, resulting in a more propulsive and danceable version of the title track that admittedly still feels a little less remarkable.

With two out of three of these tunes sure to destroy any dancefloor, the only question DJs will be left asking is how much they want to stand out. UTTU have thus far excelled at providing cuts that are more than a little different, and Palace’s exceptional bassline outing is an excellent start to what promises to be another year of stellar releases.

7.5/10

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