Things I am Grateful for from 2009

As mentioned in the previous post, this is probably the last wrap up of 2009 that you will want to read this year... While I initially meant to get this up earlier, I fell into the trap of over-thinking it and trying to capture all of the amazing music / events / mixes / producers that were tied to 2009. At the end of the day though, these are the items (of all kinds) which I was most impressed with and extremely grateful for.

Kyle Hall @ the Yard, Brooklyn
Kyle Hall came to New York City for his debut DJ set this past summer facing enormous expectations. His records on Wild Oats had triggered everyone’s curiosity… His unique syncopated and unconventional house rhythms sounded great on the home hi-fi but would they really work a floor? Luckily our man proved that he was up to the task. Easing the crowd into the weirdness with some vintage Italo, disco and deep house, he easily kept the crowd bouncing past sundown. I am extremely excited to hear more from him in 2010.


Levon Vincent
What can you say about Levon that hasn’t been said already multiple times? The guy delivered banger after banger all year. Fusing dub techno textures with 90’s house rhythms, his sound had the sultry intrigue of the darkest Basic Channel releases combined with the raw funk of vintage Strictly Rhythm and Nu Groove drum programming. His RA podcast was one of the best of the year and his DJing all over the world has been top notch.



Reissue Labels
2009 was a particularly fruitful year for reissues. As a newer collector of vinyl, I found this particularly fantastic, although it caused controversy for many older heads that had to witness the Discogs prices of their rarest holdings drop over and over again. Ultimately though, Crème, Rush Hour, Clone and Mojuba should be praised for their commitment to bringing modern audiences the best music from the past in high quality audio. THANK YOU!

Kai Alce & Chez Damier at Bert’s on Broadway DEMF Weekend
This was hands down my favorite event of the entire year. This DEMF after-party represented pretty much everything that I love about dance music…. Held at the mythical Music Institute building, this get-together was the definition of good vibes. Attracting local Detroiters as well as plenty of outsiders with absolutely no bullshit or arrogance- it was smiling faces and stomping feet all around throughout the evening. Unable to obtain a legit liquor license the promoters hid some kegs in the attic behind the DJ booth and periodically invited the crowd to make their way up for drinks. The beats provided on vinyl by Chez Damier and Kai Alce were, as to be expected, ridiculously funky and eclectic, serving up long work outs of deep house interspaced with disco. Overall when I think about how much elitism has crept into dance music with Berghain’s notorious door policies, label-only parties at WMC and ‘unknown artist’ records it was refreshing to see that in the home of techno some straight up real shit could still happen.

Trus Me vs. Moodymann Mix
I still do not know where this mix came from and who is truly the author… Floating in the RA forums at the beginning of the year, I downloaded it on the (almost unfathomable) pretense that it was truly a collaboration set between the Moodiest and Trus Me. However, the file came tagged as ‘Sports Rainier’ which would lead me to think it might have something to do with a club or DJ in France? In any case, if you haven’t heard this yet you owe your ears a favor… Comfortably segueing between boogie, disco, Omar-S, salsa, Marvin Gaye, Marcellus and just about all forms of funky music it manages to easily demonstrate the elements which bind all of these disparate style with enormous amounts of class and grace. Mixes like this are truly very, very rare so do not miss out on obtaining this wonderful selection before it vanishes into interwebs. Download below.
http://doddiblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/trusme-working-nights-release-party.html

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Patrice Scott’s Deep in Detroit Mix
Another mix that blew me away this year was Patrice’s ‘Deep in Detroit’ mix. When this popped up in the forums last winter, Patrice’s records on Sistrum were appearing in everyone’s sets all over the world. As a result this had maximum attention from all the heads… And rightfully so! This mix demonstrates the power of melody and harmony in house music like few others. If this is not sitting on you Ipod yet you need to give it a spin IMMEDIATLEY. Download is below for your enjoyment.
http://www.residentadvisor.net/forum-read.aspx?id=56930

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Modern Love Showcase @ Studio B
This was one of the last parties which ever happened at Studio B. While the venue will be (somewhat?) sorely missed, this was certainly one of my favorite parties I went to in NYC all year. Hours of beautiful dubbed out techno from all of the masters from Manchester. I won’t go into too much detail here but if anyone wants to refresh their memory check out the review I did for RA. Unfortunately 2009 was a bit of a mixed bag for Modern Love. While the individual 12’’s by Claro Intelecto, Andy Stott and MLZ were all exciting, functional techno, the label did not blow me away quite as much as in ’07 and ’08. Let’s hope the boys have something crazy planned for 2010.

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Three New Essential Labels: WT, We Play House and Lunar Disko
Of all the things that I am grateful for from 2009, perhaps the one that is most important is the amount of great NEW music that came out during the year. While several classic labels had a fantastic year, I was pleasantly surprised by the work of 3 newer labels: WT Records, We Play House and Lunar Disko. Each of these brought something fresh to the scene and had a phenomenally high hit rate with their releases. WT gave an outlet to brilliant yet woefully undiscovered producers, We Play House provided us with unpretentious, non-cliché vocal house and Lunar Disko kept the flag flying for Italodisco and REAL electro. Definitely three labels to closely watch in 2010…

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And that my friends is what I will remember 2009 for… a year which had a ton of excellent new music, fantastic represses and which marked the arrival of several new brilliant producers to the scene.

