Here's the next instalment of my Top 50 Favourite Songs of the Year. Listen to them, love them, but don't MAKE love to them. Or if you do, remember to wear a skin before going in.
Classic Track(s)
To celebrate the start of December, this post will feature a spectacular triple bill of classic tracks, one for each of the major religious festivals that this final month of the year contains - Hanukkah, Al-Hijira (Islamic New Year), and, of course, Yule, the Pagan celebration of the Winter Solstice. Anyone who doesn't think these three are the most important religious dates in December is a skin-head racist and anti-multiculturalist, and is probably already balls deep in Nick Griffin's podgy anus.
Anyway, this ménage à trois of legendary songs isn't just a random group of tunes that drank a bit too much at Tiger Tiger last night, and having eyed each other up across the dance floor decided to all pile in to a taxi together and head back to a sordid Holiday Inn room to engage in an orgy of vintage musical fornication. No, these tracks are linked both stylistically and geographically, as they represent the work of The Belleville Three - Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, and Derrick May, who, due to their productions that emerged from Belleville, Detroit since the early 1980's, are often labelled the founding fathers of techno. The three high school buddies drew on influences ranging from George Clinton to Prince to Kraftwerk, and set about establishing Detroit as the birthplace of modern-day techno, a legacy it has continued ever since with such techno giants as Carl Craig, Jeff Mills and Richie Hawtin (who clearly saw more potential in the American city's scene than in his own home town of Banbury, Oxfordshire) all establishing their reputations there.
- Cybotron (Juan Atkins) - Clear
- Derrick May - Strings of Life
- Inner City (Kevin Saunderson) - Good Life
Songs I'm Currently Loving: Female Tekover
So apparently women are making music these days. While your natural reaction is probably this, I've tried to make the most of a bad situation and have compiled a selection of some of the finest tracks around at the moment to have been crafted by dainty little hands that should have been doing the washing up instead. If you wish to read more of my educated opinions on the state of the nation then the News Of The World will be serializing my forthcoming book "Uh-Oh, Here Comes Trouble" over the festive period, in which I impatiently tut at everything that's even marginally changed since 1816. The full publication will be released on December 21st, with a RRP of 17 groats.
- Cooly G - Narst - a slightly sinister piece of dancehall/UK Funky/dubstep from the consistently excellent Brixton lass Cooly G, who's already establishing herself as one of the finest producers of the genre.
- Ikonika - Sahara Michael - Ikonika is rising fast in the dubstep world, easily surpassing many of the shaved-headed blokes who are still churning out unimaginative bass thuds. She's released a number of quality EPs, and whenever her album comes along it's sure to stake it's place amongst the ranks of Hyperdub classics.
- Dinky - Westoid - it's a little known fact that female producers at the moment don't JUST produce UK urban music, some of them come from Chile and make very lovely jazzy minimal techno too. Dinky's music sounds like the result of Ricardo Villalobos performing a sex change operation on Moodymann, and it will be a very sad world indeed if that ever stops being a good thing.
- Tokimonsta - So Sick - hailing from LA, Tokimonsta is Brainfeeder's most notable (possibly only) laydee creator of beats, and a fine creator she is at that. She's also pretty damn hot.
- Shuanise - Baggage For Sale - an artist on Floating Points and Alex Nut's excellent Eglo Records, Shuanise makes chilled out jazz-hop which is perfect for both a sunny summer's day in a paddock* with a glass of cool lemonade, or a cosy rainy day indoors with some boardgames and Hama beads.
*99% guaranteed that's the only time you'll read the word 'paddock' in any form of blog for a long while.
- Bjork - Big Time Sensuality - could easily crop up in the Classic Track section any day of the week, but seeing as the (wonderful wonderful wonderful) Icelandic songstress has appeared there already I thought I'd take advantage of this feminine Songs I'm Currently Loving to throw in the song which spawned the name of this very blog.
Listening to the songs in this post has left me in a very good mood, I hope they'll have a similarly uplifting effect on you. And as I stated in the previous post, I'd love to hear your thoughts on my countdown, the classic tracks, the Songs I'm Currently Loving, or any other unreserved praise you have for this blog, so why not imprint your mark upon the world wide web by leaving a comment below? It's a quick and painless process, and is a far better use of time than not leaving a comment.
The next post will either be the penultimate set of songs in the countdown (19 - 11), or my Top 10 Favourite Albums of the Year, so that's an exciting cliffhanger for you there isn't it.
La Roux.
ReplyDeletePffffft.