As I have grown increasingly disillusioned with most recent music, 2014 seemed particularly suckie musically… My contribution to the Poop List is 10 (no seven!) really good or maybe even great records you’ve likely never heard… that came out sometime in the past. What? A DJ that is not interested in what is happening now? Sacrilege! You, my son, are in danger of becoming… irrelevant! Well DJ-ing is irrelevant, now that anyone can hit the sync button and throw their arms in the air… and after all… aren’t we ALL irrelevant? Hell, even the Pixies are irrelevant… Indie Cindy? Blech! Todd Terje, not for me… Anyway, here goes…
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Manuel Göttsching – E2-E4
I am eternally grateful to the late, great, Jack Goldberg for calling me the day a crate of interesting records was dropped off in his then shop some years ago. Amongst some drivel and diamonds was this holy grail of holy grails. An original pressing of the anthemic and utterly beautiful E2-E4. Jack inspected the record for some time and then looked back at me, he was already sick at the time, he smiled and said ‘this one’s a gift, Andrew’. I’ll never forget it, or him. The record is the blueprint for trance, techno, and deep house… but don’t let that scare you off. What is it? A 59:35 blissful aural trip made in one take on a hazy summer evening in Cologne and it is probably as perfect a record as you or I will ever find.
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Chapterhouse & Global Communication – Blood Music: Pentamerous Metamorphosis
The year before they released the seminal 76:14, one of the true ambient classics of the 90’s, Global Communications Tom Middleton and Mark Pritchard (Those Jedi Knights) remixed an entire Chapterhouse album. So? you say …Chapterhouse kinda sucked… Well this ain’t nothing like the original, but for one or two heavily altered vocal snippets, nothing of it remains. Blood Music is a completely deconstructed/reconstructed sound-scape of ambient noodling that disappears up its own ass and comes out the other side. You’re left like Matthew McConnadouche – drifting, reaching, grasping through time… OK, there are some ripped off C-3PO noises at the beginning of track two to ground you that somehow caught one of George Lucas’ assistants ears and… (you guessed it) the record was pulled off the shelves, forever to be sought after and lost in space… [Ed. – Later re-issued without the C-3PO sounds]
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Fila Brazillia – Maim That Tune
Ok, somebody here has heard of them?… Come on, they’re named after the misunderstood name of a dangerous South American fighting dog? What? No one? Well this record is down-tempo druggy and funky in a laid-back-heading-out-for-the-afternoon way. The instrumentation is live sounding even when its not. The track titles… well… just funny… and the closer, what a closer! …Subtle Body sounds like nothing else on the planet, soft electronic music…. The aptly named ‘6ft Wasp’ has a nice Bill Hicks sample: “By the way if anyone here is in marketing or advertising, kill yourself! It’s the only way to save your soul….”
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Shpongle – Are You Shpongled?
Never was a fan of psy-trance, let alone trance of any kind, until I heard this. It starts innocuously enough but grows and expands like some trippy goddesses hair unraveling forever and entwining its way within you… and it is replete with whispering, bubbles, drips, sitars, thunder-claps and muttering shamen, UFO’s, and prog-rocky psychedelic break downs. Made by a couple of 50 something goon nutters from London, it is beautiful and understated in quieter moments and frenetic and bashy in crescendo’s, but it never comes apart as if loosely, magnetically, held together by the synapses of this duo’s acid addled grey matter. The credits note that Raja Ram plays flute and is responsible for exaltations and Simon Posford chips in with rubber bands, crisp packets, and drips… that should tell you all you need to know.
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Aphex Twin – Syro
Alright, I cracked, this is the lone entry from this year. While I-tunes refers to him as the ‘godfather of cerebral electronic music’ – a laughable distinguisher at best – Mr. James is no slouch when it comes to making stark and original music. Syro is intricate, brooding, and complex and even difficult but it is really something worthwhile. I really came late to the Aphex Twin love parade… sure I bought all the earlier records (I was supposed to like him, right?) but my ears weren’t ready, it was too claustrophobic, too unmusical, I whined the synths farted too much, it was musically speaking not musical enough… but now I get it and I join the masses in proclaiming Syro his most melodic and accessible work to date.
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The Modwheel – Moroccan Jack
Sometimes I just stumble upon a record. And in this case I had heard this mixed into sets back in the day, mostly by Carl Cox or Sasha, but never grabbed onto its brilliance. Then I heard it from the beginning with the long middle-eastern horn build up, the multi-layered melodies and bam, what a classic! Oh and of course it is Tom Middleton, he of the aforementioned Global Communication, and then I was officially blown away because this is a techno record, not ambient, not deep house. Straight up progressive techno and a banger. Made me want to play VINYL out again.
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Technimatic – Desire Paths
Ooops I lied again… is anyone still reading this? Drum n Bass from 2014. Drum n Bass is about due for a full on revival. Sure the masses never figured out how to dance to it, save for the big fish-little fish move. But the energy of drum n bass takes me back to my roots, to overrun abandoned warehouse spaces, to weekends without sleep, to air-horns and day-glow body paint, to MC’s and energy drinks and fanzines and dodgy fucks in the duck punting pills with ninja star efficacy. Those were the daze… Technimatic ain’t that drum n bass, its glossy and atmospheric, with loads of leaving my body euphoric samples… its great… but you’ll probably never listen to it.