December 2009 Records Round Up!

While it seems every blog out there is busy finishing up the year end with ‘best of’ lists galore, I’ve decided there’s just too many damn sick records still coming to do that just yet! With that said, here are a few highlights of what I’ve picked up in the last few weeks…

Alternative Car Park - Joey Negro Edits

This 12’’ popped out of nowhere recently and is rocking my life. Apparently it’s been released on UK house label ‘Better Days’ which hasn’t put anything out since the early 90’s? Whoever is responsible for releasing this monster though deserves some serious props. Four edits by the genius behind the Sunshine Band , Mr. Joey Negro… A-1 ‘All Aboard the Funk Train’ is a peak-time disco bomb with a funky-as-hell bass-line and exalting diva vocals instructing the crowd to “get on the funk train”. Meanwhile ‘Jack Your Sorry White Ass’ is pure 80s Chicago mechanical bliss- sounding like a rare dub mix of an undiscovered DJ International or Traxx record. While two tracks of this caliber would normally be enough to get me excited about a 12’’, the B-side on this is just as lethal! ‘Please Don’t Leave me Joanna’ may or may not be a Fela Kuti edit (!?) but it definitely delivers a hearty Afro-bop shuffle. Rounding out the pack is the quite hilarious ‘All Over My Leg’ which is an edit of Loose Joint’s classic ‘Is it all over my face?’ but using a cockney-accented vocal repeating the line “Is it all over my leg? Spilt my drink dancing…” Overall four ridiculously dope edits to spice up the dance floor…

http://www.discogs.com/Alternative-Car-Park-All-Aboard-The-Funky-Train/release/2051294

Kyle Hall – The Dirty Thouz

Picking up in similar territory explored by his previous release with his buddies as Bsmnt City Anymle Kontrol, this 12’’ sees Kyle continue to mine the fertile territory at the crossroads of classic house, dilla-style instrumental hip hop and 80’s funk. While every track here is certainly ‘interesting’ and worth multiple spins, the real winner for me is ‘luv 4 kmfh’ which is a down-tempo house jam that briefly seems to capture the elusive sci-fi vibe of classic Detroit releases by Mayday and Kenny Larkin. However, Kyle adds some spacey, improvised keys to create something totally original. By now it should be obvious this kid is going places: all three records on his Wild Oats imprint have been absolute must-haves in my opinion. While I hate to pile on the praise and hype, in this case it’s well deserved! Kyle really has his own unique sound… something which takes other producers years and years to get to. Anyways, I am starting to get the feeling that some of Kyle’s more abstract and laid back jams (such as ‘B Eatn’ Gritz’ or ‘Lax Adrenaline’ here) might work better in an album format… I might be asking for too much but a fully realized LP by Kyle would probably be very, very sick!

http://www.discogs.com/Kyle-Hall-The-Dirty-Thouz/release/2033991

Shimmy Sham Sham !

I heard about this record through RA’s very nice interview with the Mole. While reading through that I noticed the guy was picking out several of the same records that I was feeling at the moment, so I decided to check some of his other selections. Turns out it was a great idea as they were all very strong tunes! The highlight of the pack though was this boot-leg edit of Fela Kuti and Banbarra by Guillaume Coutu Dumont. Delivering a contemporary tech-house track while preserving the original Afro feel and instrumentation of the base material, this is quite a gem. It’s a bit of a shame that this couldn’t see a wider release and promotion as it’s surely one of the best edits / rearrangements of the year. I haven't been a big fan of what Guillaume has put out in the past year but I was really impressed with his live show... I hope he continues to pursue this kind of direction even further!

http://www.discogs.com/Guillaume-the-Coutu-Dumonts-Shimmy-Sham-Sham/release/1903199

Shake – Arise + Trus’Me Remix

Having been unable to secure a copy of Shake’s ‘Levitate Venice’ EP stateside, I was very happy to get my hands on this re-press of the classic ‘Arise’. A Detroit techno piece that feels like it builds forever, this track has a strong feeling of melancholy which is bound to put a large crowd in a heads-down, introspective shuffle. Trus’Me continues to prove he’s one of the best young producers in the game at the moment with his remix on the B-side. Adding menacing, dark tones and a shuffling drum pattern, he delivers a worthy remix of a classic that will slot in comfortably into any house or techno set. Overall it’s nice to see these types of collaborations similar to what Basic Soul Unit did with Arnold Jarvis a few months back: new producers paying tribute to their heroes through creative remixing. I hope to see more of these types of reissues in 2010!

http://www.discogs.com/Anthony-Shake-Shakir-Arise/master/193328

Next up on the must-buy list… the new Marcello Napoletano album and hopefully a copy of the limited edition DJ Harvey remix of House of House’s epic ‘Rushing to Paradise’. Also, I have been thinking of whether to finally get the new Three Chairs album? I have been hesitant to do so thus far as the samples of the CD aren’t blowing me away? Any thoughts? Might still choose to hold out for vinyl if it turns out to be as ridiculously sick as the first one... Finally, I must say that I'm quite excited about A-Trak's collaboration with Armand Van Helden as Duck Sauce. Yes 'aNYway' maybe "commercial shit"(?!) but its funky as hell and a solid throwback to late 90's disco-house... I'm definitely in agreement with the Dope Jams dudes on this one...