Andrew Martin – Poop 2015


Buy Floating Points – Elaenia New or Used via AmazonBuy New or Used Via Amazon
1. Floating Points – Elaenia – I have loved everything that this kid has done from Vacuum Boogie on down. Future jazz at its best and the 180 gram vinyl pressing is spectacularly clean. Feels much like the wanted follow up to the devastating Shadows EP.

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2. Hunee – Hunch Music – Great deep house made by Berlin/Amsterdam rezzy and newcomer whose dj sets show off his vast and deep record collection.

Buy Psychemagik presents – Magik Sunset 1 New or Used via AmazonBuy New or Used via Amazon       Buy Psychemagik presents – Magik Sunset 2 New or Used via AmazonBuy New or used via Amazon

3. Psychemagik presents – Magik Sunset 1+ 2 – Not as immediate or fantastic as the rare groove found on Magik Cyrkles but the outsider art of artists like tripped out multinstrumentalist Bobby Brown (not the wife beater but the Hawaiin weirder) or the swanky folk funk of Majik make this comp a thing of rare beauty.

Buy Dj Koze – XTC New or Used via Discogs Buy via Discogs
4. Dj Koze – XTC – Classic from the minute I first heard it. No 12″ record better extols the positives and negatives of drug use better….’Many people are experimenting with the drug ecstasy…I heard you say once that a lie is sweet in the beginning and bitter in the end and that truth is bitter in the beginning and sweet in the end. I have been meditating but don’t have the experiences that people are having on ecstasy. Am I missing something? Or is the drug like the lie and meditation the truth…’. This over a trancy-slowed down beat and you have late night magic…

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5. Harvey Sutherland – Bermuda – Beautiful modern disco-soul that if played just enough might bring world peace or deflate Donald Trumps ego. Serious nods to Metro Area and Daniel Wang. Warning! Only works on esoteric knowledgeable dance floors.

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6. Jamie XX – In Colour – I expected shit and got bliss.

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7. Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp A Butterfly – My brother harped on and on about this record and I yeah yeah yeah’d him but in the end he was right. King Kunta has a very heavy bassline that brings hip-hop back to the dancefloor.

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8. Kamasi Washington – The Epic – Like everything jazz and at the same time like nothing else out there. 70’s Herbie Hancock meets…aliens… and a drop of Marvin Gaye.

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9. Mbongwana Star – From Kinshasa – Africa vibe in the area. Beautifully produced world music that is heavy on the effects and synths and made by an Irish-Frenchman and hip-hop producer, Liam Farrell. Has to be heard.

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10. Chaos In The CBD – Midnight In Peckham – Dreamy deeeeep goooodniss off of Bradley Zero’s scorchingly good RSI records.

11. St Germain – St Germain – 15 years between albums and then – Bam! he drops this slab of beauty. Maybe not as emotionally stunning as Boulevard or as café-ready as Tourist but still Ludovic Navarre makes deep house like few others.
12. Death Grips – The Powers That Be – Excruciatingly raw experimental hip-hop noise alterno-metal that the kids love and I hated at first but can ‘feel’ a little now. A record you know is good and don’t wanna to like and I’m not sure I really do.
13. Vakula – A Voyage to Arcturus – I saved the best for last…Deep listenin’ electro-expereeementalizmz from the Ukraine’s best producer of real deep weirdness – yes, he who has been destroying any available brain cells in the hours between 3-6am for the past five years with deep house goodies. But this is not house – but more a cosmic inner soundtrack than anything truly dancey. It is a self-proclaimed soundtrack to the 1920 David Lindsay metaphysical science fiction novel of the same name and it is exquisitely good. Arpeggiated, drifting and loopy and near krautrock at times; it never fails to put a smile on and is a near 90 minute journey through aural landscapes. Strangely…people are strange…he also released an album of Doors covers this year, which I have yet to hear….but ‘Voyage’ is special and in heavy rotation. Only available on wax n cd but you can listen to it in its entirety on YouTube.

Total Flops – Leftfield – Alternative Light Source (God I wanted to love this record listened to it 1.5 times, stale and lifeless….maybe I will go back to it again…or not.

Best crate digging experiences – Tony Fletcher’s record sales, both of ‘em. So, so, so…grateful! If just for the Secret Ingredients NY, NY record or the Hawtin remix of La Funk Mob or the one-of-a-kind stone cold mint Lil Louis classic – I Called You. Some of these had been out of reach on Discogs want-lists for a decade or more. As I get ready for the radio, these gems spur me on…glad I could help fund a worldwide trip for Tony and his family.

Best video game – The all-immersive Fallout 4 – there really is nothing else. Maybe not the jump that Fallout 3 was from 2 but still it is endless worlding and crafting and shooting and surviving the wastes…

Best News – 2016 brings a baby – finally – and probably a sabbatical from any serious DJ-ing, I turned down a couple of paying gigs this year, and at least a brief slow-down in my obsession with 12″ vinyl. Thanks to my lovely wife for doing all the hard work of carrying a baby into this world.

Surprises – I didn’t hate the new Star Wars, I loved The Tudors even if it was four years old. Squeeze sounded as good in 2015 as when I first saw them in 1982. So many vocalists lose that high range but not Glenn Tillbrook.

Biggest Fears – That Donald Trump may win after all…Canada truly does look better everyday. Montreal is a gorgeous city with great music and culture and cheese and beer and hockey and a nightlife that rivals any in North America… Maybe we will raise our child there…

Best Facebook poster of 2015 – Mark Portier

Resurrections – Irresistible Force plans to release a new album after more than (18) years of quiet. Happy Mondays also plan to release an album and have reunited to play all UK dates so far and have sounded better than they ever did in their drug addled days.

Here’s to a great and productive 2016!

Andrew Martin – E’ville